My neck stiffened under Jack’s touch. “Love won’t be enough. Too much has happened. Is happening.” Our love wouldn’t stop Sandra from hurting Jack, if that’s what she set out to do.
He shook his head. “You’re wrong. We’ll fight together. Like we always have.” I knew he meant what he said, but I could also see the doubt slowly creep into the trenches forming on his forehead, his face scrunching up in worry. “We’ll find this new clone. We can remove her tracker. It’s gotta be the tracker that’s making her come after you.”
I pulled away from him, stepping back. “Don’t you get it, Jack? This will never be over. We’ll never be free of this life. You once thought we could run, but you know we can’t. We’re still at Wellington because there is no escape.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this—”
“Oh yeah? How’s it going to be, Jack? Tell me. Because from where I’m standing, every time I turn around, someone new is getting inside my head. I’m exhausted. I can’t keep fighting every new path Sandra finds into my head. And I won’t let them kill someone else I love.” I would find a way to protect what was left of my loved ones—and this school that my dad had fought so hard to preserve.
“What are you saying?”
I let my eyes close while I took a deep breath. I had said too much. “Nothing. I’m saying nothing.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. When I opened my eyes, Jack was staring at me, waiting. I sighed. “I’m tired,” I said. “And I need to do something before I meet with Coach.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “I’ll meet you there. I just need a few moments alone.”
He closed the distance between us, standing so close his body appeared taller and larger. “Fine. But listen to me, Lex. I don’t know what’s going on inside your head or what you’re planning, but I won’t let you shut everyone out.”
“You don’t have a choice.” My voice had taken on a permanent edge.
“Oh yeah? You’re forgetting something.”
I placed a hand on my hip, refusing to step away, refusing to be intimidated. “And what might that be?”
“I don’t need a tracker to get inside your head. Sure, you can shut me out, keep your secrets. For a while. But you won’t do it for long.”
“You wouldn’t break the trust we’ve worked so hard to build.”
“I would rather break our trust and risk losing you than see you self-destruct or put yourself in danger.”
And with that, he turned and stormed off.
“You can’t get inside my head anymore,” I yelled after him, but even I knew my words didn’t carry much weight.
Chapter Nine
I didn’t want to think about the possibility of Jack sneaking inside my head and discovering the truth about his dad, or about the fact that I’d sent information to the FBI. As I raced through the administration building, I vowed to tell Jack everything. Today. We’d have to be ready to protect ourselves from Sandra.
However, classes started in an hour, so first I would find out what else Sandra had emailed me.
I passed a secretary on my way to my new office, and she gave me a quick nod. Voices carried from the conference room where I had met with the attorneys.
“She doesn’t know how to run a school! Let alone all the programs we have going on here. Peter didn’t know what he was doing when he left her the school. Or anything else.” It wasn’t hard to place Cathy’s voice. It was like poison on top of an already poor day.
“I can only guess, but I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing.” As always, Seth’s voice was calm, in control.
“We have no choice but to help her,” Dr. Wellington added. “We can still get what we want out of this.”
I placed a flat hand on the ornate wooden door and slowly pushed it open. Roger Wellington and Seth looked up. Cathy sat taller in her seat. Her face completely transformed, the thick lines in her forehead disappearing, a weightless smile suddenly forming on her lips.
“Oh, Lexi, darling,” she practically opera-sang in a multiple-personality kind of way. “How are you this morning?”
I took a few steps into the room, studying each of the three people seated at the table. Leaning against the edge of the table, I set my green smoothie on the wood. Sweat from the cup immediately began pooling around the base. I focused on Cathy.
“Are you insane? Bipolar?” She straightened and pursed her lips. I looked at Dr. Wellington. “You were explaining how you could still get what you wanted out of this. And what is it that you want out of this? Exactly.”
He stood, clasping his hands in front of him. “What we’ve always wanted. To create amazing doctors… no, not doctors, healers… from the most intelligent humans ever created.”
I stared at him. He spoke like this was just another day at boarding school—like I hadn’t almost been captured for Sandra’s own personal experimentation a couple of weeks ago.
“I think I’m starting to understand,” I said. “This is all playing out exactly how you intended, isn’t it? You cloned human embryos, modified their genetic makeup to suit your purpose, and now you’re attempting to control those humans like they’re your property.” I emphasized the word “humans” in the hope that I would point out the obvious: that we are not machines built based on planned specifications. “You’re no different than Sandra Whitmeyer.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Dr. Wellington’s face reddened. “We thought the cloned embryos were destroyed eighteen years ago. Even your dad thought they were destroyed. From the moment we learned of your existence, we have done nothing but try to protect you and the other clones. This has not been easy.”
“What hasn’t been easy, exactly?” I asked.
“Keeping you, Jack, Kyle, and Bree a secret. Especially after we discovered that Sandra hadn’t stopped cloning humans.”
“So, when you discovered the truth, you—what? Thought you’d gather us together and see what you could gain from the situation?”
Seth’s lips tipped up as he calmly lifted his coffee mug and took a drink.
Dr. Wellington’s hands curled into fists against the table. “It’s not—”
Seth lifted a hand. “Just stop, Roger. Lexi knows it’s not like that. She wouldn’t have stayed at Wellington if she actually thought you meant her harm. Am I right, Lexi?” He winked at me.
I stared at the three of them. Seth had a point. Though I found Cathy annoying, Roger questionable, and Seth a little too mysterious and a little too related to Sandra, I didn’t fear for my life when I was around them. Maybe because I knew they couldn’t do much to me here at school with Coach nearby, or without someone else witnessing something.
Seth continued. “What Lexi needs… what we all need… is for Wellington to continue to operate. Business as usual. The students here need consistency and normalcy. Many of the younger clones we’ve found still don’t know what they are. And we’re still figuring out if Sandra altered them in any way. If we discover more clones, or if more escape Sandra, they’ll need a place to seek asylum.”
I crossed my arms, processing. Seth was right. I needed Wellington—the only home I’d known for the last eight years—to keep going while I searched for Sandra. My dad had set this school up to shelter unsuspecting kids from what they were while they learned to be who they were supposed to be. That’s what he’d done for me, and that’s what I was going to do for others like me.
“Dr. Wellington, I have a question.” He raised a brow when I spoke. “Is Wellington self-sufficient? Can it support itself financially based solely on the tuition it charges?”
He smiled, and after casting a smug glance at Cathy, he answered. “Yes, my dear. Your father and I, along with many parents of the other… uh… students…”—his pause told me that by “students” he actually meant other clones—“…set up Wellington to operate without the need for external support. Not from the state or… anyone. That’s why the tuition is rather… well, s
teep. And thanks to your father’s continued work overseas, he set up a trust to cover anyone who comes our way without the means to pay that tuition. A board is in place to ensure Wellington functions as an elite school for the super-wealthy, complete with security and privacy for those who need it.”
I was sure the information regarding this trust was located in the documents left by my new lawyer, Ms. Long.
“Speaking of which…” Cathy fiddled with the coffee mug in front of her, turning it round and round. “Your mother has been in touch. She insists that you need around-the-clock security.”
“My mother.” Like I would take the advice of a mother who left me when I was barely a toddler, then left her own mother—my gram—to be cared for by Dad and me.
“That’s right. Apparently Ms. Long, one of your attorneys…”—Cathy’s face seemed to morph through several emotions before she lifted sad eyes to me—“…well, honey, she was found in her office last night. She’d overdosed on some sort of medication she was on. They’re ruling it an accident, but…”
My heartbeat picked up speed. “But what?” I asked when Cathy didn’t continue.
She waved a hand through the air. “Your mom… well… I think she’s overreacting, but she thinks it may have been murder, and wants more protection for you. Anyway, she says not to wait much longer to get in touch with her.”
I fought hard not to ball my hands into fists. A woman, an innocent woman, had been murdered… because of me.
I picked up my smoothie and took a sip, letting the cool liquid slide down the back of my throat again. I hoped that the more I pretended to be calm and in control, the more I would actually believe it.
“Anything else? Because I need to speak to Seth alone before I go to class.”
And I wasn’t about to discuss my mother with Cathy DeWeese.
~~~~~
Alone in my new office, I powered on my computer. My hands shook, and my stomach reeled thinking of Ms. Long. According to her, she and I had been the only two who’d known the exact terms of my inheritance. She’d also had hinted at measures put in place in case anything happened to her or me. But what measures? And what information did she have that might have resulted in her murder?
Seth entered and closed the door behind him. “Nicely done in there. Equal parts snarky and mind-your-own-business attitude.”
“A woman was murdered, Seth.”
“I know.” His lips thinned into a straight line. “I’m sorry.”
I brought up my email; I had to focus forward. Sure enough, just as Maya promised, there was an email waiting for me from an unknown address with an attached video. “Any leads on where Sandra and John DeWeese may have gone?” I asked without looking up. Even I was starting to notice a change in my demeanor as I addressed Seth, a doctor twice my age and arguably twice my level of maturity. “Have they set up a new lab?”
“There’s no question they’ve set up a new lab. They would have had to have. Or, more likely, they had a lab in place well before coming here.”
I lifted my eyes. “So UK was just a stopover on their way to another place. They never had any intention of staying there?”
“Definitely. Remember, Sandra’s main reason for coming to Kentucky was to try to bring you, and others from the original seven, on to her team. And from what Jack and Jonas have told me, the lab at the university showed no real evidence of having bred any new clones, only developing the ones she already had into weapons for the IIA.”
Sandra had verified that she needed me for her research. And the IIA was obviously willing to help Sandra in exchange for the work she did for the military. But why did the IIA care so much about me? Or was I just the means to keep Sandra working on the projects she did for the government? That made much more sense. “So you have no idea where she would have moved to?”
“No, not yet. But Coach Williams has discovered where they may have been before they came to Kentucky.”
I clicked on the email and brought up the video, pausing it so that I could get my headphones out and untangled. “Where?”
“Auburn, Alabama.”
“Auburn University, maybe?” He nodded. “Why there? And why another university?” I tried to recall anything I knew about Auburn from the materials I received while accumulating college brochures over the last year and a half. “Because it has the top veterinarian school, possibly? Would she have been cloning animals again and needed their facilities?”
“That’s an idea, but a hunch tells me it’s more than that. A lot of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning studies are done inside animal science labs. However, I’m working to draw some correlations between the two places.”
I squinted at him. “How did Coach discover this?”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “Your mother told him.”
That was just perfect.
Redirecting my attention to the computer in front of me, I held up a finger. I had decided I wanted to view the video first before allowing Sandra’s brother to see her latest message. “Give me just a minute.” After placing the earbuds in my ears, I pushed play.
Sandra appeared on screen. Her hair blew in a breeze, and a palm tree stood in the background, reminding me that she had told me I would like the “beach location” of the next lab. “Hi, Lexi. I hope this video finds you well. That was a nice stunt you pulled back at the labs. I was impressed, and I don’t impress easily.”
My heart rate began a slow climb. I didn’t chance a look at Seth, who had to be wondering what I was watching.
“I trust you received my messages,” Sandra continued as the muscles in my spine tightened. I assumed she meant the other video she sent and the message delivered by Maya. “I know you’re wondering why I would expose John as your dad’s murderer.”
The thought had crossed my mind, but I’d dismissed it since I couldn’t possibly figure out the mind of a crazy person—even if I had seen every firing neuron inside it.
“I want to make you a promise, Lexi. And I have something to show you.” The corners of her lips twitched a little—a subtle grin that sent a cold chill over my entire body. “First, the promise,” she continued. “I will let you confront John for what he did to your daddy. Then I will allow you to turn him over to the authorities—in exchange for your help with my project.”
Sandra somehow knew I would want revenge on the person who murdered my dad in cold blood, but did she think I could just forget what she’d done to Dani and Ty? Plus, she didn’t just want me to join her. She still wanted the information hidden in my DNA. The information she told me herself she’d been unable to replicate.
“I know that you have the intelligence to process the good that I’m doing. Good that you can be a part of. I’ve discovered how to save the world from all illness…” Sandra’s voice rose, and she was talking with her hands now. “To cure people who have been injured. Just by tweaking your DNA slightly, you have been gifted with an unbelievable talent for healing—even greater than what you’ve unlocked so far. I saw Addison’s injuries after her accident. I even made them a little worse just before I went into that unfortunate coma of my own.”
An audible gasp escaped my mouth. Seth, who was scrolling on his phone while waiting patiently, looked up and started toward me. I yanked the headphones out of the jack so he could hear the rest.
“I know. I know. That was evil of me,” Sandra continued, her voice now filling my office. “But I knew you were going to heal her. You and Jack were growing closer. Seth was in place to teach you what you could do. It was all going according to plan. Everyone was working toward giving me everything I’d ever wanted, and they didn’t even know it. I’m just sad I wasn’t there to see how you actually healed Addison.” She smiled and appeared lost in her own thoughts for a moment—like a mother relishing in a child’s triumph.
Bile rose to the back of my throat. The room began a slow spin. I had done exactly what she’d wanted of me. I was nothing more than a marionette, and Sandra was pulling all of
the strings.
“Anywho,” she sang. “Now I’m just rambling.”
Sandra was not rambling. She was purposefully stating what she wanted me to know.
“I have one more thing to show you.” She began walking.
The camera followed her as she turned to her right and approached a grey metal door. She punched in a code and opened it. The camera must have been stopped briefly, because suddenly Sandra was in a different place—a lab—and she was dressed in a puffy white suit and had a protective mask of some sort over her head. Behind her were men dressed the same way, standing over large machines that looked like horizontal freezers. Rows and rows of rectangular-shaped boxes, white with dark glass on top.
Sandra leaned in close to the camera. “This is so exciting. I know how much you love human life, Lexi. I saw it in your eyes while you were with me at the UK lab. And it was evidenced by you stealing Dia and Lin.”
“I didn’t steal them,” I yelled at the computer. “They left because you’re a demented, certifiable lunatic!”
“What are those?” Seth was leaning closer to the screen.
“What?” I had been so focused on Sandra that I had forgotten the rectangular machines behind her.
As if hearing us, Sandra asked, “So, do you want to see what’s inside?”
I stared at the machines. I so badly wanted to hover above them and look inside. Yet I was terrified at the same time.
“Oh my God.” Seth placed his hands on the desk beside me as if to steady himself. “Those are incubators.”
“Incubators?”
“Open it.” Sandra was no longer talking into the camera but to a lab tech.
A cold sweat broke out across my neck. Seth’s fingernails dug into the wood of the desk beside me. I stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding in front of me.
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