Chapter 5 - I Entered the Abandoned Hospital to Save Clara, and Found My Mother’s Name on the Wall
Reyes wanted me to stay behind.
I showed him the photograph.
He studied the message twice.
“That's a trap.”
“I know.”
“We can protect her without sending you in.”
“Then do it quickly.”
He arranged surveillance around the hospital.
I would approach only after officers reached the entrances.
Lucas insisted on coming.
Mara refused to let him.
“He keeps secrets,” she said.
Lucas looked at the floor.
“I kept one to protect you.”
“You don't get to decide that anymore.”
We reached the hospital before dawn.
Rain dripped through broken gutters.
The sign had lost half its letters.
Inside, the corridors smelled of bleach.
Not dust.
Someone was still cleaning them.
Reyes spoke softly into his radio.
I followed him past a locked ward.
Names had been written across the wall.
Some were circled.
Some were crossed out.
I stopped beside one familiar surname.
HAYES.
Beneath it was my mother's first name.
DIANE.
My mother had died seven years earlier.
I remembered signing the papers.
I remembered the funeral.
I touched the painted letters.
A woman spoke from the darkness.
“Evelyn?”
My knees weakened.
That voice had once sung me to sleep.
A figure stepped beneath the emergency light.
Her hair was gray.
Her face was thinner.
May you like
But her eyes were my mother's.
“I never died,” she whispered.
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