Chapter 3

Horace Holden descended the stairs.

The seventy-year-old patriarch moved slowly, his black cane striking each step with authority. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept over the chaos in the hall. Gideon, dripping with coffee. Meredith, standing on her tiptoes to avoid the glass. And the mud-covered creature huddled in the corner.

Gideon immediately straightened his spine, ignoring the wet stain on his shirt. "Father. We were just dealing with a situation."

Horace ignored him. He walked straight past his son and stopped in front of Cilla. He looked down at her with pure disdain.

"Pathetic," Horace spat. He tapped the tip of his cane on the rug, right next to a clump of mud that had fallen from Cilla's hair. "The main line produces a vegetable."

Cilla flinched. She scrambled backward on her hands and knees, desperate to get away from the cane. Her back hit a glass pane, pushing it open. She tumbled backward into the adjoining conservatory.

She landed hard on the stone floor, right between rows of lush, exotic plants. Mud smeared across the white petals of a nearby flower.

Horace's face turned purple. "Get her out of there! Those are my Amazonian orchids!"

Cilla lay on the floor, her cheek pressed against the cool stone. Her eyes locked onto the plant she had just dirtied. The white petals. The pink spots on the stamen. The purple-red veins on the leaves.

Her brain shifted gears. The fog of madness vanished, replaced by crystal-clear data.

That's not an orchid. That's an Amazonian Ghost Lily variant. And it's blooming in a heated room.

Horace took a step toward the conservatory, his mouth open to yell again. But his foot suddenly froze in mid-air. His entire body locked up.

The pollen is highly volatile at room temperature, the voice in his head echoed, calm and clinical. It's releasing a neurotoxin. Chronic inhalation causes irreversible myocardial failure.

Horace's eyes went wide. He looked around wildly, searching for the person who had just spoken. But there was no one near him. Just Gideon and Meredith by the door, and the crazy girl on the floor.

At the rate he spends two hours a day in this room, he has maybe a year left. He'll drop dead of a very natural-looking heart attack.

The world tilted. Horace felt a hammer blow to his chest, but it wasn't his heart. It was the sheer, terrifying realization of the truth.

He stared at Cilla. Her lips were sealed. Her eyes were vacant. But the voice... the voice had come from inside his own head. And it had just saved his life.

Decades of survival instincts kicked in. He didn't have time to question how. He only had time to act.

Horace gasped, his hand flying to his chest. "My heart!" he wheezed. He made his face turn red, his breathing ragged and shallow. He let his knees buckle.

Reginald the butler screamed, "Mr. Holden!" He lunged forward, catching the old man before he hit the floor.

The hall exploded into panic. Gideon yelled for a doctor. Meredith started crying.

Cilla stayed curled up by the flowers, her body trembling. But inside, she felt a cold sense of satisfaction.

Not bad, old man. Good timing.

Horace, lying limp in the butler's arms, felt his eyelid twitch. He almost broke character.

I'm being poisoned, he thought, panic and rage swirling in his gut. And I can hear my granddaughter's thoughts.

The side door burst open. Dr. Cromwell, the family physician, ran in with his medical bag. He knelt beside Horace, pulling out a stethoscope.

Horace grabbed the doctor's wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. He pulled the man close.

"Lock down the conservatory," Horace whispered, his voice deadly serious despite his "weakness." "Take that plant. Root, stem, soil. Take it to the private lab for a full toxicology screen. Now."

Gideon tried to step forward. "Father, what-"

Security guards stepped in his path, blocking him.

The medical team lifted Horace onto a stretcher. As they wheeled him toward the medical wing, Horace turned his head. He looked directly at Cilla, still cowering on the floor. His eyes were cold, calculating, and utterly terrified.