Chapter 5 - The Disease That Wasn't a Disease
I did not remember sitting down.
One second I was standing beside the archival terminal.
The next, my hands were flat against the cold library table while Solomon Reed’s recorded voice repeated inside my head.
Your mother is the reason you went blind.
“Play it again,” I said.
The terminal obeyed.
“Your mother is the reason you went blind.”
“Again.”
“Evelyn,” Marissa whispered.
“Again.”
“Your mother is the reason you went blind.”
Adrian’s chair scraped.
“Stop torturing yourself.”
I spun toward him. “You don’t get to give advice tonight.”
“Fine. Keep pressing play until you break.”
“Was that your goal?”
“My goal was the company.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I admitted it ten minutes ago.”
I shut off the recording.
The silence afterward was worse.
At nineteen, doctors diagnosed me with an aggressive inherited retinal degeneration. The condition destroyed photoreceptor cells until the world became light, then shadow, then nothing.
There was no cure.
There had been no culprit.
I spent years learning to stop asking why.
Now a dead man who was apparently not dead had handed me someone to blame.
My mother.
I refused to believe him.
Which meant I needed proof.
“Open medical archive,” I told the terminal.
“Access restricted.”
“Founder privilege.”
“Suspended.”
“Emergency patient right.”
A pause.
“Specify patient.”
“Evelyn Reed. Formerly Evelyn Vale.”
Files began populating through the audio reader. Childhood vaccinations. Allergies. Orthopedic records. Ophthalmology.
Then a gap.
Age sixteen through nineteen.
“Why are records missing?”
“External encryption.”
“Owner?”
“Lillian Vale.”
Adrian swore softly.
I felt something fracture inside me.
“Decrypt.”
“Authorization unavailable.”
“Copy raw files to isolated drive.”
“Confirmed.”
I inserted a storage key.
The estate doors unlocked twenty minutes later when Gideon returned with Dr. Ortiz. She examined Atlas on the floor while I sat close enough to touch his paw.
“He needs imaging,” she said. “His pupils are responsive, but I’m worried about a concussion and two ribs.”
“Take him.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
Gideon objected immediately.
“You can’t leave.”
I rose.
“Watch me.”
“Solomon has root access to your company and someone has been inside your house.”
“Atlas was kicked because of me.”
“He was kicked because Adrian is a psychopath.”
Adrian said, “I’m literally right here.”
“Good.”
Dr. Ortiz clipped a lead onto Atlas.
“He’ll be safer if we move quickly.”
I bent and kissed the top of his head.
“Go with Lena, buddy.”
Atlas resisted.
Even injured, he did not want to leave me.
My throat tightened.
“You did your job.”
He pushed his nose into my palm.
“Now let me do mine.”
Gideon helped guide him out.
The moment Atlas’s nails disappeared down the corridor, the mansion felt enormous.
Wrong.
I had spent seven years calibrating my body to his presence—the soft pull of the harness, the weight beside my leg, the rhythm of his breathing under conference tables.
Without him, every room lost its edges.
Adrian noticed.
“Now you look scared.”
I picked up my cane from behind the library desk.
“I am scared.”
He sounded surprised.
“Of walking?”
“Of what I’ll find.”
I unfolded the cane.
Marissa asked, “What happens to us?”
“Gideon will hold you until police arrive.”
“No.”
I turned toward her.
“No?”
“If police arrive, Adrian’s friends will make this disappear.”
Adrian laughed. “My friends?”
“You told me your board allies had officers on payroll.”
“Marissa.”
“You said we had two hours before anyone could get a warrant.”
“Shut up.”
Her voice hardened.
“I have messages.”
I tapped my cane once.
“Show Gideon.”
“I want immunity.”
“You tried to help steal my company.”
“I didn’t agree to kidnapping.”
“You watched him kick my dog.”
She said nothing.
“Immunity isn’t mine to give.”
“Then protection.”
“That I can give.”
Adrian jerked against the chair.
“Marissa, don’t.”
She walked toward me slowly.
One of the protection dogs growled.
“I’m stopping,” she said.
“Put your phone on the table,” I told her.
She did.
“Passcode?”
“441909.”
Adrian said, “You stupid—”
Gideon struck the back of his chair.
“Finish that sentence.”
He did not.
Marissa’s phone contained forty-three messages in a hidden thread labeled BLUEBIRD. Gideon read them aloud.
Some were Adrian.
Some were board members.
One belonged to Chief Financial Officer Malcolm Voss.
The last message had been sent two minutes after I activated my bracelet.
It said:
SHE PRESSED IT. PHASE TWO. MOVE THE PARENTS.
I felt cold.
“Who sent that?”
Gideon answered.
“Unknown number.”
“Reply.”
“What do you want me to write?”
“Where?”
He typed.
A response arrived almost instantly.
BELLWEATHER CLINIC. SOUTH ENTRANCE. BRING THE GIRL.
Marissa whispered, “What girl?”
I knew.
Me.
Bellweather Clinic was the private ophthalmology center where I had been treated at nineteen.
The place that diagnosed the disease.
The place my mother took me for six months of experimental injections after my vision began fading.
Injections she said were meant to save my sight.
“Those medical records aren’t missing,” I said.
“What?” Gideon asked.
“They’re there. Somewhere.”
I tightened my grip on the cane.
“Bellweather has them.”
Adrian sounded uneasy.
“Evelyn, this could be a trap.”
“It is a trap.”
“And you’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because my parents are there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The message says phase two. Move the parents.”
He exhaled.
“You think Mom did this to you?”
“I think somebody wants me to think she did.”
“And if Solomon is telling the truth?”
I turned toward him.
“Then I’ll hear it from her.”
Police sirens finally sounded outside the estate.
Gideon said, “We need to hand them Adrian and Marissa.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“I’m taking Adrian.”
Adrian said, “Absolutely not.”
“You’re the only person tonight who seems afraid of Bellweather.”
“I’m afraid of being murdered.”
“Good instinct.”
Marissa asked, “Why take him?”
“Because whoever altered Blackglass wants both heirs.”
Adrian scoffed. “System said I’m not an heir.”
“Exactly.”
I stepped close enough to hear him breathe.
“If someone stole a dead child’s identity and gave it to you, I want to know who.”
His voice dropped.
“And if I’m not your brother?”
I thought of seventeen years of childhood before resentment poisoned us.
I thought of him sitting outside my hospital room.
I thought of Atlas hitting marble.
“Then tonight,” I said, “you get one chance to become something better.”
Gideon muttered, “This is a terrible idea.”
“Yes.”
I picked up Marissa’s phone.
“Which is why they won’t expect it.”
Then another message arrived.
Gideon read it aloud.
BRING ADRIAN TOO.
May you like
A second message followed.
THE REAL ONE IS WAITING.
