Chapter 124
[Rose's POV]
I was holding James again.
Not the elderly patriarch, but my baby. Six months old, wrapped in the soft blue blanket I'd knitted during my pregnancy. His tiny fingers curled around mine with that fierce infant grip, and Robert sat beside me on the grass, his voice reading aloud from Scientific American while autumn sunlight filtered through the oak trees behind our Los Alamos apartment.
The moment felt crystalline. Perfect. Real.
James made that small sound he always made when content—half sigh, half coo—and I pressed my lips to his downy hair. Robert's hand found my shoulder, warm and solid, and for those precious seconds the war didn't exist. The project didn't exist. There was only this: my family, safe, together.
Then the dream twisted.
The sunlight dimmed. Robert's voice faded mid-sentence. I looked down and my arms were empty, the blanket dissolving like smoke between my fingers.
"Mom!"
James's voice, but younger. Terrified. I spun toward the sound and found myself standing in a forest I didn't recognize. Deep autumn, the trees skeletal against a gray sky. Dead leaves thick underfoot.
"Mom! Help me!"
His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, bouncing off the bare branches. I started running, my feet sliding on the wet leaves, branches catching at my clothes and hair.
"Jimmy!" I called back. "Where are you?"
But the forest only grew denser. Fog rolled in between the trees, thick and cold, smelling of smoke and something chemical I couldn't quite place.
"Mom, please!"
His voice was getting farther away. I ran harder, lungs burning, but the ground started to slope downward and suddenly there was no ground at all—
I fell.
The sensation of falling stretched out impossibly long, my stomach dropping away as darkness swallowed everything. I tumbled through absolute blackness, weightless and terrified, while fragments of memory flashed around me like broken film reels.
The classified folder on my Los Alamos desk. The Manhattan Project seal. James's small hand waving goodbye as I left for work that last morning.
The smell of wood smoke from the Sullivan Estate fireplace. Magnolia blossoms drifting across manicured lawns.
Stage lights blazing down during the competition. Sophia's voice harmonizing with mine.
The amber glow of whiskey in cut crystal. Alexander's worried face. The Mercedes's leather interior.
Wake up, something in my brain insisted. This isn't right. Wake up.
But I kept falling, and the images kept fragmenting, and time stopped making sense—
My eyes snapped open.
Cold. That was my first coherent thought. Not the abstract cold of fear or loss, but physical cold seeping up through my body from below. I was lying on something hard and rough.
I tried to move and couldn't. My shoulders screamed protest. My wrists—
The panic hit then, sharp and immediate. I was bound. Hands behind my back. Ankles tied together. The position forced my shoulders into an unnatural angle that sent stabbing pains down my arms.
Don't panic. Assess.
The directive came automatically, drilled into me by years of laboratory protocols and emergency procedures. Even as my heart hammered against my ribs, even as my breath came too fast and shallow, the trained part of my mind began cataloging information.
I was on my side on a wooden floor. Rough planks, unfinished. I could feel splinters against my cheek. The air was damp and cold, carrying that distinctive underground smell—earth and mildew and something else. Gasoline, maybe. Or oil.
I forced myself to breathe slowly. In through my nose, out through my mouth.
When the initial terror subsided enough for rational thought, I opened my eyes wider and tried to make sense of my surroundings.
The room was small. Maybe ten feet by twelve. Four walls of rough wood planking, the kind you'd find in an old barn or workshop. In one corner, a small window sat high on the wall—too high to reach even if I weren't restrained. Through its grimy glass, weak morning light filtered in, suggesting I'd been unconscious for hours.
The bar. Alexander. Whiskey.
The memory surfaced through the fog still clouding my thoughts. We'd been celebrating. I'd drunk alcohol—stupid, so incredibly stupid—and then everything had gone blurry and dark.
And now I was here.
I tested the bonds carefully. My wrists were secured behind my back with what felt like nylon rope, the kind used for rock climbing or sailing. Not amateur work—whoever had tied these knots knew what they were doing. The rope around my ankles was equally professional, tight enough to prevent movement but not so tight as to cut off circulation entirely.
My clothes were intact. Still wearing the same outfit from the bar—jeans and a simple blouse. But my pockets were empty. No phone. No wallet. No Sullivan family emergency card.
A wooden staircase led upward from one corner of the room. That confirmed my initial assessment: basement. Probably a standalone structure given the smell and temperature. Too cold for a heated building, too damp for anything with proper insulation.
I tried to push myself into a sitting position. The movement sent fresh waves of pain through my shoulders, but I gritted my teeth and managed it, getting my back against one wall. The new angle let me see more of the space.
Empty. Almost completely empty. No furniture, no equipment, nothing to suggest this room served any purpose except confinement. In the far corner, I spotted what might have been the remnants of an old workbench—just a few broken boards and some rusted nails.
Think. Who would do this? Why?
The rational part of my brain started running through possibilities even as fear tried to crowd out logic.
Lauren? She had motive—hatred for my interference with Christopher, with the family. But this seemed too direct for her. Lauren worked through manipulation, through careful social maneuvering. Kidnapping wasn't her style.
Sarah and Rachel? They were certainly furious after last night's exposure, but again, this felt too crude. Too risky. Sarah's weapons were reputation and social standing, not physical violence.
Someone connected to Carter? I'd exposed him on national television, destroyed his credibility. Maybe he had associates willing to exact revenge.
Or someone I hadn't even identified yet. Someone who saw me as a threat to interests I didn't know existed.
The uncertainty was almost worse than the fear. Not knowing who had taken me meant not knowing what they wanted. Ransom? Revenge? Something else entirely?
I tested the ropes again, more systematically this time. Pulling, twisting, trying to find any weakness in the knots. But whoever had tied me knew their craft. The more I struggled, the tighter the bonds seemed to become.
Stop. Save your energy.
I forced myself to stop fighting the ropes and instead study them more carefully. The knot pattern suggested military training or perhaps sailing experience. The rope itself was high-quality, synthetic fiber designed not to fray or loosen. Breaking free through brute force wasn't an option.
Which meant I needed to wait. Wait and observe and gather information until an opportunity presented itself.