CHAPTER 2 — THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
The hidden hallway led beneath the house.
Not to a basement.
To an underground medical laboratory.
White walls.
Steel tables.
Medical scanners.
Shelves filled with labeled syringes.
Every wall displayed photographs of me.
Sleeping.
Walking.
Crying.
Laughing.
Each image had dates.
Heart rate.
Drug dosage.
Memory score.
I wasn't living inside a marriage.
I was living inside an experiment.
Adrian laid me on an operating table before unlocking a reinforced cabinet.
Inside were dozens of patient files.
Each file had a woman's photograph.
Most had one word stamped across the front.
FAILED.
Only one folder remained unstamped.
Mine.
Subject 17.
Rebecca Hale.
He opened my file.
"I think tomorrow is finally the day," he told someone over speakerphone.
A calm female voice answered.
"Then transfer the assets immediately."
"I will."
"And afterward?"
Adrian smiled.
"We erase her permanently."
Suddenly another voice echoed through the room.
"That won't be necessary."
Everyone froze.
The laboratory lights flickered.
Every monitor switched on by itself.
A woman's scarred face appeared across every screen.
The same voice from the recording.
Older.
Exhausted.
Alive.
"My name is Dr. Evelyn Hale."
Adrian's face drained of color.
"Impossible."
"You buried me."
"You burned the clinic."
"You reported me dead."
The woman smiled sadly.
"You made one mistake."
"You never checked the river."
My chest tightened.
Hale.
The same surname from my dreams.
The woman looked directly into the camera.
"No matter what happens next..."
"...Rebecca..."
"...I'm your mother."
The room exploded into chaos.
Adrian lunged toward the monitors.
His mother, Judith, grabbed a pistol hidden inside her handbag.
"You should've stayed dead!" she screamed.
Before she could fire...
The steel security doors slammed shut automatically.
Red emergency lights flooded the laboratory.
Someone had locked every exit from outside.
A distorted voice echoed through the speakers.
"Federal Investigation Division."
"This property is surrounded."
"Nobody leaves."
Adrian slowly looked at me.
For the first time...
He realized my eyes were open.
He understood.
I remembered.
And he had just confessed everything.
His expression transformed from confident husband...
...to desperate predator.
May you like
Then he reached for the syringe lying beside my bed.
And charged straight toward me.
