Chapter 13 - The Road Where Jonathan Died
Claire awoke on the hospital floor.
Only three minutes had passed.
Vanessa opened her eyes moments later.
Both remembered the snowy road.
The memory might have been real, implanted, or a mixture of both.
Evelyn played Margaret’s message without sound and analyzed the waveform.
“The phrase was deliberate,” she said. “She wanted to trigger you.”
“Or guide us,” Vanessa replied.
Claire helped her stand.
“You’re defending her?”
“I’m saying she could have taken Jonathan without leaving anything.”
“She wanted us to follow.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it a trap.”
“It has all been a trap.”
Vanessa’s bluntness was difficult to argue with.
The road where Jonathan supposedly died was listed in the original police report. It wound through the mountains north of Bellweather.
Local records showed an abandoned ranger station near the crash site.
Claire notified Officer Marquez but did not wait for federal authorization.
Evelyn accompanied them.
Four private security officers from the trust followed in another vehicle.
As they drove into the mountains, Vanessa stared through the windshield.
“Do you remember being there?”
“I remember snow.”
“I remember Margaret holding my hand.”
“Which hand?”
“My left.”
Claire remembered the same thing.
They had been conditioned with overlapping memories.
The ranger station appeared shortly before dusk.
Fresh tire tracks crossed the snow.
Inside, they found medical supplies, a portable oxygen tank, and bloodstained bandages.
Jonathan had been there.
Margaret had moved him again.
A map on the wall marked a route toward the ruins of Meridian House.
The original facility had been built beneath an old hydroelectric plant.
Official reports claimed the fire destroyed the entire complex.
Jonathan had said the records were destroyed.
Claire no longer believed official reports.
They followed the route on foot after the road became impassable.
Night fell quickly.
Vanessa struggled in the cold but refused Claire’s help.
“You can stop proving you’re stronger than me,” Claire said.
“I’m not.”
“You always do this.”
“I’m trying not to slow you down.”
The admission surprised Claire.
They continued side by side.
Near midnight, they reached the hydroelectric ruins.
A temporary light glowed inside the main building.
Claire entered first.
Jonathan lay on a cot beside an electric heater. He was unconscious but alive.
Margaret sat beside him.
“You should not have removed him from the hospital,” Claire said.
“The hospital was no longer secure.”
“You triggered us.”
“I needed you to remember the route.”
“You could have drawn a map.”
“You would have brought Holt’s people.”
“Holt already knows this place.”
Margaret looked toward the ceiling.
“No. He knows the facility above us. Not the one below.”
She pulled a lever hidden behind an electrical panel.
A section of floor opened.
An elevator waited beneath it.
Vanessa laughed weakly.
“Another underground room.”
Margaret entered the elevator.
“Meridian had seven facilities. The house contained the archive. This one contained the originals.”
“Original what?” Claire asked.
“Children’s identity records.”
Claire looked at Jonathan.
“We cannot leave him.”
“The security team can protect him.”
They descended.
The elevator stopped inside a vault filled with rows of metal cabinets.
Margaret opened one marked C AND V.
Inside were medical charts, photographs, blood cards, and two sealed glass vials.
“DNA samples,” Vanessa whispered.
“Original cord blood,” Margaret said. “Untouched.”
Claire stared at the vials.
They could finally know.
Margaret placed the samples into a portable testing device.
It compared them to fresh swabs from Claire, Vanessa, and Margaret.
The machine required forty minutes.
No one spoke while it processed.
Claire imagined every possible answer.
If she was Celia, would that make Margaret her mother?
If Vanessa was Celia, would Claire become only Subject V?
She hated the label.
She thought of her life, her business, her home, her choices.
None had depended on a birth name.
The machine sounded.
Margaret read the results.
Her face lost all color.
“What does it say?” Vanessa asked.
Margaret looked from one sister to the other.
“The Celia sample is biologically related to me.”
“That is expected,” Claire said. “Which one of us matches?”
Margaret did not answer.
Claire took the report.
The comparison showed that both Claire and Vanessa shared maternal markers with Margaret.
The probability was too high for coincidence.
Vanessa read over her shoulder.
“We are both your daughters.”
Margaret sat down.
“That is impossible.”
A weak voice came from the elevator.
“No,” Jonathan said. “It isn’t.”
He stood supported by Evelyn, pale from blood loss.
Margaret stared at him.
“What did you do?”
Jonathan looked at Claire and Vanessa.
“Celia was not born alone.”
Claire felt the room tilt.
“Twins?”
Jonathan nodded.
“Margaret delivered two daughters. One was declared dead.”
Margaret shook her head violently.
“I held the body.”
“You held a child who died during another delivery.”
“You told me Celia had survived.”
“One daughter survived under her name. The other became Subject V.”
Vanessa backed away.
“You gave your own daughter to Meridian.”
Jonathan closed his eyes.
“I thought hiding one child inside the program would protect her from the people searching for Margaret.”
Claire could barely speak.
“Which one did you hide?”
“I never knew. Kessler switched the bracelets before I arrived.”
Margaret struck Jonathan across the face.
“You let me mourn a living child.”
“I was trying to save both.”
“You saved the archive.”
A warning alarm sounded.
The elevator began rising without being called.
Someone was coming down.
Margaret looked at the monitor.
Holt stood inside the elevator with Diane and Richard.
Behind them was a fourth person wearing a black hood.
The hooded figure held a gun against a young boy’s head.
May you like
Vanessa screamed.
It was her son.
