Chapter 15 - THE THIRD CRIB
One year later, Lily and Grace learned to walk three days apart.
Lily moved carefully.
Grace ran into furniture and laughed.
We lived in a small house near my parents.
Not because everything was forgiven.
Because healing required proximity to truth.
My mother attended therapy.
So did I.
My father spent his probation helping identify every surviving Project Eve child.
Marcus left federal service and created an independent missing-children unit.
He never stopped investigating the previous-live-birth file.
The document led to a hospital in Ohio.
Then a sealed adoption.
Then a girl named Sophie Reed.
She was six years old.
My daughter.
Vance had harvested an embryo years before Tyler met me.
They implanted it into a surrogate.
When Sophie was born, she became the first child carrying my corrected gene.
She lived with a family who believed the adoption was legal.
I did not storm into their home.
I did not take her.
I met them with lawyers, therapists, and police records.
Sophie had parents who loved her.
She also had two biological sisters she deserved to know.
We built something complicated.
Slow visits.
Photographs.
Birthday calls.
No forced titles.
No stolen choices.
The house eventually held three small beds.
One for Lily.
One for Grace.
One for Sophie when she stayed over.
My scars faded.
The cuts on my stomach became pale lines.
My left side still hurt when it rained.
Loud glass breaking still made me freeze.
But fear no longer controlled what happened next.
One afternoon, Sophie sat on the kitchen floor between her sisters.
They rolled the old empty rubbing alcohol bottle back and forth.
It had been sealed as evidence, then returned after the trial.
I took it gently from them.
“That isn’t a toy.”
Sophie looked at the faint bloodstain on the glass.
“Did the bad man hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Were you scared?”
“Very.”
“What did you do?”
I looked toward the repaired front window.
Sunlight crossed the floor where the burning match had fallen.
“I asked for help.”
Marcus stood outside speaking with my father.
My mother rocked Grace near the counter.
Lily tugged at my sleeve.
“You saved us.”
I crouched beside them.
“No.”
I looked at all three girls.
“We saved each other.”
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
A photograph showed another hidden nursery.
Seven empty cribs.
One occupied bed.
Below it was a line:
PROJECT EVE DID NOT END WITH VANCE.
I saved the photograph.
Called Marcus.
Then locked the kitchen door.
Not because I was helpless.
Because I finally understood that protection was not silence, obedience, or pretending danger would disappear.
Protection was evidence.
Witnesses.
May you like
Truth.
And the courage to act before the match ever reached the flame.
