Chapter 80: The Signature

The tires of the sedan crunched over the gravel of the private airstrip, the sound like bones snapping. I looked at my hand. A smudge of blue ink stained my thumb, a permanent reminder of the surrender I had scrawled in the jail cell.

"We're here," Ben said, killing the engine.

Through the windshield, I saw the jet. It was idling on the tarmac, engines whining, stairs lowered.

And standing at the bottom of the stairs was the lawyer.

She was bandaged—her hand wrapped in thick white gauze where I had stabbed her—but she was smiling.

"Why are we here?" Lucia whispered from the back seat. "I thought we were going to the cabin."

"We are," I said, opening the door. "But first, I have to buy us some time."

"Sarah, don't," Ben said. "You signed the NDA. You gave them what they wanted."

"I signed a piece of paper in a cell," I said. "That gets me out of jail. It doesn't get Leo out of the hospital. For that, they need the Transfer of Guardianship. Notarized. Witnessed."

I stepped out into the cold wind. The lawyer watched me approach, clutching her briefcase against her chest with her good hand.

"Ms. Sterling," she shouted over the roar of the engines. "You're late."

"I had to pick up my family," I said, gesturing to the car.

"They stay there," the lawyer said. "This is between you, me, and the Trust."

She pulled a clipboard from her bag. The paper fluttered in the wind.

"The hospital won't release the boy until this is filed," she said. "Sign it, and the medical team takes over. Refuse, and the police take you back to the cell."

I took the clipboard.

*Transfer of Legal Guardianship: Leo Sterling.*
*Recipient: The Martha Sterling Revocable Trust.*

I looked at the pen she offered. It was a cheap plastic bic. She wasn't risking another fountain pen.

"Where is he?" I asked. "Where is Leo?"

"He's being prepped for transport," she said. "The moment you sign, the ambulance leaves for the airfield."

"And Martha?"

"She's waiting," the lawyer said, tilting her head toward the darkened windows of the jet. "She's very eager to be reunited with her family."

I looked at the jet. I looked at the pen.

I thought about Leo. Hooked up to machines. Alone.

If I signed, he would live. But he would be theirs. A specimen. A battery.

If I didn't sign...

I looked at the car. Ben was watching me, his hand on the gear shift. Lucia was on her phone, typing furiously.

Vance. The cabin. The trapdoor.

They didn't need the plane. They didn't need the lawyer. They needed the source.

And the source wasn't on the jet.

I looked at the lawyer. I looked at her bandaged hand.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The stab wound," I said. "Does it hurt?"

"It throbs," she admitted, her professional mask slipping for a fraction of a second.

"Good," I said.

I lowered the pen to the paper. The lawyer leaned in, hungry for the ink.

I let the tip touch the signature line.

*S...*

I stopped.

I thought about the letter in the safe. *I switched the samples.*
I thought about the baby in the fire.
I thought about Mark, bleeding out on the tarmac.

I wasn't just Sarah Sterling. I wasn't just a poor relation.

I was the daughter of Michael Sterling. The man Edith loved. The man Martha destroyed.

I wasn't a failure. I was a failsafe.

And failsafes don't surrender. They detonate.

"Is there a problem?" the lawyer asked, her voice tight.

"Yes," I said. "There is."

I looked her in the eye.

"You're assuming I want him to live as a slave."

"He's dying, Sarah!" she yelled. "Without the marrow, he dies!"

"Then let him die," I said.

The lawyer froze. "What?"

"Let him die free," I lied. "Better than living as a lab rat for a ghost."

I pulled the paper from the clipboard.

I didn't sign it.

I crumpled it.

Slowly, deliberately, I crushed the document into a ball in my fist.

"No," I said.

I threw the paper ball at her feet.

"Tell Martha she can have his body," I said. "But she'll never have his soul."

I turned around.

"Stop!" the lawyer screamed. "Police! Arrest her!"

Two uniformed officers stepped out from behind the hangar, hands on their holsters.

But I was already moving. I sprinted for the car.

"Go!" I yelled.

Ben slammed the accelerator before I even closed the door. The sedan shrieked, tires spinning, and shot forward.

We blew past the lawyer, forcing her to dive out of the way. We tore through the gate, leaving the jet and the police behind.

"You didn't sign," Lucia said from the back seat, her eyes wide. "Sarah, you just killed him."

"No," I said, watching the airfield disappear in the rearview mirror. "I just bought us a head start."

"To where?" Ben asked.

"To the cabin," I said. "Vance found the trapdoor. Martha isn't on that plane, Ben. She's not waiting at the airfield."

I looked at the text on Lucia's phone.

*The mine isn't the only way down.*

"She's underground," I said. "She's with the original crop. The ones she didn't sell."

"And Leo?"

"Leo isn't the priority anymore," I said, my voice cold, hard. "The marrow is."

I looked at my hand. The ink smudge was still there.

"We're going to the source," I said. "And we're going to burn it out."