Chapter 5 - THE MAN I BURIED
My father entered the room with gray hair, a scar across his cheek, and tears in his eyes.
I had buried an empty coffin for him eighteen years earlier.
My mother told me the fire destroyed his body.
Now he stood six feet away, alive.
“Emily.”
I threw the water cup at him.
It struck the wall beside his head.
“You don’t get to say my name.”
He did not defend himself.
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“By disappearing?”
“By making them believe I had no reason to return.”
Marcus stepped between us.
“Where is Karen?”
My father’s eyes shifted.
“You spoke to her?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
He gripped the foot of the bed.
“They moved her.”
“Who are they?” I demanded.
He looked at my stomach.
“Vance.”
“The company?”
“The people behind it.”
He explained Project Eve.
Decades earlier, Vance Genetic Research developed a method to correct inherited neurological diseases before birth.
The first successful subject was me.
My mother carried a fatal gene mutation.
My father altered my embryo using an experimental process.
I survived.
The company wanted to reproduce the result.
My father destroyed the research and disappeared.
But he did not destroy everything.
Some of the corrected genetic material remained inside me.
“My baby,” I whispered.
“She may be the first naturally inheriting carrier.”
“Not natural,” I said. “They implanted her.”
My father lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who is Donor 17?”
His silence terrified me.
“Tell me.”
“Another surviving subject.”
Marcus opened the hospital-room door.
Tyler stood in the hallway between two officers.
His wrists were cuffed.
He looked at my father and smiled.
“Still pretending to be the hero, Jonathan?”
My father moved toward him.
Marcus blocked him.
Tyler’s gaze settled on me.
“You want to know who the donor is?”
“Shut up,” my father said.
Tyler laughed.
“Donor 17 is Jonathan Reed.”
The room went silent.
I looked at my father.
My stomach turned violently.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“It isn’t what you think.”
May you like
Tyler leaned closer.
“Your own father created your baby.”
