Chapter 16 - The Detonator
The living room was pure chaos. Smoke, shouting officers, the metallic smell of flash powder, and the groans of the zip-tied guards being dragged across broken glass.
"Cross!" I yelled over the noise, clutching Toby to my chest. "The gas main! Elena has the fail-safe!"
Elena wasn't on the floor.
While the tactical team had focused on Richard, she had slipped through the broken pantry door into the service hallway.
I handed Toby to a kneeling tactical medic. "Take him! Keep him warm, don't let him sleep!"
"Sir, stay back!" an officer barked, but I shoved past him into the kitchen.
The basement door was wide open, a draft of damp, cool air rushing up from the concrete stairs.
I bolted down the steps, my boots slipping on the wooden treads.
At the far corner of the basement, beside the massive gas furnace, Elena stood illuminated by the green glow of a digital timer.
A heavy brick of gray military-grade explosive was taped directly to the cast-iron gas intake pipe, a tangle of red and black wires connecting it to a small transmitter in her hand.
The digital timer on her screen read: 01:14.
"Back up, Mark!" she screamed, her thumb hovering over the red toggle switch. Her composure was gone, her face twisted into pure, unhinged madness. "One tap and this whole foundation collapses into the sewer!"
"It's over, Elena!" I said, holding my hands out, taking a slow step onto the concrete floor. "Richard is dead. The tactical team has the perimeter. You have nowhere to run."
"I don't need to run!" she sobbed, tears cutting lines through the soot on her cheeks. "If I can't have the inheritance, neither do you! You and your precious, perfect little family can burn together!"
"Why Toby?" I asked, keeping my voice level, measuring the distance between us. Nine feet. "He called you Mama. He loved you."
"He was never mine!" she shrieked. "He was grown in a lab from your mother's harvested ova and your genetic profile! I carried him for nine months like a broodmare while Evelyn held my family’s trust over my head!"
The words felt like a physical blow to my chest.
"What did you say?"
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"You think you're normal, Mark?" she laughed hysterically, her thumb trembling over the detonator. "You were the first prototype. Toby was the refined version. None of this was ever a family!"
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