Chapter 6 - The Driver’s Secret
The driver was an older man with graying temples, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a tailored gray suit that seemed wildly out of place. He glanced at them in the rearview mirror, his face a mask of cold discipline. ""Check the boy for micro-trackers,"" the driver ordered without an ounce of warmth. ""Behind his left ear. Now.""
Ron, still trembling, pulled Leo's ear forward with shaking fingers. There, embedded beneath the soft skin, was a tiny, hard nodule glowing with a faint blue light. ""There's something there,"" Ron stammered. ""What is that?""
""The agency's beacon,"" the driver said, pulling a scalpel and antiseptic wipes from the glove box and tossing them into the back seat. ""Cut it out before their drones paint our heat signature. You have sixty seconds.""
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Ron stared at the gleaming blade in horror. ""I'm a mall guard, not a surgeon! I can't cut a three-year-old child!""
Leo calmly reached out, took the scalpel from Ron’s frozen hands, and handed it to him, point first. ""Cut it, Ron,"" Leo said, his voice eerily steady. ""Grandpa said pain is just information."" Before Ron could process the sheer tragedy of those words, the car’s roof groaned under a colossal, crushing weight, as if something heavy had just landed on top of them from above.
