An Nhien’s hands went
still. For the first time, she heard in that cold voice not the wish to drive
her away, but a genuine warning.
Khai Minh believed that
anyone who stood close to him would sooner or later be swallowed by the
darkness of the Lam house, like his parents, like the people who had vanished
from the records, maybe even like Mai Ngoc.
“You’re afraid I’ll die?”
Khai Minh turned his face
away. The phone buzzed again.
A message from an unknown
number. An Nhien opened it and read it slowly.
“Want him alive? Come
down to the basement of Research Lab Seven. The cabinet next to the cryo-sample
room. The red raincoat is there.”
“I have to go.”
An Nhien looked at Khai
Minh.
“This could be a trap.”
“I know.”
“You know, and you’re still
going?”
“If a trap is baited with
the one thing that can prove I’m not insane, do you really think I can sit here
and wait?”
“I’ll call the police.”
“Which police? The ones who
wrapped up the accident in a few days and closed the file, or the ones who’ll
tip them off before I even arrive?”
“So you plan to go down
there alone?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t see where you’re
going.”
“My ears are sharp enough.”
An Nhien drew a slow
breath.
In her mind rose Dong’s
face, lying in that hospital bed, an IV still taped to his hand. She understood
that going with Khai Minh meant walking herself straight toward danger. Did a
big sister have the right to gamble her own life when her little brother still
needed her? The question shamed her, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist.
Khai Minh heard the change
in her breathing.
“Stay here.”
“You’re the one who just
said you don’t trust anyone in this house.”
“That’s exactly why you
have to stay.”
An Nhien looked at him, and
it struck her all at once: the man in front of her was using the clumsiest
possible method to protect her. He didn’t know how to ask someone to keep clear
of danger with gentle words, so all he had left was to give an order.
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“You can fire me again once
we’re out of there.”
“Tran An Nhien.”
“Lam Khai Minh.”
She said his full name, her
voice quiet but unyielding.
“You want to find the
truth. I won’t stop you. But don’t turn the search for truth into a way of
killing yourself and then call it revenge. You can’t see where you’re going.
But my eyes are sharp, I can read, and I can handle a situation. You need
me with you.”
Khai Minh bit down on his
lip. You need me-the phrase seemed to press against the deepest part of
his pride. But this time, he didn’t deny it.
Night fell. The two of
them entered Vinh An Hospital through the rear delivery entrance.
An Nhien walked on Khai
Minh’s left, steadying him by the elbow and matching her pace to his. The
corridor of the research wing had been abandoned for a long time, the lights
burning only at intervals, the smell of damp and old chemicals clinging to the
air.
At the basement door, he
swiped his card.
A red light flicked on.
“The card’s been revoked.”
Khai Minh tilted his head.
He heard the lock mechanism restart after a beat of unnatural silence.
“This isn’t a coincidence.”
“You mean someone knows we’re
here?”
An Nhien’s phone buzzed.
“Door code: 1350.”
She read out the four
digits. Khai Minh went rigid, his hand drifting unconsciously to the watch his
mother had left him.
“Enter it.”
An Nhien keyed in the code.
The lock sprang open.
The steel door cracked
ajar, and cold air spilled out from within.
She stepped through first.
Khai Minh froze for a
second. In that instant, he remembered the rainy night years ago, his mother
telling him, too, to go out first. He had crawled out of the car, and she had been
left behind in a sea of flame. Now An Nhien was stepping ahead of him into a
place that was so plainly a trap. The panic surged up so hard he reached out to
pull her back.
An Nhien turned.
“Khai Minh?”
He gripped the cane
tightly, then slowly lowered his hand.
“Don’t stand too far from
me.”
She went still, then
answered softly.
“Okay.”
The storage room was dark
and cold. The flashlight beam swept across rows of metal cabinets, a few
protective suits hanging crooked on their hooks, file boxes stained with soot,
and a frosted glass door leading through to the cryo-sample room.
“There are six cabinets.”
“Read each number to me.”
An Nhien opened the first.
Inside were only old gloves. The second held a discolored protective suit. At
the third, the metal door was jammed. She hauled on it, and a shrill screech of
metal rang out.
Khai Minh went rigid on the
spot.
That sound stabbed straight
into his memory. The shriek of the deforming car door. The crack of splitting
glass. His mother gasping for breath in the reek of gasoline.
Minh, get out of the
car.
His breathing turned
ragged. The hand on the cane began to shake.
An Nhien noticed and
quickly laid a hand on his wrist.
“You’re in the basement of
Vinh An.”
Khai Minh didn’t answer.
“I’m standing right next to
you. There’s no rain. There’s no car here.”
She spoke slowly, until his
breathing gradually steadied. Khai Minh hated her seeing him weak, but this
time, he didn’t push her hand away.
“Keep going.”
The third cabinet was
empty. The fourth held only a few tool cases. The fifth had a broken lock. When
An Nhien touched the handle of the sixth, Khai Minh’s head snapped up.
“Stop.”
“What is it?”
“There’s an electrical
sound behind the wall.”
A relay clicked, dry and
sharp.
The steel door behind them
slammed shut. An Nhien lunged and hauled at it. The ceiling light died. A
second later, a red warning light flared on, drowning the whole room in the
color of blood. The ventilation system shrieked. From a seam in the wall, a
thin white mist began to pour out.
An Nhien clamped a hand
over her nose.
“There’s toxic gas.”
Khai Minh shouted, pulling
her back from the draft.
“Don’t breathe deep.”
The internal speaker
crackled, and a man’s voice, distorted, rang out.
“Mr. Lam, was the red
raincoat hard to find?”
Khai Minh heard it and felt
his whole body go cold. The one man who had just confirmed he wasn’t insane had
spoken again.
“Who are you? Come out
here!”
He shouted it. An Nhien
whipped around to look at him. He stood very still.
“I’m fine.”
But her voice had already gone
hoarse. Tiny red dots had surfaced on her wrist. Khai Minh remembered what his
mother had told him as a boy: MK-2, a biological sample buried in the D-17
trial files. If D-17 ever spread out into the community, it had the potential
to kill on a mass scale; anyone who breathed in that toxin would die. That was
exactly why his mother had refused to release it to the market, and had thrown
herself into researching an antidote. She’d once told him there was a single
trial sample that could reverse the nerve damage D-17 caused.
Can Khai Minh save An Nhien before it’s too late?
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