“We need to figure this out,” Dr. Renee Swan growled, scrubbing her face. She looked so drawn, exhausted … all because I was doing my job. I should have left well-enough alone. This is your fault, Cullen. All your fault. Renee shot up, stopping my self-loathing. She paced angrily, clenching her hands into tight fists. “In three months, my husband is dead set on floating my daughter. On killing our child. All because he wants to make an example of her.” Her voice cracked with her hands flying to her face. “I can’t lose her. I can’t lose my sweet baby girl.”
“What did she say the last time you were granted a meeting with her? When you were last able to visit her?” my father asked. Renee choked out a sob and my mother scurried over to her, hugging her tightly. My father was getting frustrated, blinking to me. “Can you get Renee in again? It’s important for Renee to talk to Bella. We need more.”
“I’m trying, but the warden is a staunch supporter of the Chancellor,” I explained. “What Charlie Swan says is law according to Warden Pike. If Bella is in solitary confinement for her own protection, she is in solitary confinement. No outside visitors or interaction with the other prisoners.” When I worked in the prison, I visited Bella and each day, she lost more of the life in her eyes. It sparked slightly when I brought her food, but that flash of emotion was hatred for me.
Yeah, I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate me, too. This is my fault.
“I cannot believe Charlie,” Renee snapped, shrugging off my mother’s embrace. She stomped to the window and stared, sightlessly outside. Crossing her arms over her chest, she continued, “Our quarters are quite tense. I’ve taken to sleeping in Bella’s room. It’s the only way I can be close to her. He tried to convince me to come back to our room, but I said that I wouldn’t come back to him until he acted like a father and not as a Chancellor when it came to Bella. If I could, I’d leave him. But, he’s more concerned about fucking optics.”
“I miss Chancellor Molina,” my mother muttered, sitting down on the couch. “She had compassion. Hell, it was her compassion that prevented my death.”
“Because you did nothing wrong, my love,” Dad said, caressing her cheek. “You were attacked by an animal who got his just desserts. He hurt you and took away your choice. He paid for what he did to you with his life.”
“If Charlie was in charge, he probably would have floated Esme,” Renee grumbled, crossing back to the table, and picking up the tablet. She angrily swiped at it, shaking her head. “Ugh! We’re missing something. Bella told me to look at the oxygen scrubbers and the correlation between the increased hypoxia cases. What did she see that we’re not?!”
“What’s hypoxia?” I asked, my ears flaming with embarrassment. “I’m not a doctor and …”
“Apologies, son. Hypoxia is where you’re not getting enough oxygen to your vital systems,” Dad responded. His eyes scanned his tablet, trying to make sense of the numbers on the screen. “But, according to the computers, the scrubbers are working fine. I think?”
“It’s all gibberish to me,” Mom said, shaking her head. “I can teach simple algebraic equations, but that is …”
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “Let’s back up. What are the symptoms of hypoxia? And what happens to a person who has to deal with this condition long term?” I pressed. “Obviously, Bella is concerned about this if she’s adamant that something is wrong with the oxygen scrubbers and recyclers, causing hypoxia or whatever.”
“Symptoms include headaches, shortness of breath, a bluish tint to the skin, cough, confusion, and a slowing heart rate. If it continues for some time, people can lose their sight, with decreased blood flow to their extremities, causing them to turn gangrenous and, if untreated, they will eventually die,” Renee answered. Snapping her fingers, she looked back at her tablet. “Wait, let’s look at the trending cases of hypoxia. Where are they all located?”
“D-Block and E-Block,” Dad answered, reading from his tablet. “The inhabitants who are furthest away from promenade.”
“And the quarters that are packed to the gills,” I offered. “There are two to three families living in a room half this size.”
“I think I get what she’s trying to say,” Renee said. She pulled up another file on her tablet. “Holy shit, the oxygen scrubbers and recyclers are not providing enough oxygen to those locations on the Ark. It was buried deep within the environmental systems files. Carlisle, you wouldn’t have been able to see it. Hell, I wouldn’t have been able to see it. I had to use Charlie’s access codes.”
“The Chancellor’s office is covering this up,” I frowned.
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