Chapter 7 Signed In Blood

• Before I can ask anything, Victor pulls away from the curb and disappears into the rain, leaving me standing there with cold water soaking through my sleeves and my heart still thudding against my ribs.
• Then I remember what is inside my bag.
• It matters more than how Victor knows my address.
• I do not open the files until midnight.
• By then, my apartment is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the steady tap of rain against the glass. I draw the blinds, lock the door, and sit at my kitchen table with my laptop unplugged from the internet, as if that can somehow keep me safe from what I am about to find.
• At first, it is only fragments.
• Expense approvals routed through shell departments. Lists of anonymous subjects. Recovery reports with too many blacked-out lines and not enough survivors.
• My stomach tightens.
• I keep scrolling.
• Buried under administrative scans, there are mislabeled attachments. I find a set of authorization forms there.
• My mouth goes dry.
• Every page carries the Hale Biodyne insignia. Every page bears executive approval markings.
• And at the bottom of one form, in sharp black ink, is a signature.
• Victor Hale.
• I stare at it until the letters blur.
• Just a few hours ago, his breath was warm against my skin. And now his name sits in black ink beneath something rotten. I should feel vindicated. Instead, I feel sick.
• This is what I come here to prove. This is what I want. Evidence. Something real. Something ugly enough to justify every lie I tell to get inside that building.
• Then why does it feel like my chest is splitting open?
• I swallow hard and force myself to keep reading.
• Project dates. Subject relocation. Risk classifications.
• And then a set of initials in an older chain of correspondence: D.T. / N.T. inquiry risk escalation.
• My parents.
• I stop breathing.
• The screen swims in front of me. I grip the edge of the table so hard my fingers ache, but I keep going, my whole body shaking now.
• The rest of the document is corrupted.
• Missing pages. Broken attachments. Intentional gaps.
• Someone removes the part that matters most.
• By the time I return to Hale Biodyne the next morning, grief has hardened into something sharper.
• Purpose.
• I have proof Victor is tied to the research.
• Now I need proof of what was done to my parents.
• The chance comes before noon.
• A senior executive named Gerald Mercer sweeps onto the floor in a tailored navy suit and the kind of expression men wear when they believe cruelty is a management skill. He drops a stack of annotated reports on my desk.
• “These should have been reformatted an hour ago.”
• “I received them six minutes ago,” I say.
• He smiles thinly. “Then perhaps speed is not one of your strengths.”
• A few assistants glance over their screens and then away.
• I keep my voice level. “I can prioritize them now.”
• Mercer steps closer, his gaze flicking over my desk, my notes, my face. “I’m told Mr Hale has taken a sudden interest in keeping you around. I do hope that interest is based on competence.”
• The insult is deliberate. So is the implication.
• Heat rises under my skin, but I will not give this man the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
• “It is based on my work,” I say.
• “Then perhaps you should try doing more of it and less wandering.”
• The words land like a slap.
• Before I can answer, another voice cuts through the floor.
• “Mr Mercer.”
• The room stills.
• Victor stands at the end of the corridor, one hand in his pocket, expression flat enough to be lethal.
• Mercer straightens at once. “Victor.”
• “If you have time to harass my staff,” Victor says, walking toward us, “you have time to review the compliance discrepancies legal flagged this morning.”
• Mercer’s face tightens. “I was only…”
• “I know exactly what you were doing.” Victor stops beside my desk. “Do not do it again.”
• There is nothing raised in his voice. No obvious threat.
• That somehow makes it worse.
• Mercer glances at me, then back at Victor, and forces out, “Understood.” He leaves without another word.
• The entire floor exhales.
• I do not.
• Victor turns to me. For one impossible second, I think he might say something human. Something simple.
• Instead, he says, “Bring me the Limwell acquisition file.”
• Then he disappears into his office.
• I follow a moment later, the file in my hand. He is not behind his desk. He stands at the floor-to-ceiling window, one hand in his pocket, the city stretched out below him in cold gray light.
• “Mr Hale, the file,” I say quietly.
• For a long moment, he says nothing.
• Then, without turning, he asks, “Do you have any idea how much danger you’re putting yourself in, Miss Thorne?”
• I keep my voice even. “I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”
• That makes him turn.
• His gaze settles on me with unsettling precision. He crosses the room, takes the file from my hand, and sets it on the desk without opening it.
• “Stop what you’re doing,” he says. “Or you’re going to get yourself killed.”
• I hold his gaze, refusing to let him see the crack in my composure.
• “Now you’re threatening me, Mr Hale.”
• His expression stays flat, but something colder settles in his eyes.
• “Think what you want.”
• I force my voice to stay even. “Then what is this?”
• After a brief pause, he says, his expression unchanged, “A warning.”
• The words land harder than anger would have.
• “Go, Emily,” he says, his expression unreadable.
• He starts to walk away, then pauses.
• Without looking back, he adds, “And stop staying late alone.”
• But he doesn’t know I have already decided to break another rule.
• I use one of the media archive databases my parents taught me to search years ago. Cross-referencing the date of the fire with local incident photography too minor to make the main press feed. Old street shots. Emergency responders moving in sharp, frantic bursts beneath flashing lights. Bystanders hovering at the edge of history, their faces blurred by smoke, rain, and time.
• Most of it is useless.
• Smoke. Flames. Neighbours. Police tape.
• Then I find a wide-angle image taken across the street at 2:13 a.m.
• My blood turns to ice.
• There, half-obscured by the flashing lights and the crush of first responders, stands a tall young man in a dark coat. He is not facing the camera fully, but I know that posture now. That stillness. That impossible, carved profile.
• Victor Hale.
• At my parents’ fire.
• Five years ago.
• Long before I ever walked into his office.
• And in the corner of the image, stamped in old agency lettering, are eight words that make the floor drop out from under me.
• Photo withheld from initial publication by request.