Chapter 8 - The Lie About Lily’s Birth
Silas’s accusation hung in the chapel.
Lily stared at me.
Anna closed her eyes.
That was enough to make the lie dangerous.
I lowered Lily carefully into Elliot’s arms and approached Anna.
“Tell me.”
Silas pressed one hand against his bleeding shoulder.
“She has been lying since before the girl was born.”
Anna looked at Lily.
“You are Daniel’s daughter.”
“Then why did you hesitate?” I asked.
“Because the truth is worse than his version.”
Nineteen years earlier, Anna was pregnant during the safe house attack.
I knew that.
What I did not know was that she carried twins.
One child survived the explosion.
The other was taken.
The hospital told Anna the second baby died.
Silas later revealed he had the infant.
He threatened to kill both children if Anna returned to me.
“Lily is one twin,” she said. “The other is alive.”
Silas smiled.
“And much closer than Daniel imagines.”
I looked toward Elliot.
The same age.
The same gray green eyes I had attributed to Silas.
Elliot shook his head.
“No.”
Silas laughed.
“You were never my son.”
Anna covered her mouth.
Silas had stolen my son and raised him as his own.
Elliot released Lily as though afraid touching her might prove it.
She reached for him.
Brother and sister.
They had found each other without knowing.
Silas said he planned it that way.
He sent Elliot to watch Lily because he wanted to learn whether blood recognized blood.
“You made him attack her,” I said.
“I ordered him to test her loyalty.”
“He tried to stop it.”
“A weakness inherited from you.”
Elliot looked at the man he had called father for twenty years.
“Did my mother know?”
Silas glanced at Anna.
“She knew there were two children.”
“Did you know he was Elliot?” I asked her.
“No. I searched for years. Silas changed every record.”
Lily touched her brother’s hand.
The gesture broke something in him.
He had spent his life trying to earn Silas’s approval.
Now he understood the approval had always been an experiment.
Richard Cole reappeared behind the altar holding a syringe gun.
He fired at Anna.
The dart struck her shoulder.
She collapsed near the server console.
Silas pressed a hidden switch.
Steel shutters covered the chapel exits.
“Anna’s biometric profile is required to stop the reservoir release,” he said. “Unfortunately, the sedative will kill her in twelve minutes.”
I moved toward her.
Silas raised his gun toward Lily.
“Choose carefully.”
Elliot stepped between them.
Silas’s face hardened.
“You are proving why I should have killed you as an infant.”
“No,” Elliot said. “I am proving you failed.”
He attacked.
Silas fired.
The bullet struck Elliot near the ribs.
Lily screamed through her wired jaw.
I reached Silas before he fired again.
The cane fell.
My hands closed around his throat.
For nineteen years, I had imagined this moment.
Every part of me wanted to finish it.
Then Lily touched my arm.
Not to stop justice.
To stop me from disappearing into the man Silas wanted to awaken.
I released him.
That choice surprised him more than death would have.
I broke his gun hand instead.
Richard Cole attempted to escape through the server room.
Anna, barely conscious, caught his ankle.
I took him down and forced him to unlock the medical cabinet.
Inside was the sedative antidote.
One dose.
Anna needed it.
Elliot was bleeding heavily.
Lily looked between them.
The surgeon said Elliot might survive without it if the bullet missed his liver.
Anna would not.
I injected Anna.
Elliot nodded.
“You chose right.”
“You do not know me well enough to say that.”
He smiled weakly.
“I know what Lily knows.”
Anna regained consciousness and pressed her hand against the biometric scanner.
The reservoir system displayed a warning.
Release already initiated.
Marcus called through the emergency channel.
The tanker had reached the treatment plant. Senator Harrington and Jason were attempting to delay the operators, but Covenant guards controlled the main pumps.
The only shutdown command required two founder profiles.
Anna was one.
Richard Cole was another.
He refused.
“My family dies if Silas loses.”
Silas laughed from the floor.
“Your family dies either way.”
Cole finally understood the Covenant had no loyalty.
Only leverage.
He placed his hand against the scanner.
The system rejected him.
Founder status revoked.
Silas had removed Cole hours earlier.
The third founder was Harrington.
He was at the reservoir.
Anna opened a direct link.
“Harrington, place your hand on the municipal control screen.”
Gunfire sounded through his channel.
Then Jason shouted.
“My father is hit.”
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The release countdown reached sixty seconds.
Continue to the next part: Senator Harrington must survive long enough to stop the nerve agent while Daniel tries to carry both injured children out of Black Hollow.
