Chapter 3
The hallway stretched like a gray tunnel under flickering fluorescent lights. Every shadow looked like a waiting guard, every distant creak sounded like approaching footsteps. Elena guided Lily close to the wall, their bare and sneaker-clad feet making no sound against the polished floor. They reached the administrative wing, a maze of glass-fronted offices that housed the hospital's dark secrets.
Elena remembered seeing a schematic of the building during her initial intake weeks ago. The maternity records were digitized, but physical intake logs were kept in Room 304—the office of the head administrator, Dr. Harrison. Harrison had signed Elena’s admission under a false diagnosis, marking her as a psychiatric patient to strip away her legal rights the moment she delivered.
The door to Room 304 was unlocked. Elena slipped inside, pulling Lily behind her and locking the heavy oak door with a quiet click. The room smelled of old paper, leather, and expensive cologne. Moonlight cut across a mahogany desk littered with medical files.
"Sit here, Lily," Elena whispered, pointing to a high-backed leather chair.
Elena rushed to the filing cabinets. Her trembling fingers skimmed through the hanging folders: Admissions, Transfers, Surrogacy, Disposals. The word Disposals caught her eye. She pulled the folder out. Inside were records of infants designated for re-assignment—babies born to mothers deemed 'unstable' or 'non-compliant,' legally erased by forged signatures.
She found her own file: Elena Vance. Attached to it was a birth certificate listing the baby girl she had delivered two hours ago, but the father’s name was blank, marked for urgent revision by Victor Sterling’s legal team. A second document outlined the swap: her healthy baby girl for a pre-selected infant meant to keep Elena bound to Victor through a shared secret.
"Mom, someone is outside," Lily whispered urgently from her chair, her eyes wide with terror as she pointed toward the frosted glass door.
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Shadows shifted outside in the hallway. Heavy footsteps stopped directly in front of Room 304. The brass doorknob jiggled. It was locked, but a key scraped into the deadbolt from the outside. Panic spiked in Elena’s chest. There was no time to replace the files. She grabbed her own folder, stuffing it into the deep pockets of her trench coat, and scanned the room for an exit.
A private restroom door stood ajar in the corner of the office. Elena grabbed Lily’s hand, diving into the tiny tiled space just as the main office door clicked open. Through the narrow crack of the restroom door, they watched a tall figure step into the office, the silhouette unmistakably belonging to Dr. Harrison himself.
