Chapter 5 - The Betrayal
The highway was a ribbon of black ice under the high beams of Benjamin’s SUV. Behind him, the relentless glow of the pursuer’s headlights mirrored his own heartbeat—erratic and desperate. He knew the roads of Vermont, but he didn't know how far the Senator’s reach extended.
He pulled into a remote logging road, killing his lights just as the black sedan behind him sped past, missing his turnoff. He sat in the darkness, chest heaving, the digital camera heavy in his lap. He needed to reach Sarah, but his phone was a beacon. He powered it off, realizing with a sick dread that he was essentially cutting himself off from the world to protect the data.
His mind flashed back to Clara. Had she truly been blinded by her father’s charisma, or was she another victim of the Blackwood Project? The documents he had scanned mentioned "Subject C"—a designation that, in the chilling context of the files, likely referred to his wife. If the Senator had been experimenting on his own daughter for decades, the depth of the betrayal wasn't just physical—it was an erasure of her identity.
He reached Sarah’s farmhouse an hour later, moving through the woods like a ghost. When he knocked on the back door, his old friend opened it, her eyes widening at his disheveled appearance. Before he could speak, she pulled him inside, her expression turning from concern to alarm as she saw the camera.
"Benjamin? What have you done?"
"I’ve exposed the foundation of his campaign," he panted, setting the camera on her kitchen table. "Everything. The Blackwood connection, the surveillance, the experiments."
But as Sarah reached for the camera, her phone chimed. She looked at it, and her face drained of color. "Benjamin, look at the news."
May you like
He turned to the television on the wall. A breaking news report was flashing across the screen: “Investigative journalist Benjamin Hayes sought for questioning in the violent assault of Senator William Fletcher’s estate staff.”
The Senator had moved first. He hadn't just denied the allegations; he had framed Benjamin as the perpetrator. The police were already at the hospital, effectively locking Sophie away from him. He wasn't just a whistleblower anymore; he was a fugitive in his own state.
