“Son, it’s me, your mother! Hurry, save me!”
But the mask blocked her vision, and her fumbling hands were clumsy under the suffocating gas.
Ethan clicked his tongue in disgust:
“Can’t even pull off a mask properly. And you dare say you’re not Rachel’s blind mother?”
He clapped his hands.
The next moment, the gas pipe cover beside Margaret blew open, blasting her body ten meters across the chamber.
Bones cracked audibly—her ribs snapped. Her head lolled to the side as she fainted.
My pupils shrank.
Every piece of equipment in the institute could be controlled remotely. With the lab shut down, only the computer in Ethan’s control room could trigger that pipeline.
So he and Chloe weren’t just watching—they truly meant to kill us!
Ethan chuckled:
“Chloe, how was that acrobatics show?”
Chloe giggled, clapping:
“Amazing, Ethan! I want more!”
More toxic gas surged in, thickening the air into sticky dampness.
“Ethan, you’d kill your own mother? You’re a monster!”
I scrambled up, trying to rip off Margaret’s mask to prove her identity. But her face was a bloody ruin from the impact, the mask fused into her flesh. Peeling it back already revealed bone.
I froze mid-motion.
“Why stop? Too scared to finish?”
The mocking voice rang from the monitor:
“Rachel, even now you’re still trying to trick me? I called my mom’s assistant, Mr. Johnson. He said her car has been parked at the company all day. She never left!”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips.
Ethan would never know—Margaret had deliberately erased her tracks, even leaving her car behind, because she knew her purpose in visiting me wasn’t pure.
My nails dug deep into my palms as I finally set aside my pride and pleaded:
“Ethan Miller, what will it take for you to save me and my mom?”
Ethan’s tone carried no emotion whatsoever:
“Simple. Hand over the patent for your current research project to Chloe White, and I might consider sparing you and Mary Carter.”
A chill shot through my heart.
I glanced around the laboratory where I had poured in countless days and nights of effort. This project was the unfinished work my father, Robert Carter, had left behind. He had dedicated his life to it—and ultimately sacrificed himself for it.
If completed, it would push the United States’ military capabilities to an entirely new level.
After my father’s death, my mother cried herself blind.