“MOMMY! HELP ME! MOMMY—”
The audio cut to a flat line of dead static.
The Breaking Point
I dropped the recorder, a sound tearing from my throat that didn’t even sound human. It was a primal, feral howl of pure, unadulterated rage and grief. I slammed my fists against the hardwood floor, screaming until my vision blurred into a vignette of darkness.
My son didn’t just collapse. He was murdered. Tortured and murdered in the name of science, right under my nose, while I was sitting at my office desk thinking he was learning long division.
“They did that to him,” I whispered, the rage hardening inside me, turning into a cold, lethal resolve. “They killed my baby.”
“They’re going to kill the rest of us too,” Maya sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Randy figured it out. He noticed the wires in his blazer. The night before he died, he broke into Thorne’s office while everyone was at the pep rally. He stole the journal and the prototype device. He hid them in his Spider-Man backpack. He told me, ‘If anything happens to me, Maya, you have to get this to my mom on Mother’s Day. It’s the only day she won’t be at work, the only day she’ll be home to listen.’ He knew, Ms. Evans. He knew they were going to kill him for what he took.”
I looked at the journal. I flipped through the pages. Page after page of children’s names. Some had checkmarks next to them. Others had the word “DISPOSED” stamped in black ink.
Suddenly, a loud, heavy thud resonated from the front porch.
Maya shrieked, instantly scrambling backward into the kitchen hallway.
My heart leaped into my throat. The doorbell didn’t ring this time. Instead, the handle of the front door began to violently rattle. Someone was trying to force it open.
“Open the door, Ms. Evans,” a voice called out from the other side. It was calm, polite, and horrifyingly familiar. It was Principal Vance. “We know you have a guest. And we know she brought you something that belongs to the school.”
“Go away!” I yelled, grabbing the backpack and shoving the journal and recorder back inside, my hands shaking violently. “I’m calling the police!”
A chilling laugh came from the other side of the wood. “The police? Who do you think handed us the GPS coordinates of the girl’s phone, Ms. Evans? We own this town. We own your son’s medical records. And if you don’t open this door in the next ten seconds, we will be forced to report a tragic gas leak at this address.”
No Way Out
“The back door!” I hissed to Maya, grabbing her arm and hauling the backpack over my shoulder.
We ran toward the kitchen, but as we reached the glass sliding doors that led to the backyard, my heart sank. Standing on my patio were two tall men in dark grey tactical suits, their faces obscured by mirrored visors. One of them held a heavy, specialized device shaped like a megaphone, pointing it directly at the glass.
“They’ve surrounded the house,” Maya whispered in absolute despair. “They’re going to use the frequency on us.”
CRACK.
The front door wood began to splinter under a heavy blow.
Trapped. We were completely trapped. I looked down at the bright red Spider-Man backpack, then at the terrified child beside me, and finally at the photo of my smiling boy on the mantle.
I had lost my son, but I was damned if I was going to let them kill this little girl.
As the glass of the back door began to vibrate with a low, agonizing hum that made my ears bleed, I noticed a small, blinking blue button on the side of the metallic device sticking out of the backpack—a button labeled “EMERGENCY BROADCAST BYPASS.”
If I pressed it, what would happen? Would it kill us instantly, or would it broadcast the truth to the world?
Before I could make a choice, the back glass shattered inward into a million deadly shards, and the front door was kicked off its hinges with a deafening bang.
Through the dust of the collapsing entryway, Dr. Thorne stepped into my living room, a wicked, triumphant smile playing on his lips as he raised a strange, silver-barreled weapon directly at my chest.
“Happy Mother’s Day, Ms. Evans,” he sneered. “Now, give me the bag, or join your son.”
My finger hovered over the blinking blue button.
