Chapter 14 - Forty-Eight Hours Before It Was Too Late
Blythe survived the reaction.
Barely.
Franklin emerged from the room with sweat at his temples.
“What happened?”
“Immune response.”
“Is the treatment killing her?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Her body recognized the engineered cells.”
“Good or bad?”
“Potentially both.”
I hated medicine because every answer seemed to contain another question.
“Will she survive?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“That is all I can honestly give you.”
I entered after the team stabilized her.
Blythe slept.
Her tiny hand rested outside the blanket.
I held it.
Jonah watched from the other bed.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fighting.”
He nodded.
“She always wins.”
I smiled despite everything.
“Usually.”
“She cheats at cards.”
“She learned from your mother.”
His eyes widened.
“You found Mommy?”
I had forgotten Blythe might have heard me.
I looked at Franklin.
Then back at Jonah.
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
Children ask impossible questions with simple words.
“Yes.”
Jonah stared at me.
Then started crying.
Not loudly.
Tears just slid down his cheeks.
“Why didn’t she come home?”
I moved beside him.
“She was trying to keep you safe.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know.”
“I want Mom.”
“So do I.”
That broke something.
Jonah wrapped his arms around me.
For the first time in years, I cried in front of my son.
Not Mercer tears.
Not private tears in dark rooms.
Real grief.
Real relief.
Real anger.
All of it together.
At sunset, another patient responded to Genevieve’s protocol.
A seven-year-old girl in Boston.
One of the Project Lark children.
Her parents had received the evidence package and agreed to emergency treatment.
Then a boy in Denver.
The protocol was spreading faster than Novagen could stop it.
Regulators froze research assets.
Federal investigators entered two facilities.
News organizations began publishing.
PROJECT LARK appeared across television screens.
But Genevieve’s name did not.
I had made sure of that.
Not yet.
Victor disappeared completely.
Elias Vane was detained for questioning.
Prescott brought me a file late that night.
“We found where Victor went.”
“Where?”
“Old Mercer airfield.”
“What’s there?”
“Private hangar.”
“He’s leaving.”
“Probably.”
“Stop him.”
Prescott didn’t move.
“What?”
“Genevieve is there.”
My heartbeat changed.
“How do you know?”
“A camera caught her entering thirty minutes ago.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I called the number she had used.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Prescott said, “It could be a trap.”
“Of course it is.”
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“The twins—”
“Are stable?”
“For now.”
“I’ve waited two years.”
He understood.
The airfield sat forty minutes away.
I made it in twenty-eight.
The hangar doors were partly open.
Inside, one small jet waited.
Victor stood near it.
And twenty feet from him—
Genevieve.
Alive.
For one second I could not move.
She was thinner.
Her hair shorter.
A faint scar ran along her temple.
But it was her.
My wife.
The woman whose coffin I had stood beside.
The mother my children had cried for.
Genevieve turned.
Saw me.
Her face collapsed.
“Lawson.”
I crossed the distance before logic returned.
I held her.
Or she held me.
I don’t know.
Neither mattered.
She smelled different.
Her hair felt different.
But the way she pressed her face against my chest was the same.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re alive.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Victor watched us.
I had forgotten he existed.
Then Genevieve stepped away.
“Don’t let him leave.”
Victor almost smiled.
“You always were dramatic, Gen.”
She looked at him with pure hatred.
“You told Vane where Miriam was.”
“Yes.”
“You had Claire watched.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered the highway attack.”
“No.”
Genevieve froze.
Victor continued.
“Vane did.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I made sure everyone believed you died.”
My hands clenched.
He looked at me.
“You should be thanking me. Her false death kept her alive.”
“For three weeks.”
“No.”
Genevieve shook her head.
“I was alive because you needed my evidence.”
Victor sighed.
“You really think everything is personal.”
“When children are dying, it becomes personal.”
“You don’t understand what Lark can become.”
“I understand exactly.”
He looked toward the jet.
“Personalized cures. Genetic medicine. Cancer therapies worth hundreds of billions.”
“And children selected without consent.”
“Early mistakes.”
Genevieve stepped closer.
“Jonah and Blythe are not mistakes.”
Victor looked irritated.
“I didn’t say they were.”
“You called their suffering necessary data.”
Silence.
Law enforcement vehicles appeared beyond the hangar.
Victor saw them.
His face changed.
“How?”
Genevieve held up her phone.
“You taught me to document everything.”
She had recorded him.
Victor moved toward another exit.
Prescott blocked it.
For years Victor had manipulated us with secrets.
Tonight, there was nowhere left to hide.
He was arrested without a dramatic struggle.
No final speech.
No glorious fall.
Just a tired, frightened man in an expensive suit being led away under fluorescent lights.
I turned to Genevieve.
There were a thousand things I wanted to ask.
Then my phone rang.
Franklin.
I answered.
His face filled the screen.
“Lawson.”
“What?”
He smiled.
The first real smile I had seen from him.
“Blythe’s counts are rising.”
I stopped breathing.
“And Jonah?”
“His are too.”
Genevieve heard.
Her hands covered her mouth.
Franklin continued.
“It’s early. We have a long road ahead.”
“But?”
“But the treatment is working.”
Genevieve broke.
I caught her as she cried.
For two years I had imagined what I would say if somehow she walked back through my door.
Angry speeches.
Questions.
Accusations.
None survived that moment.
I held her.
May you like
And whispered the only sentence that mattered.
“Our babies are coming back.”
