Hollway Protocol

The open file

The next three days at the Vance Estate passed in a blur of suffocating routine. Every four hours, Elena walked into Julian’s dark suite, checked his vitals with deliberately shaky hands, administered his evening medicine, and left without looking him in the eye. She kept her head down, her shoulders rounded, and her voice quiet. She played the part of the timid nurse to perfection, and Julian seemed to lose interest in her entirely, barely acknowledging her presence beyond a cold nod.

But inside, Elena’s mind was working at frantic speed. She wasn't here to be a nurse; she was here to find Maya.

It was past midnight on her fourth day when the opportunity finally presented itself. Mrs. Gable had retired to her quarters on the lower level, and the deep, heavy silence of the mansion was broken only by the distant crashing of the ocean against the cliffs.

Elena slipped out of her staff bedroom, her bare feet silent on the cold stone floors. She didn't wear her squeaky nursing shoes tonight. She moved like a shadow, avoiding the direct line of sight of the black cameras she had carefully memorized. Her target was Julian’s private study—a locked room on the second floor where she suspected he kept his personal servers.

Using a thin piece of plastic she had scraped from a medical tray, Elena worked the lock of the study door. With a soft click, the mechanism gave way. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The study was dark, smelling of expensive leather and old paper. But what caught her eye immediately was the massive mahogany desk in the center of the room. On top of it sat a thick, leather-bound folder, left wide open. Next to it was a shattered glass, amber liquid pooling across the polished wood and dripping onto a single, heavily stamped document.

Elena’s pulse spiked. Julian must have dropped his drink and left the room in a hurry.

A normal nurse would have immediately grabbed a cloth to clean up the mess. But Elena wasn't a nurse. Her eyes automatically locked onto the open page.

It was a medical file, but the details made no sense. At the top of the sheet, the name Clara Vance was printed in bold letters. Below it was a complex DNA chart and a gastric function panel—test results detailing blood chemistry and metabolic rates. Elena’s eyes scanned the numbers, her mind working furiously to memorize the text.

As she read, her internal alarm bells went off. The genetic markers on the paper did not match Julian's lineage at all. According to this document, the woman named Clara had zero biological relation to the Vance family.

Who is Clara? Elena thought, her mind racing. If she isn't his sister, why is her file hidden in his personal study? And why is a laboratory report showing completely unrelated DNA?

Before she could process the information, a faint sound outside the door made her freeze.

She held her breath, her ears straining against the heavy quiet of the hallway. It was the distinct, rhythmic click of leather shoes against the stone floor. It wasn't the slow, heavy scrape of a wheelchair. It was a firm, deliberate stride, moving directly toward the study door.

Elena looked around the room, her chest tightening. The desk offered no cover, and the heavy velvet curtains would bunch up if she hid behind them, leaving a visible outline. The footsteps stopped right outside. The brass doorknob began to turn with a slow, agonizing creak.

With no time left, Elena dropped to her knees by the side of the desk, pulling her small frame into the tight shadow of the leg well. She tucked her head down, gripped her knees, and forced her body to go entirely limp. She had to lean heavily into the character of Maya—the clumsy, easily frightened girl who panicked over the smallest mistakes.

The door swung open, and the cold light from the hallway spilled across the dark rug.