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Chapter Fourteen: A Discovery
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-08-20 21:13:59
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Exhale Chapter 20: The Search
Naomi went looking for the others the next morning and found Leonard before she found anyone else.His office door was half open, which usually meant he was either working or had forgotten to close it while arguing with a pathology report. With Leonard, there was rarely a third option.He sat behind his desk with a stack of files on one side, a half-finished cup of coffee on the other, and his glasses balanced dangerously low on his nose. The screen in front of him displayed a report he had apparently been reading for long enough to hate.Naomi knocked twice against the doorframe.Leonard looked up.“You look terrible.”“Good morning to you too.”“I mean medically.”“That somehow makes it worse.”He pushed his glasses higher. “Have you slept?”“Enough.”“That wasn't an answer.”“It was the answer you're getting.”Naomi walked into the office and pulled the door almost shut behind her. She hadn't slept much. Not because of the hospital. Not because of the unexplained deaths.Because of
Exhale Chapter 19: Thanox
Naomi didn't take her eyes off the screen.Her father's name was still there.Thomas Sinclair.Environmental Biologist.Former Research Scientist at Aelion Industries.She read each line again, hoping that somehow she'd misread it the first time. Maybe there was another Thomas Sinclair. Maybe the photograph was attached to the wrong file. Maybe there was some perfectly ordinary explanation for why her father's face was sitting on an Aelion database at nearly midnight.But the photograph was unmistakable.So was the name.Naomi clicked on his personnel file.A longer profile opened.Education. Employment history. Research affiliations. Awards. More than twenty projects were listed beneath his name.Emma leaned over her shoulder."That's a lot."Naomi barely heard her.She scrolled slowly.Her father had been the lead scientist on project after project. Environmental studies. Atmospheric composition. Air quality. Pollutant interaction. Several projects Naomi had never heard him mention.
Exhale Chapter 18: Records
Sofia pushed the side door open and slipped through first. Naomi followed, then Emma, with Leonard bringing up the rear. Leonard pulled the door shut carefully, making sure it didn't make more noise than necessary before turning back to them.They stood in a narrow service corridor with several doors along both walls. The building was much quieter than it had been during the day, but it wasn't empty. There were still footsteps somewhere beyond the walls, the occasional sound of a door opening and closing, and the low hum of machinery running somewhere deeper inside.Emma leaned toward Naomi."If we get arrested, I'm blaming you."Naomi looked at her. "Why me?""Because you're the one who decided breaking into Aelion was a reasonable next step.""You agreed to come.""I agreed because I knew you'd come whether I did or not."Leonard quietly laughed.Emma pointed at him. "Don't encourage her."Sofia glanced back at them. "Are you two finished?""No," Emma whispered."Good. Keep it quiet.
Exhale Chapter 17: Conversations with a stranger
Naomi stared at the message until the words began to blur.Missed me?She almost threw the phone onto the other side of the bed.Almost.Instead, she tightened her grip around it and stared at the number again.Same number.The one that had sent her that first message telling her to stop looking at the dead and start looking at the trees. The same number that had appeared afterward with pieces of information that had been impossible to explain and even harder to ignore.And now, apparently, whoever was behind it had decided they were ready to have an actual conversation.Naomi swallowed.Her first instinct was to block the number.Her second was to ask a hundred questions.Her third, unfortunately, won.You finally decided to talk to me?The reply came quickly.You kept asking.Naomi stared at the screen.There was something about the simplicity of the answer that bothered her more than a long explanation would have.She typed.I've been asking because you keep sending me strange messa
Exhale Chapter 16: Thinking about Aiden?
Naomi finally stepped away from the emergency department, she had managed to convince herself that she wasn't going to think about Aelion for the rest of the evening.That was the plan, anyway.She had a report that needed to be submitted to administration, and that was all she wanted to deal with at the moment. The investigation could wait. The strange gas could wait. The mystery surrounding Aelion could wait.For a few hours, she wanted to be a doctor again without having to wonder whether every strange thing happening around her was connected to something bigger.She tucked the file more securely beneath her arm and headed down the corridor, already mentally going through what she needed to finish before the end of her shift. She was halfway to the administrative office when she turned a corner and almost walked straight into someone.She almost jumped out of her skin.The person in front of her also frightened stepped back.Naomi looked up.Aiden.He was standing there with his ta
Exhale Chapter Fifteen: The Reassurance
Naomi and Emma left Sofia's office together, neither of them saying much as they made their way back toward the emergency department. The hallway was busy with the usual morning traffic, nurses moving from one room to another, orderlies steering carts around people who refused to move out of the way, and the occasional call coming from somewhere behind a closed door. Normally, Naomi would have been paying attention to all of it without thinking, but her mind was somewhere else.A gas.Not just something that lowered oxygen levels in the atmosphere. Something that could somehow enter the human body and interfere with the cells' ability to use the oxygen already there.She kept turning Leonard's words over in her head.If oxygen was getting into their blood, why couldn't their cells use it?And if the gas was responsible, how had it gotten into them?Was it being inhaled?Was it already in the air?Was that why people were becoming sick?Then another thought followed.If it was in the ai
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