The Breaking Point

Dr. Carver's POV (Alive)

The phone rings at exactly midnight, just like it always does.

I drop my coffee mug, and it crashes on my kitchen floor. Hot coffee spreads everywhere, but I don't move to clean it up. I know who's calling. I always know.

My hands shake as I pick up the phone.

"The ritual is in three days," Eleanor's voice sounds like ice cracking. "Make sure you're ready."

The line goes dead. I stare at the phone in my hand like it's a deadly snake.

Three days. That means another kid is going to die, and I have to help cover it up. Again.

I walk to my home office and open the locked box where I keep my medical tools. The blade gleams under the desk lamp. The same scalpel I've used to cut fake holes into fifteen dead children over the past fifteen years.

My stomach turns into knots. I run to the bathroom and throw up until there's nothing left.

This has to stop. I can't do this anymore.

But even as I think it, I remember what happened to Dr. Martinez. He tried to say no to Eleanor five years ago. They found him hanging in his garage the next morning. "Suicide," Eleanor told everyone. But I saw the rope burns on his wrists before they buried him.

I splash cold water on my face and look at myself in the mirror. When did I become this coward? When did I start thinking more about my own life than innocent children's lives?

I know exactly when. It was fifteen years ago, right after Sarah Kellerman died.

I was new in town then. Fresh out of medical school and excited to be a small-town doctor. I wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives.

Then they brought me Sarah's body.

"Drowning accident," Eleanor told me. "Very sad. Just write it up and we'll take care of everything else."

But Sarah didn't die. Someone had carved marks into her chest. Someone had drained most of her blood. Someone had done horrible things to a sixteen-year-old girl.

"I can't sign this death certificate," I told Eleanor. "This girl was murdered."

Eleanor smiled that terrible smile of hers. "Dr. Carver, you're new here. You don't understand how things work yet."

The next morning, I found pictures under my door. Pictures of my little sister Emma playing at her school in San Francisco. Pictures of her walking home alone. Pictures of her sleeping in her bedroom.

"Beautiful family," Eleanor said when she called me that day. "It would be such a shame if something happened to them because you couldn't do your job properly."

So I signed Sarah's death certificate. I wrote "accidental drowning" and hated myself for it.

But that was just the beginning.

Every few years, another kid dies. Every few years, Eleanor calls me to make it look like an accident. And every few years, I tell myself it's the last time.

But it never is.

Now I sit at my kitchen table and think about Marcus Thorne. That brave, stupid kid who got too close to the truth. Eleanor made me write "accidental fall from cliffs" on his death certificate yesterday. But Marcus didn't fall from any hills. Someone cut him up while he was still alive and let him bleed out slowly.

I pull out my secret box from under the floors. Inside are Polaroid shots of every victim. Pictures I took before I changed their wounds to look like accidents. Pictures that show the truth about what Eleanor and her group do to children.

Sarah Kellerman with traditional cuts all over her body.

Tommy Morrison with markings burned into his skin.

Jake Stevens with his heart shaved out.

And now Marcus Thorne, looking like he died in total terror.

Fifteen kids in fifteen years. Fifteen times I've lied to their parents. Fifteen times I've helped Eleanor get away with murder.

I'm a doctor. I took an oath to save lives, not cover up killings.

My phone buzzes with a text message. It's from my sister Emma in San Francisco: "Can't wait to visit next month! The kids are so excited to see Uncle James!"

Emma has two children now. Eight-year-old twins who call me their favorite uncle. They want to spend their summer break here in Tidewaters, swimming at the beach and exploring tide pools.

What if Eleanor decides my nephew and niece would make good sacrifices?

What if I can't protect them the way I couldn't protect Sarah and Marcus and all the others?

I grab my car keys. There's someone I need to talk to. Someone who might actually be able to stop this madness.

Detective Rivera.

I saw her at Marcus's crime scene yesterday. She knew something was wrong. She asked the right questions. Chief Kellerman tried to shut her down, but Rivera didn't look like someone who gives up easily.

Maybe she's different. Maybe she's strong enough to stand up to Eleanor.

Maybe she can save the next kid before it's too late.

I drive through the empty streets toward Rivera's office above Murphy's Diner. The fog is thick tonight, and I can barely see ten feet ahead of my headlights. But I keep driving anyway.

I have to try.

I park outside the diner and look up at Rivera's office window. There's a light on. She's still awake.

I grab the box of photos and head for the stairs. Each step feels like I'm walking toward either rescue or my own death. But I can't turn back now.

I knock on Rivera's door.

"Dr. Carver?" Rivera opens the door, looking shocked. "It's two in the morning. What's wrong?"

"Everything," I say. "I need to show you something about Marcus Thorne. About all of them."

I hold up the box of photos. Rivera's eyes go wide when she sees them.

"These are crime scene photos," she says. "Real ones. Before someone changed the evidence."

"Eleanor Blackwood and her cult have been murdering children for fifteen years," I tell her. "And I've been helping them cover it up."

Rivera steps aside to let me in. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because the next sacrifice is in three days. And I think I know who they're planning to kill."

Rivera sits down hard in her chair. "Who?"

I take a deep breath. This is the moment that changes everything.

"Lisa Chen. The new family that moved here six months ago. Eleanor always picks kids whose families haven't been here long enough to be part of the conspiracy."

Rivera nods sadly. "We have to warn them. We have to—"

My phone rings.

We both stare at it. It's 2:15 in the morning. Nobody calls me this late unless someone's dying.

Or unless Eleanor knows exactly where I am and what I'm doing.

I look at Rivera. She nods.

I answer the phone.

"Hello, James," Eleanor's voice is soft and dangerous. "I'm disappointed in you. After all these years, I really thought we understood each other."

"Eleanor, I—"

"You're at Detective Rivera's office right now, aren't you? With your little box of pictures."

My blood turns to ice. "How do you—"

"I have eyes everywhere, James. Did you really think you could betray me without consequences?"

Rivera grabs the phone from my hands. "This is Detective Rivera. Eleanor Blackwood, you're under arrest for—"

Eleanor's laugh cuts her off. "Oh, my dear Detective. You have no idea what you're dealing with. James, are you listening?"

"I'm here," I whisper.

"Good. Because I have something that belongs to you."

The phone goes silent for a moment. Then I hear a voice that makes my heart stop beating.

"Uncle James? Help me! Please help me!"

It's my nephew Tommy. Emma's eight-year-old son. He's meant to be safe in San Francisco, three hundred miles away.

But he's here. In Tidewaters. And Eleanor has him.

"How is that possible?" I choke out. "He's with his mother in San Francisco!"

"Was with his mother, James. Past tense. Amazing what you can accomplish with the right connections and a few well-placed phone calls. Your sister thinks her children are on a special school trip."

Rivera grabs my arm, her face pale with understanding.

"Here's what's going to happen," Eleanor continues. "You're going to come to the town hall basement right now. Alone. You're going to bring those photos with you, and you're going to burn them in front of me. Then you're going to forget this conversation ever happened."

"And if I don't?"

"Then little Tommy becomes our sacrifice tomorrow night instead of Lisa Chen. I'm sure he'll make lovely screams."

The line goes dead.

I look at Rivera, my whole world crashing down around me. I tried to save Lisa Chen, but now I've doomed my own cousin.

And tomorrow night, one of them is going to die because of my choices.

Rivera is already grabbing her gun and badge. "We're calling the FBI. We're calling the state police. We're—"

"No," I say quietly. "If we do that, Tommy dies. Eleanor has connections everywhere. She'll know the moment we make any calls."

"Then what do we do?"

I look at the box of photos in my hands. Fifteen dead children looking back at me. Fifteen chances I had to be brave and chose to be a coward instead.

But not this time.

"We go to the town hall," I say. "We end this tonight. One way or another."

Rivera studies my face. "That's suicide, Dr. Carver. It's exactly what she wants."

"Maybe. But it's the only way to save Tommy."

I head for the door, then stop and turn back to Rivera.

"Detective, there's something else you need to know. Something I've never told anyone."

"What?"

"Eleanor isn't just crazy. She's not just a murderer." I take a shaky breath. "The things she does to those children... they work. The rituals actually give her power. Real power."

Rivera stares at me. "What kind of power?"

"The kind that lets a seventy-eight-year-old woman kidnap a child from San Francisco and transport him here in one night without leaving any trace."

"That's impossible."

"So was everything else that's happened in this town for the past fifteen years. But it keeps happening anyway."

I open the door and step into the fog. Behind me, Rivera follows, her gun drawn.

We're walking into a trap that we both know is a trap.

But somewhere in the darkness, an eight-year-old boy is crying for his uncle to save him.

And for the first time in fifteen years, I'm going to try to do the right thing.

Even if it kills me.