Chapter 7 - The Edge of the Blade
Leo dropped to his knees on the white-tiled floor, wincing as the broken shards of glass bit into his pants and scraped against his legs. His hands, trapped inside thick, heavy blocks of hardened white concrete, felt impossibly heavy and clumsy. He inched forward on the slick tile, ignoring the sharp pain in his knuckles, until his fingers brushed against the rubber-coated handles of the heavy metal bolt cutters lying among the shattered glass.
"Come on... work," Leo muttered under his breath, his teeth gritted as he struggled to maneuver the awkward, cement-locked limbs to grip the tool.
Outside in the alley, the sound of shouting and heavy footsteps echoed through the open doorway. Chloe was cornered near the delivery van, her back pressed against the side panel of the vehicle. Dr. Harrison stood just a few feet away, the gleaming scalpel held low in his hand, his silver hair plastered to his forehead by the pouring rain.
"Give me the keys, Chloe," Dr. Harrison said, his voice deadly quiet. "We are going back inside. The procedure cannot be left half-finished. Leo is waiting, and so is your mother's legacy."
"You murdered her," Chloe choked out, wiping the rain and tears from her face with her sleeve. "You didn't fix her teeth. You replaced her because she wanted a divorce. I found the diary entry behind the dental charts. She knew what you were doing to those patients."
Dr. Harrison didn't deny it. Instead, a chilling, placid smile spread across his wet face. "Perfection requires sacrifice, Chloe. People are fragile. They decay. They rot from the inside out with doubts and betrayals. But porcelain and plaster? They endure. Just like the models in the basement archive. Just like you will, if you don't step inside that van right now."
In the mortuary lab, Leo finally managed to wedge the heavy metal bolt cutters between his two concrete-encased fists. With a guttural grunt of exertion, he squeezed the handles together, using the leverage of his entire upper body.
CRACK.
The concrete encasing his left hand split down the middle, a large chunk breaking off and clattering against the stainless steel table. Fresh air hit his numb, aching skin, sending a painful rush of blood back into his fingers. He didn't waste a second. He repositioned the tool and squeezed again.
CRASH.
The right concrete block shattered entirely, sending white dust and gray rubble flying across the floor. Free at last, Leo’s hands throbbed with fiery pain, raw and bleeding from the abrasive plaster. But he could move his fingers. He could grip.
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He snatched a heavy surgical scalpel from the floor, pulled himself up, and sprinted toward the open doorway leading out into the rain-slicked alley.
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