Chapter 6 - Wade finally chooses a side
The storage-room door rattled.
Nicole grabbed a metal bar.
I picked up the only thing near me—a heavy flashlight.
“Rachel?”
Wade.
Not Derek.
“Open up.”
“No.”
“Derek got through the gate.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Nicole whispered:
“He’s lying.”
Wade heard.
“I’m not.”
“Why should we trust you?”
Silence.
Then:
“You shouldn’t.”
At least honest.
“I took money.”
Nicole stepped closer to the door.
“From Carroway?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To watch the facility.”
“Watch prisoners?”
“No prisoners originally.”
Originally.
My fingers tightened around the flashlight.
Wade explained the factory had once been used as an off-book storage site.
Documents.
Prototype equipment.
Servers.
Then people started arriving.
First Nicole.
Later another man.
Then Derek began using the facility independently.
“You watched him put me in that tank.”
Wade’s voice broke.
“I know.”
“You looked away.”
“I know.”
I hated him for repeating it.
Then he said:
“My daughter is seventeen.”
“So?”
“I thought about what I’d do if somebody watched that happen to her.”
Silence.
“And?”
“I realized I’d kill the man who looked away.”
Nicole and I exchanged a glance.
“Where’s Derek?”
“Searching the east wing.”
“How do we leave?”
“Front gate needs a remote. Derek has one. I have another.”
“Bring it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Derek took mine last week.”
Of course.
Then Wade said something useful.
“There’s an old loading tunnel underneath the building.”
Nicole knew about it.
“Does it still connect to the rail yard?”
“Yes.”
“But there’s a security door.”
“I know the code.”
I almost laughed.
Finally.
An actual exit.
Then Wade added:
“But you need to see something first.”
“No.”
Nicole surprised me.
“Yes.”
I turned.
“We leave.”
“If what I think is here is actually here, leaving without it means they erase everything again.”
“You want evidence?”
“I want protection.”
I touched my stomach.
“I want survival.”
Nicole looked at me.
“And when they come to your house tomorrow?”
That stopped me.
Wade slid a small metal key beneath the door.
“Server room.”
“Why help now?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because Derek wasn’t supposed to bring a pregnant woman here.”
I stared at the key.
“According to whom?”
Wade hesitated.
“Margaret Cole.”
Nicole went white.
I didn’t know the name.
But she did.
May you like
“That’s M,” she whispered.
“And Margaret Cole,” Wade continued, “is the CEO of Carroway Biomedical.”
