Chapter 15 - THE GIRL WHO SHARED HIS BLOOD
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Voss struck Grace across the face.
The movement cost him. He collapsed against the wheelchair, coughing until blood stained his hand.
“You ungrateful little animal,” he whispered.
Grace lifted her head. “That is what you called all of us.”
Daniel watched Cole.
The scientist’s hands trembled above the surgical tray.
“She’s telling the truth, isn’t she?”
Cole did not answer.
“Look at me.”
Cole finally met his eyes.
“The marrow transfer would not cure Voss,” Daniel said. “What is it for?”
“Stem-cell replication.”
“For new embryos?”
“For modified soldiers,” Grace answered. “People who heal faster, endure chemical exposure, and remain functional with less sleep. Voss sold the research to private military contractors.”
Maria stared at the photographs on the wall.
“These children were prototypes.”
“We were inventory,” Grace said.
Voss raised the remote. “Enough.”
Daniel focused on the live feed. Nathan was inside Lily’s room, but he had not attacked. He stood near the window, apparently waiting.
Something about the image felt wrong.
Blanket remained asleep.
The dog barked at delivery trucks, leaves, vacuum cleaners, and once at Daniel’s blue tie. He would not sleep while a stranger entered Lily’s room.
“That isn’t live,” Daniel said.
Voss’s thumb stopped above the button.
Maria saw it too. “Blanket isn’t moving.”
Daniel examined the timestamp. It displayed the current time, but a toy clock behind Lily showed 9:14. His own watch read 11:32.
“The footage was recorded earlier.”
Voss pressed the remote.
Nothing happened.
Grace laughed.
“Nathan betrayed you.”
Voss turned toward Cole. “Begin the extraction.”
Cole picked up a syringe.
Maria pulled against her restraints. “If you touch him—”
Cole inserted the needle into Daniel’s IV line.
Instead of injecting it, he twisted the port until the plastic tube broke. Then he used the sharp connector to cut Daniel’s wrist restraint.
Voss reached for a gun beneath his blanket.
Grace kicked a metal tray into his arm.
The gun discharged into the ceiling.
Daniel freed his other hand and threw himself from the bed. His legs failed beneath him, but he caught the wheelchair and overturned it.
Voss hit the floor.
Cole released Maria while Grace freed herself with a scalpel.
Alarms erupted.
“Security is coming,” Cole said. “There is a freight elevator beyond the west laboratory.”
Daniel seized Voss’s gun.
“Where is Nathan?”
“I don’t know.”
“You showed us the footage.”
“He sent the recording this morning. He demanded access to the Continuance accounts in exchange for helping Voss.”
Maria took Voss’s remote and crushed it under her shoe.
They ran.
Grace supported Daniel through the west corridor while Cole entered codes at a security panel. Steel doors closed behind them, delaying the guards.
At the freight elevator, Cole stopped.
“It requires biometric authorization.”
“Use yours,” Maria said.
“My access was revoked when I brought you here.”
Daniel understood. “It needs Voss.”
They had left him behind.
Gunfire struck the metal door.
Grace rolled up her sleeve. “Try me.”
The scanner recognized her genetic profile.
The elevator opened.
They descended into an underground parking level filled with medical transport vehicles. Owen waited beside an ambulance with three federal agents.
Maria almost collapsed with relief.
“We lost communication,” Owen said. “Cole contacted us through an emergency laboratory channel.”
Daniel looked at Cole.
“You planned this?”
“I planned to get Grace out. I did not know whether I could save you.”
“Why now?”
Cole touched his broken watch.
“It belonged to Tomas. He gave it to me the night he died. He said every man eventually reaches the minute when fear is no longer an excuse.”
Grace climbed into the ambulance.
Daniel remained outside. “Voss is still inside.”
“Agents are entering from the north wing,” Owen said.
A violent explosion shook the garage.
Fire rolled from the elevator shaft.
Voss had destroyed the laboratory.
Federal teams searched the ruins for two days. They recovered multiple bodies, but none could be conclusively identified as Voss.
He had escaped again.
Nathan had also disappeared.
Sofia and Lily were unharmed. The recording shown in the laboratory had been captured when Nathan briefly entered the protected building disguised as an officer. He had left before the real guards recognized him.
Maria brought Grace to the smaller house.
For the first several nights, Grace slept with a chair beneath the doorknob. She hoarded packaged food in her closet and flinched whenever Daniel entered a room without warning.
Lily accepted her immediately.
“You can be my big sister,” she announced.
Grace looked terrified by the suggestion.
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ll show you.”
Daniel watched from the hallway.
Grace had his eyes, his mother’s genetic inheritance, and a lifetime of suffering created partly from his blood. He wanted to protect her, but he understood that protection offered too forcefully could resemble control.
So he waited.
One evening, Grace found him repairing the porch railing.
“Am I your sister?” she asked.
“Biologically, the answer is complicated.”
“I didn’t ask biologically.”
Daniel set down the hammer.
“If you want a family, there is room here.”
“What if I leave?”
“The room will still be yours.”
“What if I do something bad?”
“We will deal with it.”
“What if I don’t love you?”
“You don’t owe me love.”
Grace’s face tightened as if kindness were another language she did not trust.
Then she handed him a folded document.
She had taken it from Voss’s laboratory.
It contained the names of Continuance’s surviving subjects.
Lily.
Grace.
Three missing children.
And one final entry that neither of them expected.
DANIEL HALE - TERMINATION REQUIRED.
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Beneath it was an authorization signature dated that morning.
The signature belonged to Maria Alvarez.
