Chapter 12 - THE WOMEN UNDERGROUND
Laura and I entered wearing concealed trackers.
Grace and Rachel followed through a maintenance tunnel with Ortiz’s team.
Margaret waited in a white medical room.
At ninety-two, she looked fragile.
Her voice was not.
“You are alive because I made difficult decisions.”
“You buried women,” I said.
“I preserved useful blood.”
Laura touched her stomach.
“You did this to me.”
“I gave you purpose.”
Margaret believed motherhood, consent, and identity were irrelevant beside genetic survival.
She called cruelty science.
She called ownership legacy.
The children watched from behind glass.
Lily saw me.
Her hand pressed against the window.
Margaret held the treatment pump remote.
“Sign the transfers.”
Two documents waited on a table.
My unborn daughter.
Laura’s unborn child.
I picked up the pen.
Then snapped it.
Laura did the same.
Margaret pressed the remote.
Nothing happened.
Rachel had disconnected the pump controls through the maintenance network.
Ortiz’s team entered.
Sheriff Cole fired once into the ceiling before surrendering.
Margaret tried to reach an emergency syringe.
Grace stopped her.
Mother and daughter faced each other.
“You took Emily from me,” Grace said.
“I made her valuable.”
“No. She was valuable before you touched her.”
Margaret was arrested.
Lily received the treatment.
The other girls were rescued.
But inside Margaret’s private vault, agents found embryos labeled with all our names.
May you like
The program could continue even without us.
One container was missing.
