Chapter 8 - THE BROTHER WITHOUT A NAME
Ethan’s blood showed traces of a sedative banned from pediatric use twelve years earlier.
The emergency physician said the dose had been small but repeated. Not enough to cause permanent harm, she hoped, though the word hoped lodged like glass in Amanda’s chest.
Ethan was admitted for observation under an assumed name. The hospital security director placed two guards outside his room after Amanda explained the shooting at the mansion. Richard was taken to intensive care after suffering a seizure triggered by sound-conditioned neural stress.
The phrase was clinical.
The reality was monstrous.
Amanda sat beside Ethan’s bed until midnight, watching him breathe. His dinosaur pajamas had been sealed in an evidence bag. He wore a blue hospital gown and held a stuffed fox a nurse had found in storage.
At 12:14 a.m., her phone rang from an unknown number.
She answered without speaking.
A man said, “The bird saw the fire.”
Amanda stood so abruptly the chair scraped the floor.
“Who is this?”
“You entered the wrong phrase three times.”
She glanced at her phone. The Hart Archive login screen had locked.
“You can see my phone?”
“I can see the system my father built.”
My father.
Amanda moved into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving it open a crack so she could still see Ethan.
“Are you Samuel Hart’s son?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“The one he gave me or the one they used?”
“Both.”
“My father named me Gabriel. Vale Biodyne called me H-17.”
Amanda pressed one hand against the sink. “You met Ethan.”
“I watched him from a distance for months. I spoke to him once, by the lake in Linden Park. I gave him the bird because I needed to know whether the conditioning markers had passed to him.”
Rage cut through her shock. “You used my son.”
“I protected him.”
“You approached a four-year-old without my knowledge.”
“And if I had approached you, Richard’s family would have known I was alive.”
“Are you the person who called from the chamber?”
“No.”
Amanda went cold. “Then my father is alive.”
“I did not say that.”
“It was his voice.”
“The archive contains adaptive recordings. He built them to respond to specific events.”
“You are lying.”
“I wish I were.”
The certainty in Gabriel’s voice frightened her more than uncertainty would have.
Amanda looked toward Ethan’s sleeping form. “Corwin said Richard is Ethan’s uncle.”
Silence.
“Gabriel.”
“The second report compared Ethan’s sample to both Richard and me.”
“Why?”
“Because Vivian suspected the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That the neonatal exchange did not end with Richard’s generation.”
Amanda’s grip tightened on the sink.
“Say it clearly.”
“You were pregnant with twins.”
“No.”
“Your first ultrasound showed two embryos.”
“I saw one heartbeat.”
“The scan you saw was altered.”
Amanda remembered the early pregnancy: the private Vale clinic, the sudden bleeding at fourteen weeks, Vivian insisting Amanda remain sedated overnight. The next morning, the doctor said the baby was safe. One baby.
“You are saying another child was taken from me?”
“I am saying the records indicate two male fetuses. One was registered as Ethan. The second disappeared from the medical system before delivery.”
Amanda slid to the floor.
She covered her mouth so Ethan would not hear the sound that escaped her.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew this and stayed hidden?”
“I have spent four years trying to find him.”
“Four years?”
“He was not taken at birth. He was taken during the emergency procedure at thirty-one weeks.”
Amanda remembered waking in pain, being told she had suffered premature contractions. She had remained hospitalized for three days. Vivian controlled visitors. Richard had been overseas.
“But Ethan was born at thirty-nine weeks.”
“Yes.”
The answer was almost inaudible.
Amanda understood.
The second baby had been delivered early. Ethan had remained.
A child of hers had entered the world while she was unconscious, and someone had carried him away.
Her knees pressed against the cold tile.
“Why would they take him?”
“Because he tested positive for something Ethan did not.”
“What?”
“The same neural marker found in Richard. The marker that responds to conditioned sound.”
The bell.
“Where do you think they kept him?”
Gabriel breathed out slowly. “Inside Vale Biodyne’s pediatric research wing. Officially, the wing closed before you married Richard.”
“Unofficially?”
“It moved underground.”
Amanda looked at the locked bathroom door as if someone might already be behind it.
“What do you need from me?”
“The keycard from the chamber.”
“It is with me.”
“Good. Do not give it to the police. Do not give it to Richard.”
“Why not Richard?”
“Because seven bell tones can erase his resistance completely.”
Amanda remembered his warning before losing consciousness.
Never let her ring seven.
Gabriel continued. “At sunrise, a woman named Dr. Lena Cho will come to Ethan’s room. She will say she is from child protective services. She is not. Follow her.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You should not.”
The call disconnected.
Amanda remained on the floor until she heard Ethan murmur.
She returned to his bedside.
He was asleep, but his hand was moving beneath the blanket as though drawing.
Amanda gently pulled the sheet back.
On the hospital mattress, traced in condensation from his water cup, Ethan had drawn a red door.
Beside it stood two little boys.
May you like
One wore dinosaur pajamas.
The other had no face.
