Chapter 2 - The Resuscitation and the ConfessionThe quiet inside the chapel was so profound I could hear the distant, low hum of the furnace blowers vibrating up through the floorboards from the basement below.
“That’s... that’s absurd,” Harrison stammered, his polished, professional composure instantly shattering into frantic panic. “Someone... someone stole that from my cabinet! I have dozens of experimental compounds in my research facility! This is a setup!”
“A setup?!” Lucas yelled. “You signed his death certificate three hours ago without an autopsy! You ordered his body sent straight to a private incinerator instead of a mausoleum or a local cemetery! You were going to burn my brother alive!”
“He’s DEAD!” Victoria screamed, her widow persona vanishing completely as her voice rose to a shrill, hysterical pitch. “The doctors said his heart gave out! He had no pulse! He wasn't breathing! Look at him, Lucas! He’s a corpse!”
“He’s not a corpse,” Lucas said quietly.
I felt a rough, warm hand suddenly grasp my right wrist. It was Lucas. He was holding his thumb firmly against my radial artery.
“His skin is cold,” Lucas murmured, his voice cracking as he leaned close to my face. “His breathing is almost gone. But I spent six years in the Army Special Operations Medical Corps, Victoria. I know what nerve agents look like. I know what a suppressed autonomic state feels like.”
Lucas squeezed my wrist harder.
“Ethan,” Lucas whispered directly into my ear, his breath warm against my earlobe. “If you can hear me... if you’re in there... give me anything. One beat. One twitch. Fight it, brother. Fight it!”
I summoned every atom of my consciousness. Every ounce of pride, every memory of my grandfather, every thread of hatred I possessed for the two monsters standing beside my casket—I channeled it all into my right index finger. I fought against the chemical chains paralyzing my motor neurons. I pushed with a fury that felt like tearing through solid iron.
Twitch.
It was tiny. A microscopic movement of my right finger against Lucas’s palm.
Lucas gasped loudly. “HE’S ALIVE!”
“Nonsense!” Harrison yelled, lunging forward toward the casket. “It’s a post-mortem muscle spasm! It happens all the time in fresh cadavers! Stand back, Lucas, let me examine him!”
“Touch him and I’ll break your neck!” Lucas roared.
Before Harrison could react, Lucas reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek, stainless-steel auto-injector.
“Is that atropine?!” Harrison shouted, his eyes widening in pure horror. “Are you crazy?! If you inject a high-potency anticholinergic into a patient in acute cardiac distress, you’ll kill him!”
“If I do nothing, you’ll burn him!” Lucas shouted back.
Without hesitating for a single second, Lucas slammed the auto-injector directly into my outer thigh, straight through my wool suit trousers.
CLICK.
A sharp, searing needle burst through my skin, injecting a cold, concentrated stream of atropine and pralidoxime directly into my bloodstream.
For three agonizing seconds, nothing happened.
Then, my heart exploded like a detonated grenade inside my ribs.
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
The intense electrical shock of the reversal agent tore through my paralyzed nervous system like a lightning strike. The suffocating weight on my lungs shattered. Air rushed into my throat in a violent, ragged gasp.
“GAAAAAAAH!”
My eyes flew open. My back arched violently off the satin lining of the coffin. My chest rose and fell in massive, desperate gulps of oxygen.
Victoria shrieked in absolute terror, staggering backward until her lower back slammed into the marble altar, knocking a brass candlestick to the floor with a deafening crash.
Harrison fell back onto his rear, staring at me with his mouth agape, his face twisted in a look of supernatural horror as if a ghost had just crawled out of hell.
“Ethan!” Lucas cried out, grabbing my shoulders and holding me upright as I coughed and gasped for air, my vision blurry, my limbs shaking violently as blood flushed back into my deadened capillaries.
“Lu... Lucas...” I rasped, my throat feeling as though it were filled with crushed glass.
“I’m here, Ethan! I’ve got you!” Lucas shouted, pulling me up until I was sitting upright in the coffin, my dark hair soaked in cold sweat, my gaze locking directly onto Victoria.
Victoria was trembling uncontrollably, clutching her throat, her eyes wide with unadulterated dread.
“E... Ethan...” she whimpered, her voice barely a breath. “It’s... it’s a miracle... you’re alive...”
I looked at her—the woman I had shared my bed with for six years, the woman I had given millions of dollars to, the woman who had stood over my casket five minutes ago and laughed about burning my flesh into ash.
“You...” I choked out, my voice deep, raspy, and shaking with pure venom. “You... and Harrison...”
Harrison scrambled to his feet, his hands flying up in panic. “Ethan! Listen to me! It was a medical error! An reaction to your heart medication! I didn't know—!”
“Shut your mouth, Vance!” Lucas barked, pulling his phone from his pocket with his free hand and hitting a speed-dial button. “Sergeant Miller? This is Lucas Cole. Bring your team in. Right now.”
The side doors of the chapel burst open immediately.
Four armed officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department—led by Detective Sergeant Miller, an old friend of my family—swarmed into the sanctuary with their sidearms drawn.
“Hands where we can see them! Both of you! On the ground now!” Miller ordered, his weapon aimed squarely at Harrison’s chest.
“Detective, you don't understand!” Harrison shrieked, falling to his knees and slamming his hands against his head. “It was Victoria! She planned it! She approached me eight months ago! She offered me thirty percent of the distillery shares if I formulated the compound! She said she’d leave me if I didn't help her!”
“You pathetic coward!” Victoria screamed at Harrison, turning on him like a cornered viper, her manicured nails clawing at his face as the officers rushed forward to tackle them both to the floor. “You promised me it was undetectable! You promised me we’d be in Europe by next week!”
“Victoria Cole, Harrison Vance, you are under arrest for attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and medical fraud,” Sergeant Miller announced, snapping heavy steel handcuffs over Victoria’s wrists as she wept and screamed against the cold stone floor.
As the officers dragged them down the center aisle, Victoria turned her head back toward the altar. Her eyes met mine.
May you like
I was sitting in my own coffin, supported by my brother, breathing deep, full breaths of air.
“Goodbye, Victoria,” I said softly, throwing her own cold words right back into her face.
