"Inside my inner circle," Alaric says. "Someone I trust betrayed me. Someone gave him the keys to the kingdom."
He looks at me, and for the first time, I see genuine fear in his eyes. Not for himself. For me. "You are legally dead, Elodie. But if this partner finds out you are alive... if they find out I kept you..." He tightens his grip on me. "It won't be a scandal. It will be a war."
"Who?" I ask. "Who could it be?"
"I don't know yet," Alaric admits. "But I will find them. And when I do..." He looks at the fire, his eyes reflecting the flames. "I will make what I did to Vance look like a mercy."
He pulls me closer, burying his face in my hair. "We are safe for tonight. But tomorrow... tomorrow I have to turn this sanctuary into a fortress."
"What does that mean for me?"
"It means," he whispers, "that your cage just got a lot smaller."
CHAPTER 12
THE GILDED VAULT
POV: Elodie Fray
Location:Dr. Graves' Private Suite (Morning After)
Track:Seven Devils– Florence + The Machine
Sensory:The mechanical whir of steel shutters, the scent of ozone and chilled air, the heavy silence of isolation.
Mood:Claustrophobia & Paranoid Suspicion.
The sanctuary has become a bunker.
I wake not to the soft, diffused light of the storm, but to the harsh, artificial hum of halogen. The windows—those magnificent, floor-to-ceiling panes of glass that offered a view of the forest and the freedom I can no longer claim—are gone. In their place are heavy, corrugated steel shutters, painted a matte grey that swallows the room’s elegance.
They must have descended while I slept. A silent, automated entombment.
I sit up, the silk sheets pooling at my waist. The air in the suite is recycled, scrubbed clean of the petrichor and pine that used to drift in. It smells of electricity and containment. It smells like a submarine deep underwater, waiting for depth charges to drop.
"Alaric?" I call out, my voice cracking with morning disuse.
The bathroom door is open, but the space is dark. The closet is open. He is not there.
I scramble out of bed, ignoring the way my muscles protest—a lingering ache in my thighs and back that serves as a visceral reminder of the piano lid. I grab one of his discarded dress shirts from the back of a chair and button it with fumbling fingers. It reaches my mid-thigh, smelling of him, a poor substitute for his physical weight.
I run to the main door of the suite. I grab the heavy brass handle. Locked. I try the deadbolt. It turns, but the door doesn't budge. I try the electronic keypad. It is dark. Dead.
"Alaric!" I pound on the wood with the flat of my hand. "Open the door!"
There is no answer. Just the low, constant hum of the ventilation system.The cage just got a lot smaller.He wasn't speaking metaphorically.
I back away from the door, panic rising in my throat like bile. I am trapped. I am legally dead, erased from the world, and now I am sealed in a windowless box with no way out. My eyes dart around the room, looking for... something. A weapon? A tool? A note?
There is a tablet on the dining table. It wasn't there last night. I rush over to it. The screen wakes up as I approach, sensing motion. There is a single video file queued up. I press play.
Alaric’s face fills the screen. He is in the suite, but the lighting is different—pre-dawn. He is dressed in a suit I haven't seen before: black, tactical cut, no tie. He looks exhausted, his eyes rimmed with red, but his gaze is razor-sharp.
"Elodie,"the recording begins. His voice is calm, controlled, the voice of the Director."If you are watching this, the lockdown protocols have been initiated. Code Black."
He looks away from the camera for a second, checking something off-screen, then looks back.
"We found evidence that the breach is deeper than Vance. Someone attempted to access the patient mainframe at 0400 hours using my credentials. The mole is active. And they are desperate."
