Chapter 14 - The Choice That Broke Boone
We escaped through the underground tunnel beneath Riverbend.
But Boone stayed behind.
He had been shot.
“Go!” he shouted.
I refused.
“I'm not leaving you.”
“You have Emma.”
“I have both of you.”
Rachel grabbed my arm.
“Claire, if you stay, everyone dies.”
Boone looked at me.
There was something peaceful in his eyes.
The same expression he'd worn when Emma first fell asleep against his chest.
“I spent eleven years trying to get back to her.”
He nodded toward Emma.
“I can't let my last choice take her away.”
I cried.
“You're not dying.”
He smiled.
“That's an order?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
Then Vale appeared at the end of the tunnel.
Boone raised his weapon.
Vale fired.
Boone collapsed.
I screamed.
Rachel pulled me away.
We reached the exit.
Police were waiting.
Ambulances.
Lights.
Sirens.
But Boone wasn't with us.
For the first time, I understood what he had been willing to sacrifice.
He had spent eleven years looking for Emma.
And now he had given himself up so she could live.
Then someone stepped out of the ambulance.
A paramedic.
He looked at me.
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“There's someone who wants to see you.”
I turned.
Boone was lying on a stretcher.
Alive.
Barely.
His hand moved.
Emma reached toward him.
I placed her against his chest.
His eyes opened.
“She stopped crying,” he whispered.
I smiled through tears.
“She always does.”
Then a nurse ran toward us.
“Claire!”
“What?”
“We found Rachel's records.”
“Where?”
“In the old maternity archives.”
I followed her.
Inside the file was one final document.
A birth certificate.
Not Emma's.
Another child.
Mother: Rachel Mercer.
Father: Unknown.
Status: Deceased.
But beside the word DECEASED was a handwritten correction.
ALIVE.
I stared at it.
Rachel came up behind me.
Her face went pale.
“No.”
“What?”
She took the paper.
“I know this name.”
“What name?”
She looked at me.
May you like
And whispered:
“My son.”
