Ch.11: Into the West Wing

I walked because he had a hand on the small of my back, a gentlemanly gesture that felt like a gun barrel.

"Move," he whispered.

He guided me out of the nursery, past the terrified face of Mrs. Higgins, and straight to the heavy oak door I had tried to open earlier. The biometric scanner beeped green as his thumb touched the glass. The locks disengaged with a sound like a vault unsealing.

The West Wing wasn't a wing. It was a hospital.

The air pressure changed as we stepped inside—positive pressure, designed to keep contaminants out. Or screams in.

The floors were white epoxy. The walls were lined with stainless steel cabinets and humming server racks. It smelled of ozone and ozone.

"Impressed?" Thorne asked, his voice echoing in the sterile silence.

I didn't answer. I was too busy staring at the equipment. I recognized it all. Centrifuges. Cryogenic storage tanks. A dialysis machine that had been modified with custom tubing. And in the center of the room, a glass-walled isolation chamber containing a single, high-tech patient bed.

"This is illegal," I said, my voice shaking. "You're running a private medical facility without a license."

"I am the license," he scoffed. "I am the board. I am the cutting edge."

He walked over to a workstation and tapped a keyboard. A large monitor flickered to life, displaying a complex molecular diagram. It looked like a DNA helix, but wrong. Fractured.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

"Genetic sequencing," I said automatically.

"Close. It's deterioration. Specifically, the cellular decay of my wife, Isabella."

He turned to look at me, his face suddenly weary, the mask of the predator slipping to reveal something even more terrifying: the fanatic.

"She is dying, Elena. A rare, degenerative blood disorder. The doctors gave her six months. That was three years ago."

He gestured to the isolation chamber.

"I have kept her alive. But maintenance is not a cure. I needed a source. A biological filter."

He hit another key. The screen changed. It showed a pediatric blood panel.

*Subject: Daisy. Blood Type: AB-Null (Golden).*

The room started to spin again.

"You're using her," I whispered. "You're using my daughter as a blood bag."

"Donor," he corrected sharply. "A blood bag is inanimate. Daisy is... a partner in this miracle. Her blood contains a unique enzyme sequence. It stabilizes Isabella’s condition. It reverses the aging of her cells."

He walked over to a refrigerator unit and pulled out a bag of plasma. It was labeled with Daisy’s name.

"I didn't steal her to hurt her," he said, his voice taking on a sickeningly reasonable tone. "I stole her to save the woman I love. Isn't that what any husband would do?"

"You're harvesting an infant!" I screamed, lunging at him.

He caught my wrist easily, twisting it behind my back until I gasped in pain. He forced me to look at the plasma bag.

"And you're going to help me," he hissed.

"I'd rather die."

"Oh, you won't die. You're too valuable. And if you refuse..." He leaned close, his lips brushing my ear. "...then I'll have Mrs. Higgins do the extractions. She's clumsy. She has shaky hands. She might miss a vein. She might take too much."

He released me, shoving me toward the medical station.

"But you... you have the touch. You can keep the baby healthy. You can keep the yield high. You can ensure she survives long enough to give us what we need."

He smoothed his robe, looking at the bag of blood like it was holy water.

"It's a simple trade, Elena. You keep the baby alive for us... and I let you stay alive to watch her grow up."

He made it sound noble. He was bleeding my baby dry to keep his trophy wife's skin smooth.