Chapter 4 - Inside Briar House
The interior of Briar House smelled of industrial disinfectant, damp concrete, and old despair. The heavy oak doors had been left unlocked in the frantic haste of the facility’s evacuation. Emergency exit signs buzzed with a low, flickering electrical hum, casting long, eerie green shadows down the long, linoleum-lined corridors.
Ethan moved through the hallways like a dark storm, his eyes scanning every door plaque: Dormitory A, Isolation Ward, Medical Intake, Administration.
“Clear!” Marcus shouted from down the hall, waving Ethan over toward a heavy steel-reinforced door marked Director’s Office.
Ethan kicked the door open with a single, brutal strike of his boot. The frame splintered, and the door swung inward, revealing a ransacked office. File cabinets were emptied onto the floor, shredded paper littered the carpet, and a desktop computer was still humming softly, its hard drive physically smashed by a hammer.
But across the room, sitting huddled beneath an overturned wooden desk in the corner, was a frightened young staff member—a terrified nurse in her late twenties wearing a white lab coat, her hands trembling over her head.
“Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!” she whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut.
Ethan crossed the room in two strides, grabbing the edges of the desk and flipping it effortlessly aside. He crouched down, grabbing the nurse by the lapels of her coat and hauling her to her feet with terrifying force.
“Where are they?” Ethan demanded, his face inches from hers. “Where did they take Lucas and Aaron?”
“I—I don't know names! I’m just a night nurse!” she choked out, tears streaming down her face. “Mr. Rusk... he received a priority call an hour before you arrived. He loaded the remaining children into two unmarked transport vans bound for the airfield in Columbus!”
“Which airfield?” Marcus snapped, stepping up beside Ethan with his tablet ready.
“The private executive airstrip off Route 42!” she gasped. “They’re flying them out of the state! The private jet belongs to Vanguard Global Logistics! If they take off, you’ll never see them again!”
Ethan released her abruptly. He turned on his heel, keying his satellite comms unit as he strode back out into the corridor.
“Marcus, get the choppas in the air right now. Route 42 executive airstrip. Coordinate with state police to scramble an immediate airspace lockdown. If any private jet moves an inch off that tarmac without my personal clearance, blow its tires out.”
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“On it, Boss!” Marcus replied, sprinting toward the exit ahead of him.
As Ethan rushed back toward the waiting vehicles, a chilling thought struck him like ice water in his veins. If the people running Briar House had gone to such extreme lengths to hide his sons for five years, an airfield transfer wasn't just a relocation—it was an erasure.
