Chapter 2 - Shadows on the Tenth Floor
Grace Morales ran down the tenth-floor corridor as fast as her worn leather flats would carry her.
Her heart was hammering wildly against her ribs. When she had walked out of the clinic exam room on the third floor and found the two plastic waiting chairs empty, her world had collapsed. She had begged the floor nurse, checked the restrooms, and finally caught sight of two small shadows slipping onto the executive elevator on the security monitors.
When the elevator doors parted on the private floor, she saw two tall security guards standing over her children, flanked by a furious silver-haired man in an expensive suit and a glamorous woman in a navy designer dress.
“Get your hands off my children!” Grace screamed, lunging forward and pulling Owen and Lily fiercely against her skirts.
She fell to her knees on the plush carpet, wrapping her arms around both of them, checking their arms and faces with frantic hands. “Are you hurt? Did anyone touch you? Owen, what happened?!”
“Mommy, we didn't do anything bad,” Lily cried, burying her wet face in Grace’s neck. “We just went to see the sleeping man. He was crying, Mommy!”
“I am calling the Chicago Police Department,” Malcolm Calloway announced coldly, pulling a gold-cased smartphone from his pocket. “You brought your feral children onto a private medical wing to attempt extortion, or worse—”
“Extortion?!” Grace snapped, rising to her full height. She squared her shoulders, her brown eyes flashing with a fierce, protective fire that made even the two security guards hesitate. “My children are five and seven years old! They got lost! If your security doors were left unlocked, that is your hospital’s negligence, not mine!”
“Do you have any idea who you are talking to, woman?” Victoria spat, stepping forward, her diamond ring catching the bright fluorescent lights. “This is Calloway Biomedical’s private wing. That man in there is Ethan Calloway. You and your little squatters are trespassing on private—”
Grace froze.
The name hit her like a physical blow. The air rushed out of her lungs, leaving her cold, lightheaded, and breathless.
Ethan Calloway.
Slowly, as if moving through a terrible, waking nightmare, Grace turned her head and looked through the clear glass wall of Suite 1004.
Lying in the center of the room, half-hidden by crisp white linens and a web of clear IV tubes, was the man she had loved five years ago.
His jaw was sharper now, carved thin by eight months of artificial nourishment. His dark hair was threaded with silver at the temples. But it was him. The man who had held her under the city stars, the man who had promised her a future before vanishing into thin air and leaving her with an empty apartment, a broken heart, and a secret growing inside her.
“Ethan...” Grace whispered, her voice dropping into a register so soft it was almost lost beneath the hum of the air conditioning.
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed instantly. He stepped between Grace and the glass wall, his gaze searching her pale face with sharp, ruthless scrutiny.
“You know him,” Malcolm stated flatly. It wasn't a question.
Grace swallowed hard, forcing her face into a mask of complete stone. She pulled her children tighter against her sides, feeling Owen trembling against her hip.
“I know who he is,” Grace lied, her voice tight and trembling. “Every billboard in Chicago has his picture on it. I didn't know he was sick.”
“He isn't sick. He is incapacitated,” Malcolm corrected, his tone dropping into a sinister murmur. “And tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, the board of Calloway Biomedical will vote to grant me full power of attorney over his estate and his medical directives. Which means I suggest you take your little family and disappear back to whatever gutter you crawled out of.”
“Mr. Calloway, wait—” Dr. Shaw called out from inside the room, running to the doorway holding a printout of continuous thermal telemetry. “You need to see this. During the five minutes these children were in the room, Ethan’s cortical response jumped from zero to forty-two percent. His heart rate synchronized with the little girl's voice!”
Victoria grabbed the paper printout directly from Dr. Shaw’s hand and tore it in half.
“It’s an artifact error, Leonard,” Victoria snapped, her voice trembling with hidden panic. “The sensors were disturbed when the boy bumped the bed. Clear this hallway now!”
Malcolm motioned to the security guards. “Escort this woman off the premises immediately. If she or her children set foot on hospital grounds again, have them arrested for criminal trespass.”
The large guard reached for Grace’s shoulder, but Grace didn't wait for him to touch her. She lifted Lily into her arms, grabbed Owen’s small hand, and turned her back on Malcolm Calloway.
As she stepped into the opening elevator, Owen looked up at her with wide, terrified eyes.
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“Mommy,” Owen whispered, pulling at her sleeve. “When Lily sang your song... the sleeping man squeezed my hand. And he wept.”
Grace pressed her back against the elevator wall as the doors slid shut, hiding her tears from her children as the car descended into the dark depths of the hospital.
