Aris to the Rescue

...you're erased.

The taser crackled in the dim light, a blue arc of electricity. Claire didn't flinch. She was past fear. The fear had evaporated when she saw the empty beds.

"Where are they?" she asked. Her voice was steady, surprising even herself.

"I told you," the guard said. "You're trespassing."

He stepped forward, the taser aimed at her chest.

"I'm not leaving without my children."

"You're leaving," he said. "One way or another."

He lunged.

Claire dropped to the floor, the taser sparking above her head. She rolled, kicking out at his legs. Her boot connected with his knee, a solid, satisfying crunch.

The guard grunted and stumbled, but he didn't fall. He was bigger than her, stronger, trained for this. He grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and hauled her up, slamming her against the wall.

"You stupid bitch," he snarled.

He raised the taser again.

Claire didn't struggle. She didn't scream. She looked past him, at the window.

A shadow moved outside.

The glass shattered inward.

Aris came through the window feet first, crashing into the guard with the momentum of a wrecking ball.

They went down in a tangle of limbs and broken glass. The taser skittered across the floor, useless.

Aris was on top of him, raining blows down on the guard's face. He wasn't fighting like a lawyer. He was fighting like a man who had just learned his brother was stolen and his father was a monster.

"Where are they?" Aris shouted, grabbing the guard by the throat. "Where are the girls?"

The guard gasped for air, his face bloody. "Safe room," he choked out. "Basement."

Aris hit him again, knocking him unconscious.

He stood up, breathing hard, wiping blood from his knuckles. He looked at Claire.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, though her hands were shaking. "How did you find me?"

"I saw the officer get out of the car without you," Aris said. "I figured you didn't wait for permission."

He moved to the door, listening.

"We have to be quick. The noise will bring others."

They ran down the hall, back toward the service stairs. The house was waking up now. Lights were flicking on. Voices echoed from the lower levels.

They reached the basement door. It was locked, a heavy steel security door with a keypad.

"Do you know the code?" Aris asked.

"1-1-1-6," Claire said.

She typed it in.

The light blinked red.

Arthur had changed it. He knew she was inside.

"Damn it," Aris said. He looked around for something to pry it open, but the hallway was bare.

Then the intercom next to the door crackled to life.

"Claire," Arthur's voice said. It was coming from inside the safe room. "I know you're there. And I know you have Aris with you."

"Open the door, Arthur," Claire said.

"Why would I do that?" Arthur asked. "You're a fugitive. And Aris... well, Aris is a disappointment to his father."

"We know about Michael," Claire said. "We know about Thomas. We know everything."

"Knowledge is only power if you survive to use it," Arthur said.

The sound of a heavy bolt sliding home echoed through the door.

"The police are five minutes away," Arthur said. "I called them. Told them there's an intruder in the house. An armed intruder who assaulted my security detail."

He paused.

"I also told them you were threatening to harm the children."

Claire slammed her fist against the steel. "You wouldn't dare."

"I would do anything to protect this family," Arthur said. "Even from you."

Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer.

"We have to go," Aris said. "If the police find us here, with a beaten guard upstairs... we're done."

"I can't leave them!"

"You can't save them from a prison cell," Aris said. He grabbed her arm. "We need to regroup. We need to get the evidence to someone who isn't on his payroll."

"Who?" Claire cried. "Who isn't on his payroll?"

"I know someone," Aris said. "But we have to leave. Now."

Claire looked at the steel door. Her children were on the other side. Her husband was on the other side.

But Aris was right. If she stayed, she lost.

She turned and ran.

They burst out of the service entrance just as the first police cruiser skidded into the driveway. They sprinted for the woods, diving into the cover of the trees just as the spotlights swept the lawn.

They ran until their lungs burned, until the house was just a glow in the distance.

Aris stopped, leaning against a tree, gasping for air.

"Where are we going?" Claire asked.

"My car is gone," Aris said. "The police probably towed it."

"Then how do we get out of here?"

Aris looked at her.

"We don't," he said. "We stay. We hide."

"Hide where? He'll search the whole property."

"Not the whole property," Aris said. "There's one place he won't look. One place he thinks is empty."

"Where?"

"The gatehouse," Aris said. "The old one. By the river entrance."

"It's ruined," Claire said. "It's been abandoned for years."

"Exactly," Aris said. "And it has a basement."

They walked through the woods, circling the perimeter of the estate. The rain had started again, washing away their tracks.

The gatehouse was a stone shell, the roof caved in, the windows gaping holes. It looked like a tomb.

They climbed through a broken window. The floor was covered in debris and wet leaves.

Aris went to a corner of the room and pulled up a rotting rug. Beneath it was a trapdoor.

"How do you know about this?" Claire asked.

"Thomas told me," Aris said softly.

"Thomas?"

"The first boy," Aris said. "We used to play here. Before Arthur took him away."

He opened the trapdoor. A ladder led down into darkness.

"It's safe," Aris said. "Or it was."

They climbed down. The air was stale, smelling of earth and time. Aris clicked on his phone flashlight.

The basement was small, dry. There were old crates stacked against the wall. A cot with a moth-eaten blanket.

"This was his hiding place," Aris said. "When he was scared."

Claire sat on the cot. She was shivering, adrenaline crashing into exhaustion.

"We have to get the evidence out," she said. "The photos on my phone. We have to send them."

She pulled out her phone.

No signal.

"The walls are too thick," Aris said. "Stone and earth. We're in a bunker."

"Then we have to go back out."

"Not yet," Aris said. "We wait for the police to leave. We wait for Arthur to think he's won."

He sat on a crate across from her.

"Claire," he said. "There's something else."

"What?"

"When I was fighting the guard... he said something."

"What did he say?"

"He said Arthur isn't just planning to keep the girls," Aris said. "He's planning to send them away."

"Away where?"

"To the same place he sent David," Aris said. "Switzerland. Tonight."

Claire stood up.

"We can't wait," she said. "We have to stop him."

"How?"

"We don't go to the police," Claire said. "We go to the press."

She looked at Aris.

"You said you knew someone."

"I do," Aris said. "An investigative journalist. She's been trying to get dirt on my father for years."

"Call her."

"I can't. No signal."

"Then we go to her," Claire said. "Where is she?"

"In the city," Aris said. "But we have no car."

Claire looked around the basement. Her eyes landed on the crates.

*Vance Shipping.*

She went to the nearest crate and pried off the lid.

Inside were bottles of wine. Vintage. Expensive.

But beneath the straw packing, there was something else.

A tarp.

She pulled it aside.

It was a motorcycle. An old Triumph, dusty but intact.

"Thomas's bike," Aris whispered. "He hid it here. He was fixing it up."

Claire looked at the bike. Then at Aris.

"Does it run?"

Aris checked the tank. "It has gas. Old gas, but gas."

He kicked the starter. The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life, filling the small space with exhaust and noise.

"It runs," he said.

Claire climbed onto the back.

"Let's go to the city," she said. "And burn Arthur Vance to the ground."

But as they rode out of the gatehouse, the headlight of the motorcycle caught something in the woods.

A figure, standing in the rain.

It wasn't a guard. It wasn't police.

It was a woman in a white dress.

Evelyn.

Or the ghost of her.

Claire blinked, and the figure was gone.

"Did you see that?" she shouted over the engine.

"See what?" Aris yelled back.

"Nothing," Claire said.

But she knew what she had seen. It was a warning.

*You can't go home, Claire. Arthur is preparing to destroy you.*