Mother aimed the gun at me.
“Because you were always worth more alive than the rest of us—and more dangerous once you learned why.”
Detective Beckett moved carefully along the wall.
Mother noticed.
“Stop, Detective.”
She pressed the barrel against Melanie’s neck.
“Or she dies first.”
Melanie closed her eyes.
For the first time in my life, she looked younger than me.
Not glamorous.
Not cruel.
Just frightened.
Mother continued.
“Your grandfather believed he was saving children. But the company funding his research wanted patents, military contracts, billions.”
“What company?” I asked.
“Virex Medical.”
The name was familiar. Virex manufactured surgical devices and neurological drugs around the world.
Walter struggled to sit up.
“They buried the trial data,” he gasped. “The treatment healed nerve damage, but it also exposed dangerous defects in Virex’s bestselling medication.”
Mother glared at him.
“You should have stayed silent.”
Grandpa had discovered evidence that Virex’s drug caused irreversible damage.
And I had been living proof that his alternative treatment worked.
“If the truth came out,” Walter continued, “Virex would lose everything.”
Mother smiled bitterly.
“So they offered your father and me enough money to make sure it never did.”
My stomach twisted.
“You sold Grandpa.”
“We saved this family.”
“You murdered him.”
Her eyes flickered.
Not guilt.
Annoyance.
“Your father changed his medication. I merely made sure no one interfered.”
Melanie began to shake.
“You told me those pills were vitamins.”
Mother looked at her without tenderness.
“You were useful then.”
The cruelty of it struck Melanie harder than a blow.
All her life, she had believed she was the chosen daughter.
Now she understood she had only been a tool.
A door slammed behind us.
My father appeared from a service tunnel, blood on his shirt and rage in his eyes.
He had somehow escaped police custody.
Mother turned in surprise.
“Arthur?”
He raised a second gun.
But he did not aim at me.
He aimed at her.
“You were going to leave without me.”
Mother’s face hardened.
“You were arrested.”
“You had passports for yourself and Melanie.”
“Melanie was necessary.”
“And me?”
“You were always replaceable.”
Father fired.
The bullet struck the gun from Mother’s hand.
Chaos exploded.
Beckett’s officers rushed forward. Wyatt dragged me down. Melanie threw herself over Walter.
My parents fought like animals—shouting, clawing, accusing each other of theft, murder, betrayal, and hidden bank accounts.
Within seconds, both were pinned to the ground and handcuffed.
Mother turned her face toward me.
“You think this is over?”
I stood above her, shaking.
“It is for you.”
She smiled through blood on her lip.
“No, Sadie. Virex knows you’re alive.”
Then the police dragged her away.
Walter looked at me from the floor.
“She’s right.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the company has been waiting twelve years for the last surviving research subject to reappear.”
My heart hammered.
“Last surviving subject?”
Walter’s gaze moved toward Melanie.
And the room went silent.
Melanie whispered the truth before he could.
“You weren’t the only child Grandpa treated.”
—
PART 5
THE SECOND GIRL IN THE FILE
Walter was transported to the hospital under armed guard.
By sunrise, federal investigators had sealed the underground laboratory.
I sat in a secure hospital room with Wyatt and Melanie while Detective Beckett placed a thin file on the table between us.
Two photographs lay inside.
The first showed me as an infant.
The second showed another baby girl with dark hair and a tiny scar beneath her right ear.
Melanie stared at the photograph.
“That’s me.”
Walter nodded weakly from his bed.
“You were both treated.”
My sister looked at me.
“For the same condition?”
“No,” Walter said. “Sadie had optic nerve degeneration. Melanie had a severe immune disorder.”
I remembered how often Melanie had been sick as a child. Hospital stays. Fever. Months of isolation.
Our parents had always said she had simply grown stronger.
“She would have died before her third birthday,” Walter continued. “Harold used a modified version of the treatment to repair her immune response.”
Melanie’s face crumpled.
“Grandpa saved me.”
“Yes.”
“And I helped them kill him.”
“You were fifteen,” I said.
“I carried the pills.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But I stood on the porch while Dad hit you.”
Her voice broke.
“I knew that was wrong.”
I had imagined this moment countless times—the moment Melanie finally admitted what she had done.
I expected satisfaction.
Instead, I felt grief.
Because beneath the cruelty, jealousy, and competition, I suddenly saw the frightened child our parents had shaped into a weapon.
“You wanted Wyatt,” I said.
She stared at the floor.
“At first, I wanted what you had. Mom kept telling me you had stolen my future. She said Grandpa meant to leave everything to me until you manipulated him.”
“You believed her?”
“I needed to.”
The honesty hurt.
“If I admitted she was lying, then I had to admit my entire life was built on lies.”
Wyatt remained silent, though his hand never left mine.
Detective Beckett opened another folder.
“Federal agents raided Virex Medical’s regional offices this morning.”
“Did they find evidence?” I asked.
“More than expected. Payments to your parents. Surveillance records. Copies of your medical files.”
Melanie looked sick.
“They watched us?”
“For years.”
A federal prosecutor named Rachel Sloan joined us by video.
“Virex believed Harold’s treatment had long-term genetic consequences,” she explained.
“What consequences?”
“We don’t know yet. But they tracked both of you because they suspected the effects could be inherited.”
I looked at Wyatt.
We had talked about children.
A house.
A future.
Now fear entered every dream at once.
“Could my children be harmed?”
“We cannot answer that without testing.”
Melanie whispered, “Do they know where we are?”
Before anyone responded, every light in the hospital went dark.
An alarm began to scream.
Wyatt pulled me behind the bed.
Beckett drew his weapon.
Emergency power flickered on.
A nurse ran past the doorway, shouting that the security system had failed.
Then smoke began pouring from the ventilation vents.
“Move!” Beckett yelled.
We entered the corridor as patients were rushed toward the stairwells.
Through the haze, three men in medical uniforms moved against the flow of traffic.
They were not helping anyone.
They were searching.
One looked directly at me.
“There.”
Wyatt shoved a medication cart into their path.
Beckett fired one warning shot, and the corridor erupted into panic.
Melanie grabbed my hand.
For the first time since childhood, we ran together.
We reached the emergency stairwell, descended three floors, and burst into an underground parking garage.
A black SUV waited near the exit.
The driver lowered the window.
Walter Pike sat behind the wheel.
“Get in!”
Beckett aimed his gun.
