Chapter 8 - THE ROOM WITH NO WINDOWS
Noah woke up sitting in a chair bolted to concrete.
His first thought was that his nose hurt.
His second was that Mara was going to kill him if Adrian didn’t.
The room had no windows. One metal table. One camera in the corner. His wrists were zip-tied behind him, not professionally enough to prevent circulation, but tight enough to make escape annoying.
Adrian sat opposite him eating almonds from a paper cup.
“You punch badly,” Adrian said.
Noah tested the ties.
“You kidnap badly.”
“I disagree.”
“My wife knows you took me.”
“That is the point.”
Adrian pushed a photograph across the table.
It showed Mara’s mother.
Older than in the attic picture. Thin. Bruised. Wearing dark goggles.
Standing beside Adrian.
Noah stared.
“That’s not a prison,” Adrian said. “Before you make that face.”
“You know what face I’m making?”
“The righteous husband. Very American.”
“Go to hell.”
Adrian smiled.
“Selene came to me voluntarily.”
“No.”
“You’ve known the truth for approximately twelve hours. Perhaps don’t become an archivist yet.”
Noah hated that he had a point.
Adrian tapped the photo.
“She was dying.”
“Of what?”
“Her own gift.”
Noah looked up.
Adrian explained that Medusa eyes changed with age. Each use damaged fine vessels behind the retina. Too many transformations and the damage spread inward. Seizures. Memory loss. Hemorrhage.
“She came because I had resources,” Adrian said. “Researchers. Equipment. Money.”
“And you helped her?”
“I tried.”
“Then why did she warn Mara about you?”
Adrian stopped smiling.
For the first time, something real showed.
“Because I made a mistake.”
Noah waited.
“I wanted a sample.”
“A sample of what?”
“Everything.”
There it was.
Adrian’s eyes had the flat shine of a collector discussing a rare coin.
“Blood. retinal tissue. reproductive cells. I believed we could preserve the line.”
“You wanted to breed her.”
Adrian’s mouth tightened.
“That is an ugly way to phrase it.”
“It’s an ugly thing.”
“She panicked. One of my men tried to restrain her. She killed three people leaving.”
“Turned them to stone.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She disappeared for nine years.”
Noah thought of Mara growing up under rules she had never questioned.
“What happened when you found her?”
Adrian looked at the camera.
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did she die?”
“That, Mr. Hale, is the part your wife should be asking.”
A door opened behind Noah.
One of Adrian’s men rolled in a statue on a freight cart.
Eli Trent.
Noah recognized him from arrest photos.
The detail was obscene. The panic in his stone face. The vein at his temple. A tiny tear fixed beneath one eye.
Noah’s stomach turned.
Adrian stood beside the statue.
“Touch him.”
“No.”
“Touch him.”
Noah did.
Cold stone.
Then something moved beneath his palm.
One faint vibration.
Like a pulse.
Noah jerked his hand back.
Adrian smiled.
“He isn’t dead.”
---
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