## CHAPTER 15 — CELESTE’S CHOICE
Celeste had always known how to enter a room as though she owned every person inside it.
Even wearing black tactical clothing, blood on her collar, and exhaustion beneath her eyes, she carried the same terrible composure.
But she did not point her weapon at me.
She pointed it toward the intruder behind me.
The shot struck him in the shoulder.
He fell against the wall.
“Move!” she shouted.
I crawled behind the nurses’ station as another burst of gunfire shattered the glass partition.
Celeste fired twice more.
Her people entered through the broken windows using cables from the hospital roof. They moved like trained soldiers, disabling cameras and blocking the exits.
The Covenant intruders had expected a weak prison detail.
They had not expected Celeste.
Neither had I.
Nathan’s room door hung partially open after the explosion. A nurse shielded him beneath the bed while smoke filled the room.
Celeste grabbed my arm.
“Where’s Nora?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“Not with you.”
“Evelyn, we have less than two minutes before the building locks down.”
“You appeared on a video beside Claire.”
“I was trying to reach her before they did.”
“Where is she now?”
“Taken.”
“And my father?”
“Also taken.”
“By whom?”
Celeste looked toward the corridor.
“Not here.”
“I’m not leaving until you answer me.”
“You have always chosen the worst possible moments to become stubborn.”
“You once ordered people to hurt me because you were jealous of my name.”
Her face tightened.
“I remember.”
“Good.”
A second explosion shook the stairwell.
Celeste’s team moved Nathan onto a portable medical stretcher.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Saving him.”
“From federal custody?”
“Federal custody has been compromised.”
“He belongs in prison.”
“He won’t survive another night there.”
Nathan looked toward us through the smoke.
He appeared barely conscious.
“Celeste?”
She stepped beside the stretcher.
“Yes.”
“Did you find Claire?”
“For a few hours.”
“Is Victor alive?”
Celeste’s expression answered before her mouth did.
Nathan began laughing.
It was not a joyful sound.
“I knew it,” he whispered.
I grabbed Celeste’s wrist.
“Tell me.”
“Victor survived the collapse.”
The corridor seemed to narrow.
“You saw him?”
“I heard him.”
“That is not the same.”
“He called me using a phrase only he knew.”
“What phrase?”
Celeste looked away.
“Something from my childhood.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who leads the Covenant?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Then what do you know?”
“That Claire contacted me six weeks ago. She had been gathering evidence against twelve families connected to Helena’s original network. She said someone inside the Helena Foundation was sending survivor information to the Covenant.”
The accusation struck deeper than any physical blow.
“Who?”
“She did not know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to accept that your foundation is compromised.”
Sirens approached outside.
Celeste’s people began wheeling Nathan toward the shattered window.
“You cannot take him.”
“We’re not asking.”
I stepped in front of the stretcher.
Celeste raised her weapon but kept it angled toward the floor.
“Evelyn.”
“No.”
Nathan opened his eyes.
“Let her.”
I stared at him.
He struggled to speak.
“They need me alive because Victor gave me part of the sequence.”
“What sequence?”
“The Sable Key.”
“You said you didn’t know what it opened.”
“I don’t.”
“But you have part of it?”
“Numbers. Names. Dates. I memorized them before Victor burned the page.”
Celeste looked toward the stairwell.
“We are out of time.”
The first federal officers reached the floor.
Someone shouted for everyone to drop their weapons.
Celeste’s team released smoke canisters.
She pulled me toward the window.
“I’m not going with you.”
“You are now.”
A harness snapped around my waist.
Before I could resist, Celeste pushed us through the broken window.
For one suspended moment, the city opened beneath me.
Then the cable caught.
We descended along the hospital wall toward a maintenance roof three floors below.
Gunfire followed us.
Celeste landed first and released my harness.
A helicopter waited beyond the roof vents.
Nathan’s stretcher arrived seconds later.
I could have run.
Instead, I climbed aboard.
Nathan carried information that might save my father, Claire, and Nora.
I would not lose it because I wanted the moral satisfaction of refusing Celeste.
The helicopter lifted.
Below us, federal vehicles surrounded the hospital.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A safe location.”
“There are no safe locations.”
“Then somewhere less immediately fatal.”
Celeste sat across from me.
Her hands were shaking now.
She hid them beneath her coat.
“Who is inside the foundation?” I asked.
“I narrowed the leak to someone with access to housing records and legal files.”
“Board members?”
“Possibly.”
“Staff?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a name.”
“Dr. Miriam Cole.”
Miriam had served as the foundation’s clinical director since its opening. She was respected, careful, and trusted by nearly every resident.
She had personally interviewed Nora after the attack.
My stomach turned.
“Nora is with Marcus.”
“Marcus Reed’s security clearance was approved by Miriam.”
“You think Marcus is involved?”
“I think trust is a luxury none of us can afford.”
I called him.
No answer.
I called the manor security desk.
No answer.
Then I called the direct emergency line installed in the west wing.
A young staff member answered.
“Helena Foundation.”
“This is Evelyn. Where is Nora?”
A pause.
“I thought she was with you.”
My blood went cold.
“Find Marcus Reed.”
“He left twenty minutes ago.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lock the manor. Find Dr. Cole. Do not allow her near the residents.”
“Ms. Vale, Dr. Cole already left.”
“When?”
“She drove out with Nora.”
The helicopter cabin tilted around me.
“Where did they go?”
“She said you authorized a medical examination.”
“I authorized nothing.”
The staff member began breathing faster.
“There was another woman with them.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t recognize her.”
“Describe her.”
“About forty. Dark hair. She had a scar near her mouth.”
Celeste leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
The staff member hesitated.
“She said Nora’s mother was waiting.”
The line went dead.
I turned toward Celeste.
“You knew Miriam was a threat and said nothing.”
“I was trying to confirm it.”
“A child was taken because you needed confirmation.”
“And how many people suffered while your father hid the truth from you?”
The accusation landed because it was accurate.
Nathan stirred on the stretcher.
“Miriam Cole isn’t her real name.”
Celeste moved beside him.
“You know her?”
“Victor kept a photograph.”
“Of Miriam?”
Nathan nodded weakly.
“She was a teenager.”
“Who was she?”
“Victor’s daughter.”
Celeste’s face changed.
“Victor had no children.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“Then he lied.”
Nathan’s monitor began alarming again.
The medic adjusted his oxygen.
I called my father’s old number, knowing the Covenant had taken his phone.
Someone answered.
No one spoke.
“Where is Nora?”
A woman laughed softly.
Not Miriam.
An older voice.
Familiar in a way that made every memory inside me recoil.
“Still impatient,” she said.
I gripped the phone.
“Who are you?”
“You heard my recording beneath the house.”
My mother’s voice.
Exactly as I remembered it.
But this was not a recording.
She breathed between words.
She reacted to my silence.
“Helena?” I whispered.
Celeste stared at me.
The woman on the phone continued.
“Bring the sapphire pendant to the old Vale Observatory before midnight.”
“Where is Nora?”
“With family.”
“What did you do to Claire?”
“Claire made the same mistake you are making.”
“What mistake?”
“She trusted Elias.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, the only sound inside the helicopter was the monitor beside Nathan’s stretcher.
Celeste finally spoke.
“That could have been a voice simulation.”
“It knew about the recording.”
“So does anyone who entered the archive.”
I looked through the window at the city disappearing behind us.
My mother had been declared dead.
Then photographed alive.
Now a woman with her voice had taken Nora.
Nathan reached weakly toward me.
“Evelyn.”
I moved closer.
“There is something Victor said about Helena.”
“What?”
“He said she didn’t rescue people because she was kind.”
“Then why?”
Nathan’s eyes closed.
May you like
“Because she was building an army.”
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