“Three months?”
“It’s too soon, considering her situation,” Saroyan objected.
“Ricread is accelerating the whole process,” Zavis explained. “The protocol to stimulate ovulation cycles in Isabella is to begin in a month, along with some procedures scheduled for the commander around the same time.”
“Three months is a long time for me to wait, Zavis.” Tairan stared at her, trying to gauge how much he could count on her, if at all. “I’ll need to see her sooner.”
She shot a quick glance in Ricread’s direction then took a step closer, lowering her voice. “The instructions were to move you back to the clinical wing. But there were no explicit orders to strip you of the privilege to walk about the station.”
“Thank you.” He inclined his head in genuine gratitude. Having some freedom to move inside the facility gave him a better chance at bringing his escape plan to life.
Tairan harboured no illusions about Ricread getting his revenge on him sooner or later. He had overstepped the man’s authority, humiliated him in front of his team. Well familiar with the moods and the character of his adversary, Tairan fully expected some grim consequences.
Valran was right, however, Ricread still needed Tairan alive. At least for a little while, as the Head of Research, he’d have his hands full with the impending media storm.
That should give Tairan some time to get everything ready. Getting Isabella and the baby out of the facility was now his top priority, no matter the price.
An alarm came from Valran’s device, alerting of a series of attempts to break the door code.
“It’s time.” Tairan kissed the soft fluff of his baby’s hair and handed her to Zavis, heading for the sealed door.
Touching his hand to the entrance sensors, he opened it, coming face to face with Sikril. The Head of Security held up a set of restraints, his expression cold.
“I’m ready,” Tairan nodded.
Chapter 24
FOR A WHILE, I HAD no idea where I was. Then awareness slowly returned and with it the soreness in my lower belly. With a groan, I threw my arm across my middle, searching for the source of pain. My body felt smaller than it should—lighter. The weight that used to compress my spine, preventing me from sleeping on my back, was no longer there.
Elizabeth!
Fear jolted me fully awake, although I still struggled to open my eyes completely—my eyelids seemed unnaturally heavy.
Where was she?
Slowly, the memories started coming back, like a stack of images and sensations, sliding in one by one.
The concern on Tairan’s face, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
The sensation of his hand in mine, anchoring me to him, as the swells of breathtaking pain rolled through me.
“Tairan . . .” I managed, my voice sounding strangely distant as if it wasn’t my own.
“Can you open your eyes, Isabella?” A soft, female voice asked. I had a feeling I knew the person speaking, but couldn’t think of her name or recall her face at the moment.
“Is the baby . . . well?”
“Yes, she is right here. You can see her.”
Relief rushed me in a warm swell.
“Yes, please, I want to . . .” I stirred, struggling to gain full control over my unruly limbs in an attempt to get up.
“Here, let me help you.”
With a soft whirring noise, the surface behind my back rose, slowly putting me in a sitting position.
“Better now?”
I blinked, finally opening my eyes, the light no longer seemed to be directed straight at me.
“Zavis?” I stared at the smiling face that finally merged with the name in my mind.
“Yes!” She nodded enthusiastically. “I have Eli . . . um, the baby right here.” A shadow crossed her face as her eyes momentarily flickered to the side.
Following her gaze, I stared straight at Ricread, standing at the foot of my bed.
“Status?” He snapped, not taking his stare off me, the expression on his face even more severe than usual.
This time someone else gave him the numbers, as Zavis had her hands full with a small bundle.
“Here you go,” she whispered quickly, pressing the baby into my chest.
Automatically, I lifted my arms to accept.
My baby.
Mine and Tairan’s.
Her father’s heritage was prominent—Elizabeth had his pale skin and long, white hair. The hooded blanket she was wrapped in couldn’t completely hide her downy strands that extended past her shoulders, much longer than any hair I’d ever seen on a baby.
Her eyes were closed. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but her stillness alarmed me.
“Is she okay?”
“Just a little sleepy.” Zavis smiled.
“She needs nourishment.” Ricread’s voice, cold and resentful, was out of place in the room with my sleeping angel. “Human milk is the optimal sustenance to ensure her survival.”
“Is she in danger?” I pressed the small bundle closer to my chest, as if that alone would keep her safe.
“The risk is always there,” he dismissed my concern. “The feeding schedule is every two hours, around the clock, to stimulate milk production and build a sufficient supply. Her first meal is due now.” Ricread glanced at one of the two security guards standing silently by the wall. “They will be present at every feeding.”
“Where is Tairan?” I asked quickly.
He threw over his shoulder on his way to the door, “I’ve told you all you need to know.”
Ricread fixed his stare on Zavis for a moment. She blanched, fiddling with the end of one of her braids, then sank into a chair by the bed as soon as he left.
“Where is Tairan, Zavis?” I immediately turned to her.
“Your level of clearance does not allow for status updates on the male subject,” she said loud and clear. By the way her gaze jerked to the direction of the guards, I understood the statement was for their benefit.
“Has he seen his daughter?”
She didn’t answer out loud, but the barely discernible nod of her head, combined with a tiny smile let me know that he had. I exhaled a long sigh, fighting the tightness in my chest as worry for him descended over me.
The baby squirmed in my arms, bringing both of our attention to her. Her eyes firmly closed, only the tips of the snow-white eyelashes visible, she seemed to struggle against the blanket, which restricted her movements. The little face scrunched tight, turning a faint shade of pink, which brought out her white eyebrows in contrast.
“She must be hungry,” I said softly, stroking the side of her face gently.
“Must be,” Zavis chimed in, enthusiastically. “She slept for hours. It was such a beautiful sight to watch her.”
Shifting the baby to one arm, I tugged down the cover, freeing my breast. Acutely aware of the stares of the guards by the door, I lifted Elizabeth higher, trying to shield myself with her tiny body.
“Let me help you,” Zavis said quickly and moved to the bed, placing herself between me and the guards.
Trying to remember how Mary did it, I held up my breast, pressing the tip to Elizabeth’s mouth. She eagerly moved her head, searching with her parted lips, then latched on to the nipple quickly.
“She looks like she knows what she is doing.” Zavis laughed.
“That makes one of us.” I huffed a laugh, too, amazed to feel the rhythmic tugs of the baby’s mouth on my breast. “I don’t even have any idea if my milk has come in yet.”
“Well, she is working on getting something,” Zavis pointed out.
As if knowing that we were talking about her, Elizabeth opened her eyes, gazing up at me.
“She has your eyes!” Zavis gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth.
“It can’t be,” I shook my head even as the evidence was literally staring me in the eye. “The irises of human newborns are almost always blue at first. They normally change weeks if not months lat
er.”
“Well, she is only half-human,” Zavis argued.
That was true. The first ever human-Kealan baby, Elizabeth was one of a kind, truly unique. Who was there to tell how my baby should look and grow? There had never been anyone like her before in whole of the Universe.
Staring up at me with her dark-chocolate eyes, which seemed eerily out of place yet so wonderfully fitting under her snow-white eyelashes, the baby kept sucking, an expression of intense concentration on her tiny, pale face.
An all-powerful feeling of love flooded me from head to toe. There was absolutely nothing in this world that I wouldn’t do for her.
“I love you, baby,” I whispered, stroking the small fisted hand that she had worked out of the blanket. Immediately, she grabbed on to my finger, holding tight. “I’m not going anywhere.” I smiled. “I’ll always be with you, for as long as I live.”
At that moment, I didn’t care that we were both prisoners in this place, vulnerable to the whims of an evil man. I made her a promise, and I fully intended to keep it.
Chapter 25
IT HAD BEEN WELL OVER a month since Elizabeth’s birth, with no news of Tairan. In some truly dark moments during that time, I doubted he was even alive.
Pleading with staff for any information on his health and whereabouts got me nowhere. And I believed that was part of the plan to keep us apart, devised to torture me in retribution for the agreement I had forced on Ricread earlier.
Tairan was absolutely right when he warned me not to show any signs that I cared about anyone, my love for him was now used against me. After weeks of not knowing, I was ready to do anything for any piece of information about him.
The grim expression on Zavis’s face every time I mentioned his name terrified me. My mind swung from one horrific scenario to another—from dreading he was dead, to being afraid to think in what state he might be kept alive.
The scar on my belly healed to nearly invisible within days, but because of it being there in the first place, I knew that Elizabeth was born by C-section. Although, no one gave me any details about her delivery, either.
Nursing Elizabeth continued to follow the same feeding schedule—every two hours, day and night. Zavis was always the one who brought her to me, accompanied by the two guards from the security team.
Both Zavis and I were sleep deprived after the six weeks of waking every two hours, but Ricread refused to change the schedule even when Elizabeth started skipping meals, especially at night, obviously more in need of sleep than food as she grew.
For me, the days and nights had merged into one. With perpetual darkness outside the huge window in the living room, I had to closely follow the clock if I wanted to track the time, which I cared less and less about.
Sitting on the bed one day, with a bowl of ‘crispy rice in yogurt’ I was still able to get a couple of times a month thanks to Tairan’s rigging the food unit, I lost track of time and didn’t realize it was another feeding until the door opened and Zavis walked in with Elizabeth in her arms.
“What is that?” She stared at my bowl, catching me red-handed—a spoon full of creamy substance with chocolate-coloured balls in my hand. “Those are ecoot beetle chitin sheddings, aren’t they? In garula moth yolk protein. I don’t believe either are on the list of approved foods for you.”
“Great.” I dropped the spoon into the bowl. “I knew it had to be something nasty, but really didn’t care to know exactly what. You just couldn’t let me keep believing it was crispy rice, could you?”
“Um . . . okay.” She sat on the bed, placing Elizabeth in her lap. Having eaten well two hours ago, the baby appeared to be in a deep, contented sleep. “It is crispy rice, if you want it to be. How did you get it, though?”
“Well, it’s too late now.” I frowned at the offensive brown balls in my bowl. “I already know what they are. Some beetle waste . . .” Picking up the spoon, I stirred the creamy mass in my bowl. A whiff of delicious aroma reached my nostrils, making my mouth water. “Ugh, whatever.” I took another spoonful. Enjoying the fragrant sweetness on my tongue, I tried not to think about where it came from. “I’ve already eaten a whole bunch of gross-sounding things. Who cares what it is as long as it tastes good, right?” I shrugged, quickly finishing the bowl. Now that Zavis had caught me, this would surely be my last time eating it.
“Did the commander do something to your food unit?” Zavis asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Kealan foods are not on your menu list.”
“What difference does it make now?” I sat the empty bowl aside and reached for my baby. “I’m not even pregnant anymore.”
“Still, you shouldn’t—”
“How is Tairan?” I asked, not expecting her to answer, but wanting to stop her before she delivered some lecture on optimal nutrition for nursing mothers or worse—potential perils of violating Ricread’s rules.
Snapping her gaze to mine, she rattled out quickly, “You don’t have the clearance to receive this type of information.”
The words I’d heard at least a thousand times before. The expression on her face, however, was different. Staring at me, with a wide smile, Zavis appeared excited—happy even—making relief spread through me. I took this as her way of reassuring me that Tairan was alive and well, which was the best news of him I’d gotten since the birth of our baby.
“Oh, my goodness,” I breathed out, pressing Elizabeth to my chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I whispered, barely audible. Still, she glanced cautiously at the guards, as if warning me to tone down my gratitude. I dropped my gaze to my baby, in an attempt to hide the enormous relief that must be plain to read on my face.
A dark-brown gaze greeted me. Seeming fully awake now, Elizabeth squirmed in the blanket, as if struggling to free herself.
“I think she wants this off.” I tugged at the blanket, unwrapping her.
“Did she poop, maybe?” Zavis leaned over my lap.
The white stretchy shorts Kealans had for babies were designed to fully absorb and process any liquids and smells. However, some residue after a bowel movement could still irritate the baby’s skin, which made changing them still necessary from time to time.
“Don’t take her away, you just got here,” I asked, not ready to part with my daughter whom I never could get enough of no matter how frequent the feedings were. “Let’s just change her here quickly.”
Shifting on the bed, I made room to put Elizabeth down, and Zavis opened the shorts on the sides then slid them off for an inspection.
“No,” she said thoughtfully, examining the inside of the shorts closely. “These are still clean. She must have just wanted to stretch her legs.”
Her arms and legs in the air, Elizabeth kicked with abandon, moving her wide-eyed gaze from Zavis to me.
“Does it feel nice?” I cooed, pretending I was trying to catch her fists and feet. “What a butt-naked cutie pie you are.”
One small leg stretched with a kick, and a tiny blob of pink on her belly caught my eye.
“What is this?” I held her other leg down, finding another pink drop, identical to the first—both positioned low on her belly, opposite of each other. “This is healing gel.” My stomach dropped at the dreadful realization of what that must mean. “Zavis, why are there two puncture wounds on my baby?”
“I—I’m not sure.” She faltered under my glare. “I’m not always with her—”
“Then who is?” I jumped off the bed, my hands shaking as terror and rage filled me at once. “Since I’m not allowed to keep my child with me at all times, who is responsible for looking after her when she is not here?”
“I am the lead,” Zavis explained, seemingly confused. “But there are six of us on the team. I must have dozed off . . .”
“Who did this to her?” I shouted, anger taking over every other emotion in me. Although, I already guessed the answer to my own question. “Get him in here now!” Grabbing the baby off the bed, I rushed for the entrance wall. “Open the damn door!” I
yelled at the guards then pivoted back to Zavis. “I want to speak to Ricread, now.”
“I’ll let him know.” She clicked her screen open. “But I can’t promise he’ll see you—”
“Oh, he’d better,” I gritted through my teeth, pacing wildly along the wall, Elizabeth pressed to my chest. “I want answers, and I swear I’ll find a way to get them!”
Fury burned hot in me, fuelled by the frustration of the last weeks. Even the guards took a step back, letting me pace to my heart’s content.
“He already has me to do with as he pleases,” I kept raging, addressing no one in particular. “God only knows what he has been doing to her father all this time. He cannot touch her!”
“Yes I can,” came the cool reply from behind me, prompting me to turn on my heel to the open entrance in the wall.
Ricread stepped into my bedroom, Valran right behind him—a shadow of his boss, like usual.
“What was the reason to take me away from my analysis?” Ricread inquired calmly. “It better be a valid one.”
“What are you doing to my daughter?” I moved on him, but the guards stepped between us.
“She is the subject of my research, first and foremost.” He crossed his arms over his chest, taking his usual wide stance.
Mindful of Elizabeth in my arms, I didn’t launch for him, although the urge to hurt him burned through me.
“She is six weeks old! What can you possibly be researching in a baby?”
“I have absolutely no obligation to give you any explanation whatsoever. Our agreement has long ended, and it never applied to the baby in the first place. She is the result of my experiment and is the newest subject of my research.”
“She is only a baby, for goodness sake.” Pressing Elizabeth to my chest, I backed away from him, as if I could take her far away from this monster.
“To me, she is a female, with over a million eggs in her ovaries and a brand-new uterus.”
“What are you talking about?” Horror pressed heavy on my chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. “What are you planning to do with her?”
Experiment Page 20