Page 125 of Whispers in the Dark
“Most of them are just scared,” Elias said. “Obedient. It’s not just the subjects they condition.”
Her stomach turned. “How many patients?”
“Twenty-seven active subjects,” he said. “Not counting the erased. Or the ones marked to be sanitized.”
“Erased?”
“They can do simple activities—eat, toilet, walk, follow commands. They are destined for their experiments—spinal injections, implants, surgery.”
“And sanitized?” she asked, the word a blade.
“The ones whose brains are too far gone. They starve themselves. Stop fighting. They’re unable to do the simple tasks. And then—an injection. Painless. Efficient. Then disposal.”
Charlotte felt the bile rise. “How do you know that?”
Elias met her eyes. “Because Monroe thought I was simple. Just a shadow version of my father. She let me handle the bodies. She wanted them dumped; I buried them. Said their names out loud. Said a prayer. I kept records. I didn’t want them forgotten.”
She reached for his hands. Cold. Steady. Real.
“What was your role in all this, Elias?”
He didn’t flinch. “I am my father’s son.”
She gripped tighter. “And what would your father’s son do?”
Elias looked out toward the large central cross. “He built the system. But he didn’t die blind to its damage. My mother raised me in three worlds—home, the facility, and the prison. My father taught me tactics while behind bars. Strategy hidden in bedtime stories. Lessons beyond what a normal child learns. When I turned eighteen, they let me be his cellmate. On the days you visited, I disappeared.”
Charlotte blinked, his words hitting her like a second impact.
“My mother introduced me to Monroe,” he continued. “She thought she could use me. Give me a job.” His laugh was more of a throaty cry. “First, I hacked into the prison system and dumped the prison logs. Nothing was lost; I saved everything. For Monroe, I played dumb. I got inside the facility. I watched. I waited. I learned everything I could. I bugged their system. Monroe never cared that I followed her around like a puppy dog. She thought I was cute.”
He paused, then said quietly, “My father was dying. That’s when he sent me to look for you.”
Charlotte’s heart squeezed. “Why?”
“He said you’d finish what he couldn’t. That you’d stop them. Find the ones still lost. Give the dead back their names. Not be the lamb my mother is. That you’d help me find a life that wasn’t haunted.”
She inhaled sharply. “Elias…” But she didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. She just held on. And this time, so did he.
Charlotte’s heart pounded so loud, it filled her ears. “I need your help.”
Elias didn’t move or blink. “You need to understand what happens if you go after them. It’s not just a building, Charlotte. It’s designed to vanish. You get in—maybe. But out? That’s a different story.”
She didn’t back off. “Your father trusted me. He wanted you to trust me too.”
He finally looked at her, and, in that glance, was every wall he’d spent years building. “He didn’t want it to become what it did.”
“He knew enough,” she said. “And now so do I.”
His jaw worked like he wanted to say something else. But all he said was, “I can’t go to prison.”
There it was—bare, human. “I helped you because of him. Because I cared for my father. He cared about you. I just… I just wanted to save one.”
“Mara?” She watched his face.
“Yes.”
“Alex?”
