Chapter 40 - The Voice Victor ChoseMargaret waited inside an empty schoolhouse outside the city.
She was nearly eighty.
Victor remembered her hands more clearly than her face.
“You knew I was your son,” he said.
“Every day.”
“And you let me call someone else Mother.”
“Evelyn loved you. I was ordered to observe you.”
“You obeyed?”
“At first.”
Margaret opened an old wooden box.
Inside were letters, photographs and reports documenting Victor’s childhood.
Some reports described his behavior.
Others contained false information designed to make August believe Victor was unsuitable as a donor.
“You protected me.”
“I delayed him.”
“Why did you disappear?”
“Thomas discovered who I was. He gave me a choice: leave or tell you everything and risk August taking you.”
Victor sat opposite her.
“Is August dead?”
Margaret looked toward the window.
“The man in the laboratory was August.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because August was never the only chairman.”
She placed a small recorder on the desk.
Dozens of voices had given orders under August’s authority.
Doctors.
Trustees.
Judges.
Parents.
Victims who became operators.
“Orchard survived because everyone searched for one monster,” Margaret said. “It was a system maintained by people who believed obedience erased responsibility.”
Victor thought of Serena, Elias, Conrad, Daniel and even Thomas.
Each had claimed someone else gave the order.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Take the chairman’s place.”
Victor almost laughed.
Margaret remained serious.
“The surviving operators will obey you. Use that obedience to dismantle them.”
“No.”
“Without a chairman, they will scatter.”
“Then let them scatter.”
“They will rebuild.”
“Then we will find them without becoming them.”
Margaret watched him.
“You sound like Celeste.”
“I learned to listen too late.”
Victor stood.
“Come with me. Testify.”
“I will be imprisoned.”
“Yes.”
She lowered her eyes.
For the first time, she looked like an old woman rather than a secret.
Victor returned to the seaside house before sunset.
Ethan, Noah and Samuel sat around the kitchen table.
Celeste was helping them paint over a silver fox symbol Samuel had drawn.
Victor entered.
Ethan ran to him.
“You came back.”
Victor lifted him.
“I said I would.”
Noah looked toward the door, checking whether anyone else had followed.
Samuel watched Victor’s face, still learning which expressions were safe.
Victor sat with all three boys.
On the table lay Ethan’s drawing.
The house now had many people.
Every person had a face.
At the bottom, Ethan had written four uneven words:
NO ONE ORDERS US GONE.
Victor looked at Celeste.
She reached for his hand.
Outside, the sea moved beneath the darkening sky.
There were still Orchard sites to find.
There were still names to restore.
There were still people who would insist they had only followed a voice.
But inside the house, no hidden telephone rang.
No lock moved beneath the floor.
No chairman decided which child belonged.
And when Ethan asked Victor to stay until he fell asleep, Victor did not tell him he had work to do.
May you like
He stayed.
This time, he listened.
