PART 3: The Vanguard Secret
The doctor immediately grabbed the wall phone to call security.
Seeing this, the two suits slowly backed out of the room, but the threat hung heavy in the air.
“This isn’t over, Nora,” the tall man warned before the door swung shut. “You can’t hide him forever.”
Nora collapsed into a chair beside Leo’s bed, her heart hammering against her chest like a trapped bird.
The doctor turned to her, his face pale. “Ms. Nora, I don't know what's going on, but security is locking down this floor. You need to tell me what you want to do.”
Nora looked at Leo, who had peeked out from under the blanket, his eyes red and terrified.
“Leo,” Nora said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Why did those men say Rachel stole something?”
Leo reached into his small hospital gown and pulled out a tiny, silver pendant hanging from a thick cord around his neck.
It looked like an ordinary antique locket, but when Nora touched it, she felt a strange, cold metallic texture.
“Mom told me never to take it off,” Leo whispered. “She said it contains the truth about what they did to her. And what they did to you.”
“To me?” Nora’s voice was barely a breath. “What do you mean, to me?”
“She said they used your DNA, Nora. Seven years ago, when you were in the hospital after your car crash.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Nora remembered that crash perfectly.
She had been in a coma for two weeks at a private medical facility funded by a mysterious scholarship she had received.
She had always thought it was charity.
But now, the puzzle pieces were crashing together in a horrifying picture.
They hadn't saved her life out of kindness.
They had harvested her.
Leo wasn't her biological child through birth—he was a product of illegal genetic experimentation, created using her stolen DNA and Rachel’s expertise.
Rachel hadn’t abandoned her ten years ago; she had been running away from the very monsters who had exploited them both.
And Rachel had raised Leo as her own, protecting him until they finally caught up to her.
“We have to get out of here,” Nora said, standing up suddenly. “Doctor, they will come back. Security guards won't stop men like that.”
The doctor hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll sign his discharge papers under a false name. But you need to move fast.”
Ten minutes later, Nora was pulling her car out of the hospital parking lot, Leo buckled tightly into the back seat.
The rain was pouring even harder now, blinding her as she drove aimlessly through the dark streets of Portland.
She checked her rearview mirror.
A pair of dark headlights was trailing exactly three cars behind her.
They were being followed.
Nora gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white.
She needed a plan, and she needed it now.
Suddenly, Leo’s phone—a cheap, burner device Rachel had given him—began to buzz in his small pocket.
Nora reached back and snatched it, pressing it to her ear.
May you like
“Nora,” a cracked, battered voice gasped on the other end.
It was Rachel.
