The ruin, p.29
The Ruin, page 29
I need to think of a plan, a way to get the two of us out of this mess, but my mind is as paralyzed as my limbs. Try as I might, I can’t wrap my head around a solution.
No one knows where we are. Doctor Mitchell is aware I had Mom transferred, but the paperwork hadn’t listed an address. If it had, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see that the ambulance brought us to Plasmedics.
I should have called Connor and Ally to tell them what was going on. Why hadn’t I? They couldn’t have come to see us in the ICU or accompanied us here, but they would have known how desperate I was, how hurt. They might have put the pieces together once they realized the two of us were gone. Connor knows about Matthew’s threat.
Richard. I should have called my father. I hadn’t, if only because I didn’t want to start another argument or hear him demand that I let her go. Maybe he could have talked some sense into me? No, I doubt it. The decision had been made as soon as Matthew extended his offer. I was never going to back down.
There’s more to this drive to save her than I’ve been willing to admit to myself. It’s not only that I don’t want to lose the woman who loved me when no one else would, or that I’m afraid, or because I’m selfish and weak. It’s a tug deep inside me that screams this is what I have to do. I have to save Mom at any cost.
I’ve considered the options before. I know the ways this could play out. But, logic doesn’t win over instinct and emotion. I’d die to save her. I know that now.
My thoughts are consumed with my failures as I flick my eyes between the silent screen and the slowly draining pouch.
My fault. Worthless. Coward. Disappointment. Useless.
The last drop exits the IV chamber and slides down into my arm.
I expect the woman to know as soon as the medication is gone. I imagine she has another bag waiting to replace the empty one. Most likely, they’ll keep me paralyzed for as long as they need me, then dump the two of us into a medical waste bin and cut their losses.
She doesn’t rush into the room and change out the drug, though. Things stay as they’ve been.
Slowly, painfully, the paralytic wears off.
It’s been quiet for so long that when a shrill beep sounds outside, I start. The lock releases with a deafening click, letting the door swing into the room. Matthew, as cocky as ever, saunters in with a paper coffee cup in hand. The logo on the side, aimed intentionally in my direction, tells me he went to Renee’s. It’s a taunt, a reminder he can go wherever he pleases while I’m trapped here at his will.
An impish grin breaks out on his face before he raises the cup to his lips and takes a drink. He makes a show of savoring the taste before setting it down on the empty counter.
“It looks like you’ve settled in well.”
“You’re a sick bastard, you know that?”
“So they say.” He takes a seat by my knees and leans in close. “I truly wish you had followed Doctor Wolff’s directions earlier. Kidnapping is not my typical MO. Yet, here we are.”
I scoff. “Why are you here, Matthew? Don’t you have better things to do? You’re such a busy man.”
“And you, Kara Edwards, are now my top priority. I’ve canceled the rest of my plans. Thought you could use some company.”
My eyes narrow into slits. “I’d rather live in the sewers with the rats.”
“Be careful. That can be arranged.”
Matthew leans across me and plucks the remote from its position on the wall. He toys with it for a moment as though considering an idea.
“Your mother has such a lovely room, doesn’t she?” he asks. His eyes travel over the screen before returning to me. Without waiting for an answer, he continues. “She has everything she needs. It would be such a shame if things were to go wrong, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t you dare,” I growl. “If you touch her – ”
“What will you do? Hmm?” His eyebrow raises. “Glare at me? Call me names? Please. You’re nothing but an insolent child.”
He’s right. With the paralytic gone, I can move my fingers and toes, turn my head, and squirm, but I can’t escape. I can’t attack him. All I have are empty threats. They won’t get me far.
“Let me explain how this is going to work. You cooperate with me, and your mother keeps her ventilator. Fail to cooperate, and my friend,” he gestures at the screen, “will provide you with some… motivation. Shall I demonstrate?”
Matthew presses one of the buttons on the remote and speaks. It must be an intercom. The man on the screen snaps to attention and approaches the camera.
“How’s our guest doing?”
“Mr. Collins,” the guard grunts. “There’s been no change. Things are as expected.”
“Good, good. Our other guest finds herself in need of encouragement.” He turns to me, holding the remote near my face. “What do you think? Fifteen seconds?”
I struggle against my bonds, but it’s no use. They hold fast. The edges of the restraints cut into my limbs.
Matthew simply chuckles. “Yes, let’s start with that. Fifteen seconds will do.”
Panic surges through me as the guard moves toward Mom’s bedside. He reaches for the ventilator tubing, holding it tightly in his fist.
“No!” I scream, thrashing. “Stop this! Stop!”
The guard doesn’t comply with my demands. He looks to the camera and squeezes the tubing, crushing it in his grasp, cutting off Mom’s air supply.
Her unconscious form is still at first, but as soon as her body registers the absence of air, it jerks, seizing on the bed. Matthew taps out the seconds with his foot, uncaring and cold.
“Matthew! Leave her alone! Stop! Stop!”
He takes in the scene with a look of mild curiosity but doesn’t respond. When the fifteen seconds have elapsed, he raises the intercom. “That will do.”
The guard releases the tube. Mom’s body relaxes. It’s done.
“Anything else, sir?” the guard asks as he approaches the camera again.
“No, that will be all. Resume your duties.”
“Yes, sir.”
Matthew leans back across me and hangs the remote on the wall. When he rights himself, there’s a look of smug satisfaction on his face.
“Do you understand, Kara?”
I bite down on my tongue. The pain keeps my wicked mouth in check.
“Well, just in case you don’t, let me spell it out for you. Right now, you and your mother are locked in soundproof rooms. My staff is well-paid to do as they’re told and look the other way when I need them to. You could scream through the day and night. No one will help you, and no one outside will hear you. If you choose to fight the staff, the paralytic will be administered again, and again, and again.”
He waits for me to answer, but I say nothing. I don’t know if it’s out of spite or self-preservation, but for once, I fight the urge to spit venom.
“Even if you were able to break free of your restraints, which I highly doubt, there’s nowhere for you to go. There’s no doorknob in this room. There’s no window for you to break out and escape through. But, these things are not your biggest motivation to behave, now are they?”
Traitorous tears fill my eyes as I look at the screen. Matthew reaches out and swipes away the few that run down my cheek. I recoil at his touch. The sensation makes my stomach curdle.
“You know, it’s your fault you’re in this situation. I extended a perfectly reasonable offer when I asked you to make daily donations. You chose to ignore me. I had every intention of working alongside you peacefully. ”
“This is not going to end well for you. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Empty promises from a stupid little girl,” he chides. “I would like to see you try.”
“Why is my blood so damn important to you? What the hell are you doing?”
For a moment, Matthew studies me. Thoughts churn behind his eyes. “Do you really want to know?”
“What do you think?” I spit.
“I suppose I don’t see the harm,” he muses. “You won’t be leaving this facility alive.”
His words are meant to shock me, but I hadn’t expected I would. Why would he let me go when I know so much?
He sighs when he doesn’t get the reaction he wants. I’ve ruined his dramatic reveal.
“Fine,” he says with a pout. “We’re manufacturing bioweapons.”
“Excuse me? Bioweapons?” I’m dumbfounded. My head lifts off of the thin pillow as I stare at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Matthew straightens, satisfaction and pride strengthening his posture. “Not in the slightest. I told you your blood is unique.”
“You said my antibodies would allow you to make new medications and cure diseases. You never said shit about creating new ones. How did you go from saving thousands of lives to biowarfare? That’s sick.”
Matthew eyes me with contempt. “Trust me, it wasn’t a long leap. Coarser Industries has had its hands in such things for decades. Fifteen years, to be precise.”
“Fifteen years?”
“Oh, yes.”
I gulp. Fifteen years since Richard left. Fifteen years since Coarser Industries investigated Evan’s disappearance. Fifteen years since the outbreak.
Matthew narrows his eyes as he leans closer. “What do you know of Evan Knightly?”
Matthew appraises me, searching for a reaction, but I won’t give him one. I can’t. He’s set the board and dropped me in the middle of an incredibly dangerous game.
With only the sounds of the apheresis machine and the dripping paralytic to keep me company as I spent countless hours trapped in this room, I’ve had more than enough time to consider Richard’s stories. They defy all logic and fly in the face of every ounce of science I’ve ever learned, but whatever lingering doubts remained when I stood by Mom’s bedside at St. John’s have long since faded.
“Evan who?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
“Kara, your deceit wounds me. After all, Evan was your father’s best friend.”
“My father left us when I was a kid. I barely remember him, let alone the people he spent time with.”
“So he did. Such a sad story, is it not? Poor Kara Edwards, six years old, abandoned by her father. But, you had your mother. Then came terminal cancer. What will you do when she’s gone?”
Fury threatens to crack my composure. His targeted words have struck home. I narrow my eyes and bite my tongue, fighting the urge to thrash against my restraints.
“You’ll practically be an orphan. It’s a downright shame. The truth is, I don’t care what happens to your mother. Now, your father… Well, that’s a different story. I’d love to get my hands on him. The two of you could fuel our research for decades, maybe more. Your blood alone could sustain this company for years.”
So, he knows about Richard. Great. I had hoped he didn’t. How much does he know? Does he know Richard’s back in town? Does he know where to find him?
I need to test the waters. “If you see him, tell him his daughter says hello. Not that he’d care. He’s never coming back.”
“I’ll be certain to do so,” Matthew answers. His response is flippant, giving nothing away. “Do you know why he left or has your mother kept you in the dark?”
“We never knew, and I don’t care. I’m glad he’s gone.”
He shakes his head. “Coarser Industries was assigned to the biohazard containment investigation that took place after Evan Knightly fell ill. St. John’s was wildly unequipped to handle such a case, but we had renowned scientists at our disposal, equipment St. John’s could only dream of. It fell to us to identify the cause of the outbreak. We analyzed every sample, every ounce of biomaterial. Do you know what we found?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Liar. There wasn’t much, just a splash inside an old IV we collected from Evan’s room. We thought it was his blood at first, that it might have washed into the tube when a nurse improperly flushed the line. It was exactly like yours, full of strange antibodies and proteins. When we realized what the blood could do, we looked into Evan’s entire family. The funny thing was, no one else had the same anomalies.
“Then, we learned about Jennifer. Did you know she was adopted?” He pauses, eyeing me. “Your mother refused to allow us to speak with her, let alone draw a blood sample. Such an inconvenience. But eventually, your sister went looking for Evan. We learned of her probing and offered to help in exchange for a simple test. She agreed to our terms without hesitation. Imagine our surprise when her blood gave us nothing, either. We were thoroughly stumped.
“Valerie was our only lead. Father was convinced she knew what happened to Evan, but no matter how hard we tried to break her, she never budged. She’s quite a strong woman, your mom. Annoyingly so. You know, we didn’t even consider you because you had no biological relation to Evan. That was our biggest mistake. How fortuitous Valerie developed cancer and you came running home.”
I can’t help but breathe out a sigh of disbelief. “Yeah, I’m sure she thought so, too.”
“Finally, we had something we could work with. We offered that imbecile, Doctor Mitchell, the Novemion, a serum which we developed using trace components of the sample we thought was Evan’s blood, by the way.”
I gulp. They used Richard’s blood? That can’t be good.
“It was my idea. I told my father she would call for help if she thought we were the only ones who could save her. But, Doctor Mitchell didn’t offer the treatment to Valerie. He proposed the deal to you. That was a miscalculation on my part. I hadn’t considered you would make the decision as her caregiver.”
“You look positively heartbroken about it.”
Matthew nods his head. “Destroyed, can’t you tell?”
Sadistic bastard. “Why don’t you let me out of these restraints so I can hug you? Make you feel better?”
“Nice try.” He purses his lips. “When you started donating with Plasmedics, I put two and two together.”
“So good at math!”
He scowls. “I knew Evan wasn’t the original source, then. It had been Richard, the sole uninfected survivor. My discovery was a breakthrough. Father was thrilled.”
Keep him talking, I tell myself. Find out what else he knows.
I roll my eyes. “Glad to help you with your daddy issues.”
“You’re one to talk,” Matthew retorts.
Keep pressing the father button. It’s working.
“Is that why you’re so obsessed with me? You have to show off? Convince him you’re worthy? It’ll never be enough. I saw the way he looked at you. I heard what he said in the elevator.”
Matthew growls, clenching his fists and refusing to look me in the eye. “Without a living donor, our potential is limited. The sample we had was dried, contaminated. We managed to replicate components of the blood, but not all of it. We’ve used our findings to synthesize countless drugs in the last fifteen years with just a few drops. Our medications have outperformed anyone else in the field. But, with your blood? With fresh samples provided daily? There’s no limit to what we can do.”
“You just said you created medications that helped people with,” I refuse to say Richard’s name, “the blood you had. You were saving lives! What the hell, Matthew? How did you jump to bioweapons?”
This is it. I need to know. What have you done?
“The strangest thing happens when we inject your blood into our test subjects. The sick ones recover from their diseases, but then all the other animals in the room die.”
No… no, no, no. This is not good.
“Actually, any living creature, animal or human, involved in the treatment process dies. Our policy for biohazardous containment is strict, of course. We immediately quarantined all involved out of fear of accidental exposure. The deaths stopped with those who had direct contact. That’s when we knew how valuable your blood could be.
“We took samples from those who died and interestingly enough, found mutated forms of whatever disease our scientists had been trying to treat. These mutations are new. There are no existing treatments. Even if we had known what was happening, there was no way we would have been able to save a single person who had been in those rooms.”
“You’re killing people…”
“True. Quite a few people in this company have given their lives in the process of understanding the absolute oddity of your blood, but that’s a price we’re willing to pay.”
“Human lives are not expendable!” I bellow. “These are people with families and friends. You have to stop this.”
“What we’ve found in your blood will be worth unfathomable amounts of money. We intend to refine it. Harness it. My father and I will be the wealthiest people on this planet.”
“You would rather condemn humanity to death and destruction to line your pockets?”
“There’s no money in eradicating disease. We’re a pharmaceutical company. Treating things is what we do, and we’ll be the only ones who know how.”
“You’re sick!” I shriek.
Matthew sneers and leans into my ear. “The best part is,” he whispers. His hot breath burns against my skin. “It’s all because of you.”
Practically buzzing with rage, I slam my head hard enough into his face that my ears ring. Waves of pain shoot through my skull and nausea roils my stomach, but I manage to grunt, “I would rather die than help you.”
Matthew brings his hand up to his eye, steadying himself as he pulls away. “You little…” he shouts, but before he can finish his sentence and withdraw far enough out of range, I spit on him. “Arrrgh!” he bellows, standing above me. “You’ll pay for that!”
His arm flies at me, slamming into my cheek. My teeth rattle. Strapped to the bed with Matthew out of range, I’m defenseless. He swings again, and again. My eyes swell shut and my lip splits. When he stops, I barely have the strength to groan.
“I won’t…” I start, feeling blood drip from my mouth and nose, “give you another drop… of my blood. I won’t be a part… of your sadistic… scheme!”
“Kara,” Matthew says in his trademark patronizing tone. “Do you really think you have a choice?”
