Chapter 17 - The Locked DoorThe interior of the Berkshire facility smelled of stale antiseptic, old paper, and profound, institutionalized despair.
Abraham walked down the sterile white corridor, his silver-tipped cane clicking rhythmically against the linoleum floor. The guards and medical personnel who had attempted to block his path were already restrained and secured in the administrative wing by Marcus’s tactical team.
At the end of the hallway stood a heavy, reinforced steel door equipped with a digital biometric lock and a small, wire-mesh window.
Abraham stopped dead in his tracks. He raised his hand, gesturing for Marcus to hold back.
From inside the room, faint and trembling, came a sound that pierced straight through the hardened armor of Abraham’s soul: the soft, imperfect notes of a piano being played by someone with trembling, weak fingers.
It was the exact melody of the midnight waltz.
Abraham’s breath caught in his throat. Tears welled in his dark eyes—the first tears he had shed since the day they took her away.
He stepped up to the reinforced door, pressing his palm flat against the cold steel.
"Lily..." he whispered, his voice cracking with unbearable emotion.
The piano music inside stopped abruptly. A hesitant, terrified shuffle of footsteps approached the door from the other side.
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"Who's... who's out there?" a weak, young woman's voice answered, shaking with years of isolation and fear.
"It's me, sweetheart," Abraham choked out, sliding his fingers against the wire-mesh window. "It's your father. I'm finally here."
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