Chapter 3

3

The darkness was suffocating.

In the silence, the only sound was my own pained whimpering.

I knew the radiation leak would start any second.

I couldn't give up. Not like this.

I dragged myself across the floor, feeling around blindly for anything I could use.

Suddenly, the heavy lab door groaned open.

A beam of light pierced the darkness. Someone was shouting my name, their voice laced with panic.

"Sienna Miller!"

It was Lincoln Hayes, my senior from college and the founder of this facility.

"Lincoln... help me... the baby..."

I managed to choke out those few words before my strength failed. I spiraled into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.

Lincoln was sitting by my side, his eyes red and full of worry.

I noticed the heavy blankets over me. My stomach was flat.

My heart skipped a beat. My voice was a broken whisper.

"Lincoln, where's my baby?"

He looked away, his eyes darkening with grief.

After a long silence, he spoke in a low, hollow tone.

"You fell hard in that lab, Sienna. The baby was already struggling from the stress. The lab was too far from the hospital... he was stillborn."

"Sienna, I'm so sorry. I didn't get there fast enough."

Lincoln bowed his head in shame, as if this were his fault.

Tears carved paths down my cheeks. My baby was gone. Again.

But I knew Lincoln wasn't to blame.

The blood was on Quentin's hands.

He had sacrificed his own son for the sake of his mistress's brat.

I would make them pay. I would make them wish they had died in that lab instead.

That night, I had Lincoln go back to the lab. I told him to finish what had been started. He set the entire building ablaze.

The flammable materials inside ensured the fire was absolute.

The lab went up in a massive explosion that shook the surrounding neighborhood.

The authorities were called immediately.

The blast was so powerful that even after the fire department spent twenty-four hours dousing the flames, the building was a hollowed-out skeleton of ash.

As the person officially on shift that night, Cecily Brooks received the call.

When the investigators asked her for details, she was vague and evasive. As soon as Quentin returned to her room with a coffee, she hung up the phone.

When Quentin asked who it was, she lied and said it was a telemarketer.

But Quentin eventually saw the news. He rushed to the site of the explosion.

There was nothing left but jagged concrete and twisted metal. Nothing could have survived that inferno.

Quentin lost it. He tried to charge into the ruins, screaming my name.

"Sienna! Sienna, where are you?"

"Sienna! This isn't funny! Answer me!"