Chapter 11
But death was already in the room.
Yates looked at me.
I nodded.
"Do it."
They began with Blythe.
Then Jonah.
I watched clear liquid travel through the tubes.
No miracle happened.
No sudden opening of eyes.
No music.
No impossible medical resurrection.
Just numbers slowly becoming less terrible.
At midnight, Blythe stabilized.
At one thirty, Jonah's fever broke.
At three twelve, Yates sat beside me in the hallway.
"We won't know for at least twelve hours."
I stared at the floor.
"Where's Elena?"
"Safe."
"Bring her here."
She returned before dawn.
She looked worse than when I first met her.
"Prescott knows," she said.
"So do I."
Her face changed.
"You know about Valez?"
"Enough."
"No."
She shook her head.
"You don't."
"What am I missing?"
Elena took Genevieve's necklace from her neck.
She twisted the blue stone.
It opened.
Inside was a microscopic memory card.
My heart stopped.
"Genevieve told me never to open it unless you discovered her father was alive."
"He's alive?"
Elena nodded.
"And he's in Chicago."
We inserted the card into an isolated computer.
Genevieve appeared on the screen.
Alive.
Beautiful.
Terrified.
The video had been recorded three weeks before her supposed death.
"Lawson, if you're watching this, then everything went wrong."
I couldn't breathe.
"I need you to forgive me for what I didn't tell you.
My father is Adrian Valez.
Helixor was his life's work.
When I learned what he had done to the embryos, I confronted him.
He told me Jonah and Blythe belonged to science before they belonged to us."
My jaw tightened.
"I started collecting evidence.
Prescott discovered what I was doing.
He has worked for my father since before he ever worked for you."
Elena covered her mouth.
Genevieve continued.
"If something happens to me, do not trust the official story."
She leaned closer to the camera.
"But Lawson, there is something else."
My pulse hammered.
"My father does not want me dead."
I stared.
"He wants me controlled."
The recording glitched.
Then Genevieve said the words that broke whatever remained of the world I understood.
"If they tell you I'm dead, don't believe them."
The video ended.
I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
Elena stared at me.
"Lawson."
"My wife could be alive."
"She could."
Two years of grief tore open at once.
I had buried her.
Spoken to her grave.
Taken the twins there on their birthdays.