Catch and Release

Chapter 6

Chapter 6Zoe woke from her stupor and looked around at Lex’s room. It was a mess, although that wasn’t particularly unusual. Looking at her watch, she saw that she had been unconscious for nearly twenty minutes. She started to push herself off the floor when she felt sharp pains in her back and ribs. She remembered flashes of what had happened–her missing son, the man confronting her in Lex’s room, the beating she had received so easily, and the note she had been given.

She rolled herself forward onto her knees and elbows and cautiously eased to her feet. She felt dizzy for a moment, paused to let the feeling pass, stumbled her way across the room to where the paper lay, picked it up, and sat on the bed. She felt the folded sheet, rubbing the edges with her thumbs. There was nothing special about the paper. It was nothing more than standard printer paper, but it felt heavy somehow, like the words printed on the inside added a great deal of weight.

With a deep sigh, she opened the piece of paper and read the instructions several times. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. “What the hell have I been pulled into?”

We have your son

you will go to work as normal

you will not show any signs of distress

you will modify the chicken pox virus with genetic material from the Marburg virus

you will be contacted in 48 hours with where to deliver the new virus

if you don’t complete the task on time, your son will die

contact law enforcement or any federal agency and your son will suffer a fate worse than death

you are being watched

Zoe was now as white as a sheet, and she felt like throwing up. It was an impossible choice. Do what this mysterious man wanted, and millions of people could die. Defy him and her six-year-old son would be dissected and killed, in that order.

She pushed herself off the bed and with tears staining her cheeks, walked to the bathroom and started cleaning herself up and applying makeup. This was going to be a very long day.