Chapter 42 - CH 42 - The Confession

The world had dissolved into a single, sustained note of chaos a symphony of sirens, the frantic shouts of reporters amplified by bullhorns, and the silent, screaming scarlet of news tickers scrolling their apocalyptic headlines across the muted television screen. Inside the soundproofed sterility of his apartment, a fortress that had become a prison, Adrian Vale sat exactly where he had crumpled hours before, the ghost of the stolen hard drive a cold, phantom limb in his consciousness. The initial, shocking wave of relief the unburdening of a secret too heavy to carry had been scorched away by a rising lava flow of dread, and beneath that, a strange, crystalline fury. It was not directed at Amelia, the thief in the night who had wielded the scalpel. His rage was for the architect of the disease, the master of the labyrinth. His father.