Chapter 2 - The Abandoned Wing
Mara knew a maintenance tunnel connected the cottages to Saint Aurelia’s abandoned rehabilitation wing.
She had discovered it three years earlier when a frozen water line flooded her basement.
She had never imagined using it to hide a mafia boss.
“Keep your hand here,” she told Adrian.
He pressed gauze against his side.
“If I stop?”
“You bleed faster.”
“Motivating.”
Mara opened the basement door.
Leo stood behind her wearing two sweaters and wrapped in a blanket.
Adrian looked at him.
“Stay between us.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Yes, you are.”
Leo looked down.
Adrian touched his shoulder.
“So am I.”
That seemed to help.
They descended.
Above them came a violent crash.
Someone had kicked open the cottage door.
Leo flinched.
“Move,” Adrian said.
They crossed the basement.
Mara pulled an old shelving unit aside, revealing a narrow metal door.
Adrian stared at her.
“You keep secret tunnels in your house?”
“I’m beginning to understand why you find that normal.”
She unlocked it.
They entered darkness.
The tunnel smelled of concrete and rust.
Behind them, footsteps reached the basement.
Mara closed the door.
They moved quickly.
Adrian leaned heavily against the wall.
“How far?”
“Maybe three hundred yards.”
“I can make it.”
“You mafia people always this stubborn?”
“Only the successful ones.”
Halfway through, he stumbled.
Mara caught him.
“Dad?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Mara said.
Adrian looked at her.
“You enjoy correcting me.”
“I enjoy keeping patients alive.”
“I’m not your patient.”
“You’re bleeding on my shoes. That makes you my patient.”
Leo suddenly whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
They stopped.
A metallic bang echoed behind them.
The basement door.
Adrian straightened.
“They found the tunnel.”
Mara pointed ahead.
“Run.”
They emerged into Saint Aurelia’s west wing.
The corridor was frozen in time.
Old wheelchairs sat against peeling walls. Dust covered abandoned nursing stations. Emergency lights cast weak red pools along the hallway.
Leo looked around.
“This place is creepy.”
“You’re not wrong,” Mara said.
Adrian leaned against the wall.
“Room Nine.”
Mara looked at the numbered doors.
101.
102.
103.
“This building doesn’t have a Room Nine.”
“It does.”
“How would you know?”
Adrian stared down the corridor.
“Because my father died here.”
Mara stopped.
“What?”
“Twenty-three years ago.”
“This was a rehabilitation hospital.”
“That’s what the sign said.”
Footsteps echoed from the tunnel.
Adrian pointed.
“Where is the original wing?”
Mara remembered something.
The renovations.
Before Saint Aurelia became a rehabilitation center, the building had been a private tuberculosis hospital.
The original room numbers had been covered when the building was renovated.
She ran to the wall beside Room 108.
Scratched beneath layers of paint was an older brass plate.
8.
Mara looked at the next door.
109.
She scraped paint away.
9.
Adrian whispered, “Open it.”
The door was locked.
Mara kicked it.
Nothing.
Adrian reached beneath his shirt and pulled a chain from his neck.
A small brass key hung from it.
Mara stared.
“You carry a key to an abandoned hospital room?”
“My father told me never to lose it.”
The key turned.
Room Nine opened.
Inside was not a hospital room.
It was an elevator.
Leo whispered, “Whoa.”
Adrian pressed a hidden button.
Nothing happened.
Mara noticed an old electrical panel.
“Emergency generator.”
She flipped two switches.
Lights flickered.
The elevator doors opened.
They entered.
There was only one button.
B.
Adrian pressed it.
The elevator descended.
Mara looked at him.
“You want to explain?”
“No.”
“Then I’m getting off.”
“You won’t.”
“Why?”
The doors opened.
Beyond them stretched a brightly lit underground medical facility.
Mara stared.
Modern equipment.
Operating rooms.
Emergency generators.
Locked pharmaceutical cabinets.
Everything immaculate.
And standing at the end of the corridor was an elderly doctor holding a shotgun pointed at Adrian.
May you like
“Take one more step,” the doctor said, “and I finish what they started.”
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