Chapter 8 - My mother was watching too
I picked up the photograph.
Laura Bennett.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably my mother.
Alive.
Standing outside a motel.
Timestamp:
Three days earlier.
A second photograph showed her entering a car.
Third:
Talking to a man.
I recognized him.
My obstetrician.
Dr. Henry Walsh.
My stomach turned.
“No.”
Nicole looked.
“You know him?”
“He’s my doctor.”
That meant Margaret’s network reached into my pregnancy directly.
I thought about every appointment.
Every reassuring smile.
Every question about Derek.
Had Walsh been reporting everything?
Then Nicole found a folder.
Not digital.
Physical.
Rachel Bennett.
My name.
Inside:
Medical appointment schedules.
Work history.
Bank information.
Photographs.
Pregnancy dates.
Even ultrasound copies.
I wanted to tear everything apart.
Instead, I forced myself to read.
At the bottom:
Subject remains unaware Laura is active.
Then:
Pregnancy may create leverage.
I stopped breathing.
Nicole took the paper.
“This is why Derek escalated.”
“They were using my baby to bring out my mother.”
“Yes.”
A sound behind us.
The server-room door closing.
We turned.
Derek stood there.
Blood at the corner of his mouth from the fight with Wade.
Pipe still in his hand.
“Done running?”
Nicole stepped in front of me.
He laughed.
“You think she’s worth dying for?”
“She’s pregnant.”
“So?”
That one word told me Derek had finally stopped pretending he had limits.
I backed toward the desk.
My hand touched something.
Emergency alarm panel.
Red switch.
Derek noticed.
“Don’t.”
I pulled it.
Nothing.
Then suddenly:
A siren.
Loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Red emergency lights activated.
Derek lunged.
Nicole shoved a chair into his path.
He stumbled.
I ran around the desk.
The alarm triggered automatic safety shutters between industrial zones.
A steel barrier started descending.
Nicole dove through.
I followed.
Derek grabbed my ankle.
I screamed.
Kicked free.
The shutter slammed between us.
Derek struck it with the pipe.
“RACHEL!”
I crawled backward.
My daughter moved inside me.
Alive.
Still with me.
Nicole helped me stand.
Then we heard a different sound.
Not siren.
A recorded announcement.
“Emergency protocol initiated. External monitoring notified.”
External monitoring.
Someone might finally know.
Then a printer beside us suddenly activated.
One page slid out.
No idea why.
Maybe automated system protocol.
Maybe remote user.
The page contained a single sentence.
Rachel, if you are reading this, do not trust Nicole.
I stared at her.
Nicole read it too.
Her face emptied.
May you like
Then she whispered:
“Your mother wrote that.”
