Chapter 7 - THE REVERSAL
A deafening silence fell over the ruined library.
Dr. Sterling stood frozen, his hand locked in Noah’s tiny grip. The veins in Sterling’s arm suddenly swelled, turning a horrifying shade of deep, bruised black.
"Agh—! What... what are you doing to me?!" Sterling gasped, his voice breaking into a terrified screech. He tried to pull his arm back, but Noah’s small fingers seemed fused to his wrist like iron clamps.
"I don't just take the cold," Noah murmured, his voice sounding eerily distant, as if someone else were speaking through him. "I can give it back."
Sterling dropped the silver syringe. It shattered against the hardwood floor. The arrogant doctor fell to his knees, clutching his chest with his free hand. His face contorted in agony as his skin turned a sickly gray.
"My... my heart..." Sterling choked out, gasping for air. "It... it feels like it's freezing!"
The mercenary holding Noah dropped the boy in absolute panic, backing away as if the child were a venomous snake. "What did you do to the boss?!" the guard yelled, reaching for his sidearm.
"Marcus, now!" I screamed.
Marcus lunged into the room, tackling the distracted guard to the floor, disarming him with a swift blow to the jaw.
"Noah! Stop!" I rushed forward, grabbing Noah by his upper arms, careful not to touch his bare hands. "Noah, let him go! You'll kill him!"
Noah turned his head slowly to look at me. His pupils were completely dilated, making his eyes look like empty black voids. "He hurt children, Mr. Vale. He made them cry in the dark rooms. He deserves the cold."
"If you kill him, they win!" I pleaded, my voice breaking. "They'll call you a monster! They'll take you away from us, and I won't be able to protect you! Please, Noah... look at me! Look at Leo and Lila!"
Noah’s dark eyes shifted toward the corner of the room. Leo and Lila were huddled together, clutching Claire, staring at Noah not with fear, but with deep, heartbreaking empathy.
"Noah, please," Lila cried softly, holding out her small hand. "Don't be like them."
The words hit the boy like a physical blow. The strange dark resonance in his eyes flickered out. Noah gasped, releasing Sterling's wrist.
Sterling collapsed onto his side, curling into a fetal position, gasping violently for air, shuddering as if he had been pulled from an arctic lake. The black veins on his arm slowly receded, leaving his skin mottled and raw.
Noah crumpled into my arms, completely limp. The purple swelling on his own legs had vanished; the dark energy he had absorbed from the twins had been forcibly discharged into Sterling during the connection.
Outside, the distant wail of police sirens finally cut through the stormy night.
"The perimeter guards ran off!" Marcus called out from the hallway, checking his phone. "The local police department just broke through the front gates! Someone outside called 911 about the gunshots!"
Claire scrambled over to us, pulling Noah and me into her arms. The boy was shivering violently, his small chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.
I looked down at Dr. Sterling, who was lying on the floor, shivering, weeping silently in absolute defeat.
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"The police are here, Sterling," I said, my voice cold and hard as iron. "And my attorneys are right behind them. By morning, every federal agency in the country is going to know what Aegis was building in those laboratories."
Sterling looked up at me with pale, trembling lips. "You... you don't understand, Vale..." he whispered, his voice hoarse and broken. "We didn't create him... We found him. And he isn't the only one."
