Chapter 84: The Press Conference

The water was a shock, a thousand needles of ice piercing my skin. I went under, the current grabbing me like a giant hand, spinning me, pulling me down. I clutched the briefcase to my chest, kicking my legs, fighting for the surface.

I broke through, gasping. The roar of the river drowned out everything—the fire, the collapse, the screams of the dying mountain. I was a leaf in a storm, battered against rocks, dragged over falls.

But I held on.

I don't know how long I drifted. Minutes. Hours. The cold seeped into my bones, numbing my limbs, slowing my thoughts. I saw flashes of the bank—trees, snow, darkness.

And then, light.

Not the sun. Headlights.

I washed up on a sandbar, coughing up river water. I dragged myself onto the shore, my body heavy as lead.

A car was idling on the access road. An old sedan.

The door opened.

"Sarah?"

It was Ben. He ran down the bank, sliding on the mud. He grabbed me, pulling me out of the water.

"You're alive," he whispered, wrapping his coat around me. "We thought... when the mountain came down..."

"The samples," I chattered, my teeth clicking. "I have the samples."

I held up the briefcase.

Ben stared at it. Then he looked at me.

"Mark?" I asked.

Ben shook his head.

"Lucia?"

"She's in the car," Ben said. "She's hurt. But she's alive."

He helped me up the bank. Lucia was in the back seat, her leg wrapped in a makeshift bandage. She looked pale, but when she saw me, she smiled.

"You crazy bitch," she whispered.

"We have to go," I said, shivering uncontrollably. "Before they find us."

We drove south. Away from the mountain. Away from the smoke that was now a black stain on the morning sky.

We stopped at a motel in Albany. Ben paid cash. We warmed up, cleaned up. I opened the briefcase.

Inside, nestled in foam, were the vials. And a hard drive.

"What's on the drive?" Lucia asked, propping her leg up on the bed.

"Insurance," I said.

I plugged it into Ben's laptop.

It wasn't just data. It was videos. Surveillance footage.

Edith in the nursery. Martha in the lab. The Board meetings. The bribes. The murders.

And one video file, labeled *FINAL TESTAMENT*.

I clicked play.

It was Edith. She was sitting in the cabin, in front of the fire. She looked tired. Old.

"If you're watching this," she said to the camera, "then I failed. Or I succeeded. It's hard to tell the difference anymore."

She took a sip of whiskey.

"I did it for the family, Sarah. You have to understand that. The Sterlings were weak. Dying out. I made us strong. I made us... eternal."

She laughed, a dry, bitter sound.

"But strength has a price. And you... you were the bill coming due."

She leaned forward.

"The samples in the case... they're not just embryos. They're the cure. For Leo. For Mark. For all of them."

I paused the video.

"The cure?" Ben asked.

"Stem cells," I said. "Genetically modified stem cells. She synthesized them. That's what she was doing in the lab."

"So we can save Leo," Lucia said.

"Yes," I said. "But we can do more than that."

I looked at the laptop. At the upload bar from Ben's server in Queens.

*Upload Complete.*

"We can burn it all down," I said.

I picked up the phone. I dialed Miller, the reporter.

"Did you get it?" he asked. He sounded sober now.

"I got it," I said. "And more."

"When can we run it?"

"Now," I said. "Right now."

"I need to verify the sources," Miller said. "Legal will want to—"

"Forget legal," I said. "This isn't a story, Miller. It's a confession. And I'm about to give you the press conference of the century."

"Where?"

"St. Jude's," I said. "In the parking lot. One hour."

I hung up.

"We're going back?" Ben asked.

"It's where Leo is," I said. "It's where it ends."

We drove back to the city. The sun was high now, glaring off the skyscrapers. The world looked normal. Commuters. Coffee. Traffic.

They had no idea.

We pulled into the hospital parking lot. It was already swarming with vans. CNN. Fox. MSNBC. Miller had been busy.

I stepped out of the car. I was still wearing Ben's coat, my hair wet, my face bruised. I looked like a victim.

Perfect.

I walked to the podium Miller had set up. The microphones were a forest of black foam.

"Ms. Sterling!" a reporter shouted. "Is it true? Did you kidnap the boy?"

"Ms. Sterling! Where is your aunt?"

I raised my hand. Silence fell.

"My name is Sarah Sterling," I said, my voice amplified by the speakers. "And I am not a kidnapper. I am a mother."

I held up the hard drive.

"For thirty years, my family has been lying to you. To the world. To themselves."

I plugged the drive into the laptop connected to the PA system.

"They bought judges. They bought doctors. They bought lives."

I clicked the file.

Edith's voice boomed over the parking lot.

*"I want the baby. And I want Clara gone."*

The crowd gasped. Flashbulbs erupted like a strobe light.

I played the next file. Martha.

*"We made you perfect. We edited out the weakness."*

And then, the video. The crash. Edith crawling from the wreckage.

I looked at the cameras.

"Edith Sterling is dead," I said. "Martha Sterling is dead. The Board is buried under a mountain."

I pointed to the hospital.

"But the victims are still here. My son is in that building. And he is dying because of what they did to him."

I held up the briefcase.

"This is the cure," I said. "And I am giving it to the doctors. Not to the Trust. Not to the highest bidder. To the people."

I handed the case to Dr. Patel, who had come out of the entrance, flanked by security.

"Save him," I whispered.

She nodded, taking the case.

The press went wild. Questions were shouted, microphones shoved in my face.

But I didn't answer. I looked past the cameras. Past the vans.

To the edge of the crowd.

A black sedan was parked there. Tinted windows.

The window rolled down.

A man was watching me.

He was wearing a suit. He had dark hair. Blue eyes.

My eyes.

Subject 12.

He hadn't died in the mine. He had escaped.

He smiled. A slow, cold smile.

He raised a hand in a mock salute.

And then he drove away.