Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN WHO CREATED M-17
Evelyn Mercer entered through the service door.
No panic.
No rush.
White suit.
Silver hair.
A physician’s calm expression.
She looked older than the photograph.
But the eyes were identical.
Cold.
Interested.
Clinical.
She looked at me the way a scientist looks at a specimen.
Not a person.
“So.”
Her gaze moved to Ava.
“It continued.”
I stepped between her and the carrier.
“You don’t get to look at her.”
Evelyn smiled.
“You sound like Anna.”
My blood boiled.
“Don’t say my mother’s name.”
“She was remarkable.”
“You experimented on her.”
“She volunteered initially.”
“Not while she was pregnant.”
Evelyn’s smile faded slightly.
“You have the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Then you have incomplete context.”
Nathan stood.
“Mother.”
Evelyn didn’t look at him.
That hurt him.
I saw it.
A lifetime of trying to please a woman who viewed him as equipment.
Graham demanded,
“What are you doing?”
Evelyn finally glanced at him.
“Correcting your mistakes.”
Smoke thickened.
Roman’s voice came through the phone.
“Claire, I’m opening the east ventilation shaft.”
Evelyn heard.
“Roman.”
For the first time, emotion touched her face.
“He always was difficult.”
Roman answered through the speaker.
“You murdered my father.”
Silence.
Thomas had told him.
Somehow.
Evelyn looked almost bored.
“Marco murdered himself years before his car reached that wall.”
Roman’s voice disappeared.
I knew those words landed hard.
I stepped closer to Evelyn.
“What is M-17?”
“You already know.”
“No.”
“I know what my father thinks.”
“I know what my mother feared.”
“I want your version.”
Her eyes brightened.
Scientists love being asked to explain themselves.
“M-17 was a solution.”
“To what?”
“Death.”
I almost laughed.
She continued.
“Children born with Mercer-Field degeneration rarely reached adolescence.”
“We found seventeen maternal sequences with unusual resistance.”
“Your grandmother carried the most promising.”
“My mother.”
“Improved it.”
The word made my skin crawl.
“You altered her.”
“Yes.”
“Without consent.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“Medicine has never advanced through perfect morality.”
Nathan whispered,
“Jesus.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You’re alive because of my morality.”
Nathan froze.
“What?”
She smiled.
“You were born with Mercer-Field markers.”
His face drained.
“I cured you before giving you to Graham.”
The room went silent.
Nathan had been another experiment.
Not merely a replacement child.
A test.
Evelyn had modified her own son.
Then placed him inside the Cross family.
Years later, she paired him with me.
Two genetically altered lines.
A planned child.
Ava.
I wanted to vomit.
“You bred us.”
Evelyn frowned.
“Crude wording.”
“Accurate wording.”
“I arranged compatible variables.”
Nathan looked shattered.
“You made me marry Claire because you wanted a child.”
“I created the opportunity.”
“You paid me.”
“I funded your independence.”
“You threatened my daughter yesterday.”
Evelyn finally smiled.
“There it is.”
“What?”
She looked at Nathan almost proudly.
“Paternal attachment.”
He stared at her.
“I wondered whether it would override conditioning.”
That was when Nathan stopped being afraid of her.
His expression changed.
Something broke.
“No.”
Evelyn blinked.
He stepped beside me.
Not in front.
Beside.
“You don’t touch Ava.”
Evelyn looked disappointed.
“You always were the weaker variable.”
Nathan almost smiled.
“For the first time in my life, I’m glad.”
A loud metallic bang came from the wall.
Roman.
The ventilation panel burst inward.
Fresh air rushed into the archive.
Security officers appeared behind him.
Evelyn did not run.
She simply looked at me.
“You think possessing shares makes you safe?”
“No.”
I held up Samuel’s confession.
“But evidence helps.”
She smiled.
“Evidence disappears.”
Roman entered.
“Not anymore.”
He held up his phone.
“Everything since you walked in has been transmitted off-site.”
For the first time, Evelyn’s face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
Then alarms began screaming.
Real alarms.
Federal agents entered forty seconds later.
Angela had called them after learning unauthorized fire systems were activated.
Evelyn was escorted away.
But she looked back at me.
“Ask Thomas what happened to Subject M-12.”
I frowned.
“What?”
She smiled.
“He never told you why he truly disappeared.”
Then she was gone.
Roman looked at me.
My father had lied before.
What else was buried?
I opened the red ledger.
M-12.
Subject name:
LUCAS BENNETT.
Relationship:
MALE CHILD.
Parents:
THOMAS AND ANNA BENNETT.
May you like
I stopped breathing.
I had a brother.
