By dawn, the rain had stopped.
The city looked washed clean, but nothing inside me did.
Emma slept in a hospital chair with her head against my shoulder. Lily rested beside Sarah, while Ethan remained under observation.
The green-banded girl sat awake.
She had refused to sleep.
“What should I call you?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“They called me L-Two.”
“That isn't a name.”
“I know.”
I thought about the labels in the files.
Numbers instead of names.
Subjects instead of children.
“What name would you like?”
She looked toward Emma.
“Can I choose?”
“Yes.”
She thought for a long time.
“Rose.”
“Rose,” I repeated.
She smiled.
I didn't know whether it was her first real smile.
Dr. Sloan joined us near the elevators.
“Your father's laboratory may contain the original records.”
“And you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
“Because your father made me promise.”
“You worked for him.”
“I worked against him too.”
That distinction mattered to her.
It didn't yet matter to me.
Morales arrived with two officers.
“We're going to the house.”
Sarah stood.
“I'll come.”
“You should stay with Ethan,” I said.
She shook her head.
“No more secrets.”
I understood.
She had spent months trusting people who told her what she wanted to hear.
Now she wanted to see everything.
We drove separately.
My childhood home sat on a quiet street lined with old trees.
The house looked exactly as I remembered it.
White porch.
Blue shutters.
The dent in the mailbox from when I had backed into it at sixteen.
For a moment, the night before felt impossible.
Then I saw the key in my hand.
Seventeen.
I walked inside.
The house smelled of dust and cedar.
My father's study was still there.
The desk.
The bookshelves.
The brass lamp.
I remembered doing homework on the floor while he worked.
I remembered falling asleep in the chair.
I remembered believing this room was the safest place in the world.
Dr. Sloan stood behind me.
“Where?”
She pointed toward the fireplace.
“Your father built something behind there.”
Morales examined the stonework.
“There.”
A narrow seam appeared between two blocks.
I inserted the key.
It turned.
A section of the wall moved inward.
Behind it was a staircase.
Emma woke.
“Mom?”
I turned.
“Stay with Morales.”
“I want to come.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I've had enough people telling me what I can’t know.”
That sounded like me.
I almost smiled.
Morales nodded.
“She stays with me.”
I descended.
The air smelled old and metallic.
At the bottom was a small laboratory.
Nothing like Creston.
No modern equipment.
Just cabinets, microscopes, paper files, and an old computer.
On the wall hung a photograph.
My father.
A woman beside him.
I recognized her.
My mother.
I had seen only two photographs of her growing up.
She died when I was three.
But this picture showed her pregnant.
Very pregnant.
And beside her stood a younger Dr. Sloan.
I turned.
“You knew my mother.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She was my patient.”
I stared at the photograph.
“What happened to her?”
“She didn't die when you were three.”
I couldn't speak.
Dr. Sloan continued.
“She disappeared.”
My father's records revealed that he had staged her death.
Not because she was dangerous.
Because the program wanted access to her.
“She escaped,” Sloan said.
“Where did she go?”
“We don't know.”
My hands shook.
“All these years…”
“I know.”
There was another file.
My mother's name.
I opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Claire,
If you ever find this, your father succeeded in one thing and failed in another.
He saved your life.
But he could not save ours.
I sat down.
The letter explained that my mother had discovered the experiments.
She had demanded they stop.
My father refused.
They fought.
Then she learned the program was attempting to reproduce the genetic correction in children.
That was when she left.
But before she disappeared, she hid evidence.
I read the next line twice.
The evidence is not in the laboratory.
It is in the house where Claire was raised.
I looked around.
“This house.”
Dr. Sloan nodded.
My mother had hidden something inside the place I knew better than anywhere.
Morales searched the room.
Emma appeared at the staircase.
“Mom.”
I turned.
She held an old wooden box.
“I found this.”
The box had been hidden beneath the loose floorboard in my old bedroom.
Inside was a cassette tape.
And a photograph.
Three babies.
Two girls.
One boy.
The photograph was dated the week I was born.
On the back were three names.
Claire.
Sarah.
Daniel.
I stared.
“That can't be right.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“Daniel?”
Dr. Sloan looked at the photograph.
“That's not Daniel.”
“Then who is it?”
She turned the photograph over.
Under the names was another word.
OBSERVERS.
The three adults in the photograph were my father, Dr. Sloan, and another man.
The man I recognized only after several seconds.
Mark.
He had been there from the beginning.
Sarah covered her mouth.
“He wasn't brought into this later.”
“No,” Sloan said.
“He was born into it.”
A noise came from the old computer.
The screen turned on by itself.
A single file appeared.
E-ONE_FINAL.
Morales reached for the keyboard.
The file opened.
My father's face appeared.
Older.
Tired.
He was speaking directly to the camera.
“If you're watching this, then I failed to stop them.”
My heart stopped.
He said the program had divided into two groups.
One wanted to reproduce my genetic correction.
The other wanted to understand why it had occurred naturally.
The second group believed the answer could prevent certain inherited diseases.
The first group wanted control.
He named the first group.
Mark.
Daniel.
Several others.
Then he said something that changed everything.
“Claire was never the experiment.”
The screen paused.
I stared.
“What?”
Dr. Sloan whispered:
“She was the control.”
My father explained.
They needed to know what happened when a corrected child lived normally.
No procedures.
No implants.
No conditioning.
Just life.
I had been monitored because they needed a baseline.
Emma was different.
She inherited the correction naturally.
My father had never expected it.
Neither had anyone else.
Then his final sentence appeared.
“She is the proof that the children don't need to be made. They need to be protected.”
The screen went black.
I looked at Emma.
She was crying.
“Mom, am I one of them?”
I crossed the room.
“No.”
“But they wanted me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they were wrong about what you were.”
She hugged me.
I held her tightly.
Then the cassette player clicked.
The tape began.
My mother's voice filled the room.
“If Claire ever finds this, tell her I left because staying would have made her a prisoner.”
I closed my eyes.
“And tell her the person she trusts most may be the person who knows where I am.”
The tape stopped.
Daniel.
The room went silent.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: My Mother’s Last Recording Pointed Toward the Man I Had Loved, and the Evidence Forced Me to Reconsider Every Memory
The Small Detail My Daughter Noticed in the Locker Room Turned an Ordinary Weekend Into Something I Couldn’t Explain
Part 9 of 20
