Chapter 2 - The Silence of the West Wing
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The transfer did not happen through the main corridors where visitors walked and nurses chatted at the central station. It happened at 11:00 PM, when the hospital hummed with the low, artificial drone of the night shift.
A burly orderly named Greg, whose nametag was deliberately turned backward, wheeled Leah down a service elevator that smelled faintly of industrial bleach and old cardboard. Her canvas bag sat on her lap, its zipper half-open, revealing the corner of the baby’s pale blue blanket.
“Where are you taking me?” Leah demanded for the fifth time. Her voice bounced off the stainless-steel walls of the lift.
Greg didn't look back. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, blocking any possibility of escape. “Doctor’s orders, Mrs. Carver. Just compliance makes it easier on everyone.”
The elevator stopped at Sub-Level Two. The digital display didn’t read numbers; it read S-W, which Leah quickly realized stood for South-West Wing—or perhaps something much darker. The doors slid open to reveal a hallway that looked nothing like a modern medical facility. The walls were painted a dull, institutional green, peeling slightly near the baseboards. There were no rooms with glass doors here, only heavy oak panels with small, sliding iron grates at eye level, like cells in a minimum-security facility.
“This isn’t a maternity ward,” Leah whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“It’s the specialized postpartum recovery unit,” Greg replied flatly, steering the wheelchair past a set of double doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
They stopped at Room 412. The door swung open with a dry, metallic squeak. Inside, the room was windowless. A single fluorescent bulb buzzed overhead, casting a harsh, flickering light over a metal-framed bed bolted directly to the floor. There was no television, no flowers, no card table. Just a small sink, a toilet without a seat cover, and a plastic chair.
“You’ll be comfortable here,” Greg said, lifting Leah by the elbow with an impersonal, bruising grip and depositing her onto the mattress.
“My baby,” Leah gasped, clutching her belly as a sharp contraction—brought on by sheer adrenaline—ripped through her lower abdomen. “When I deliver, where will my child go?”
Greg paused with his hand on the heavy brass door handle. He looked at her then, a brief, fleeting flicker of something resembling pity crossing his heavy features before he locked it away. “Mrs. Carver, your husband and your mother-in-law already set up the nursery at the estate. You won't have to worry about a thing once the medicine takes effect.”
The heavy door slammed shut, followed by the definitive, chilling click of an industrial deadbolt turning from the outside.
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Leah scrambled off the bed, throwing her weight against the wood. Her fists hammered against the panels until her knuckles bled. “Let me out! Nathan! Nathan, open this door!”
There was no answer, only the low, rhythmic hum of the building's ventilation system, pumping cold, sterile air into her tomb.
