The floodwaters coiled around the thighs of the unconscious Lena, glowing an eerie bioluminescent blue due to the effect of the sedative. Within the rubble of the bookstore, Eleanor Calloway was in an abandoned and mythic state, lost among the discarded dolls, billowing her designer lab coat upon the swelling tide of chemistry. Lena held on to Ryan as he struggled to throw himself forward against the collapsing poetry section's shelves.
"The tunnels are pumping stations," he shouted over the gurgling roar, water sloshing his collarbone and leaving a neon line on his skin. "Dad's blueprints- he marked them as 'auxiliary reservoirs' but they're delivery lines for the sedative. The whole marina's a distribution network."
Now, the pieces were connecting grotesquely: storm inundation, drugged townsfolk, obliterated memory, by Charles' designs that incorporated James Bennett's marina plans to add lethality to the biopharmaceuticals division's product.
Matthew's gnarled hand broke through the water near him, holding fast to a watertight folio that Lena recognized instinctively as the field notes belonging to the old lady. The pages were whole, thanks to Margaret's compulsive habit of laminating everything. As Lena reached for it, the folio opened to a diagram of the old lighthouse with the too-thick cross-section foundation duly annotated in Margaret's cramped handwriting:
*Antidote synthesis chamber. J.B. final design. Activation sequence: 7-3-1.*
Ryan inhaled tightly. "The lighthouse wasn't just a landmark. Dad built it a fail-safe."
The crack of gunfire echoed from the staircase. Tom Calloway, walking through the fluorescent flood, aimed his service weapon at Matthew's bobbing head. "No more family reunions." He oozed blood from the hairline scraped by the demolition shot. "Either give me the old lady's notes or I'll fill the tunnels with Phase Two."
The heart of Lena reverberated at her throat. Phase Two, the compound referred in those biotech files that Sophie found. The one that didn't just erase memories but eradicated the hippocampus.
Ryan subtly shifted in front of her, fingers brushing on the construction knife strapped to his calf. "You'd dose yourself too, Tom."
Tom's smile was a razor cut. "We're Calloways. We have immunity."
The discovery hit Lena like a physical blow: the family's storied "iron constitutions" were not genetic. They had been contextually inoculating themselves for decades.
Matthew chose that moment to sink his teeth into tom's gun arm.
All hell broke loose.