Chapter 8 - The Shadow in the Garden
Dr. Thorne filled the glass syringe from the brown bottle. The liquid inside was thick, pale yellow, and viscous. He flicked the glass barrel with his finger, displacing a tiny air bubble, and stepped toward the IV port.
Julian screamed inside his head. MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!
He forced every atom of his remaining willpower into his right foot. He imagined a fire consuming his toes; he imagined a sharp needle plunging into his calf; he imagined the teak floor beneath his feet.
Nothing moved. The drug held him fast.
Thorne reached for the rubber injection port on the IV line.
CRASH.
The heavy glass pane of the bedroom's arched window shattered inward with a deafening explosion.
Glass rain showered across the hardwood floor and the foot of the mahogany bed. Cold night air rushed into the warm room, swirling the silk curtains like white banners.
A heavy iron garden lantern, hurled from the balcony outside, landed on the rug, its candle flickering violently before dying out.
Thorne jumped backward, dropping the glass syringe. It shattered against the floorboards, its thick yellow contents pooling into the cracks.
"What the hell—!" Thorne yelled, reaching into his pocket.
A dark figure vaulted over the shattered stone windowsill.
It wasn't a man. It was Clara’s father—Dr. Marcus Miller.
He was forty-five, gaunt, his face covered in dark stubble, wearing a filthy rain jacket over a faded surgical scrub shirt. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, fixed on Victoria. In his right hand, he held a stainless-steel bone-resection saw—a heavy, jagged surgical instrument he had stolen from his former clinic.
"You lied to me, Victoria!" Miller roared, his voice hoarse, insane with rage.
Behind him, leaning against the window frame on the balcony outside, stood Clara. Her gold satin dress was torn at the hem, smeared with dirt from the garden trellises she had climbed, but her face remained terrifyingly calm.
"Marcus!" Victoria gasped, backing away toward the door, her hands flying to her throat. "Are you out of your mind? I have security on the perimeter!"
"Your security is asleep in the guardhouse!" Miller spat, blood dripping from a deep cut on his forearm where glass had sliced him. "You told me Clara would just deliver the line! You told me this was a psychological therapy technique to help your son recover from a hysterical block!"
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"Put that instrument down, Marcus," Thorne commanded, stepping between Miller and Victoria, reaching for a heavy brass desk lamp.
"I checked his medical records while Clara was in the carriage house!" Miller screamed, his knuckles turning white around the grip of the bone saw. "You've been dosing him with Succinylcholine derivatives and heavy-metal neurotoxins for four years! You didn't cure him—you poisoned him!"
