Chapter 4 - Amelia Comes Home)
“Caesar?”
The voice came again.
Soft.
Frightened.
Alive.
Nobody in the safe room moved.
Caesar stared into the dark doorway.
“Amelia?”
Clara whispered, “No.”
A figure appeared in the hall.
Long blonde hair.
White blouse.
Bare feet.
Caesar’s heart seemed to stop.
The figure stepped into the emergency light.
It was Amelia.
Or it was impossible.
She looked older than the woman who had died four years ago.
Thinner.
There was a scar running from her left temple into her hairline.
But it was her face.
Her eyes.
The small crooked bend in her right little finger from a childhood riding accident.
Caesar had kissed that hand a thousand times.
Evelyn stared.
“Mommy?”
Amelia collapsed to her knees.
“My baby.”
Evelyn ran.
Clara caught her.
“Wait.”
Amelia looked toward Clara.
“You came.”
Clara’s face crumpled.
“I thought you were dead.”
“So did they.”
Caesar finally moved.
He stepped into the hallway.
Amelia looked at him.
For years Caesar had imagined this moment in dreams.
In some versions he screamed at her for leaving.
In others he held her until neither of them could breathe.
In reality, he simply stared.
“Prove it.”
Pain crossed her face.
“Your eighteenth birthday. Your father gave you a gold watch you hated. You buried it under the oak tree because you thought refusing it would make you free of him.”
Caesar’s jaw tightened.
“You found it after we were married.”
“I put it in your desk and told you some ghosts should be kept where you could see them.”
Only Amelia knew that.
Caesar took one more step.
She lifted her sleeve.
A thin white scar crossed her forearm.
Caesar remembered the broken champagne glass on their honeymoon in Capri.
He touched the scar.
Amelia began crying.
Then Caesar pulled her into his arms.
For three seconds he forgot everything.
The cup.
Vanessa.
The threat.
His father at the gate.
All of it.
He held the wife he had buried.
Then Samuel coughed again.
Amelia pulled back sharply.
“The baby.”
She crossed toward Clara.
Vanessa blocked her.
“Do not touch him.”
Amelia stared at Vanessa.
The warmth vanished from her face.
“You.”
Vanessa backed away.
Amelia turned to Caesar.
“She was there.”
“At the lake?”
“At the laboratory.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“She is lying.”
Amelia pointed.
“That woman watched them hold me down.”
Evelyn began sobbing again.
Caesar turned to Marcus.
“Get the west tunnel open.”
Marcus nodded.
Daniel carried Samuel.
Clara stayed beside him.
Amelia took Evelyn’s hand.
Vanessa moved toward the hall.
Caesar caught her.
“You are staying with me.”
“Caesar, please.”
“You wanted me to believe Clara attacked you and our baby.”
“She did.”
“You tried to force something into Samuel’s mouth.”
“It was medicine.”
“What medicine?”
Vanessa stared at him.
Then she whispered, “Something that would keep him alive.”
Everyone stopped.
Caesar’s voice became dangerously calm.
“Explain.”
Vanessa looked toward Amelia.
“She knows.”
Amelia shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I know Project Orpheus experimented on children.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“Experimented?”
She looked at Samuel.
“Orpheus made him.”
Silence.
Caesar felt the room tilt.
“What did you say?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears.
“Samuel is not sick because of what I gave him. He is sick because he did not get enough.”
“Enough of what?”
“The stabilizer.”
Clara stared at the white liquid on the carpet.
“That was not poison?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Vanessa looked at Caesar.
“His medicine.”
Caesar grabbed her shoulders.
“What is wrong with my son?”
Vanessa whispered, “He was never supposed to survive without it.”
Amelia stepped forward.
“What did they do?”
Vanessa looked around the room as if deciding whether truth was more dangerous than silence.
Then she said, “Samuel was conceived using genetic material selected by Orpheus.”
Caesar released her.
“No.”
Vanessa began crying.
“You wanted another child.”
“We conceived naturally.”
“That is what I told you.”
Caesar stared at her.
She continued.
“The fertility injections. The hormone treatments. The clinic in Boston.”
“You said the treatment was for you.”
“It was.”
Her voice cracked.
“But the embryo was not ours.”
Caesar looked at Samuel.
“My son is not my son?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“He is yours.”
“Then whose child is he?”
Vanessa looked toward Amelia.
Amelia went pale.
“No.”
Vanessa whispered, “Yours and hers.”
Nobody spoke.
Caesar stared at Amelia.
She stared at Samuel.
The baby who had been born to Vanessa.
May you like
The baby who, according to Vanessa, had been created from Caesar and Amelia.
Then Samuel stopped breathing.
