Maria called ten minutes later.
Bell routed the conversation through recording equipment.
I did not care.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“With Voss.”
Silence.
“That means yes.”
“Thomas is helping me.”
“He ordered Sophie classified as disposable biological evidence.”
Maria’s breath caught.
“What?”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Then maybe your brother isn’t helping.”
Daniel stood beside me.
Bell signaled for me to keep her talking.
I ignored the signal.
“Why did you disappear?”
“To keep the second half away from Samuel.”
“You could have told me.”
“I tried to.”
“A note is not telling me.”
“I didn’t know who had access to your room.”
“You trusted Voss instead.”
“He’s my brother.”
There it was again.
Family.
Always family.
“Did you know about the destruction order?”
“No.”
“Did you know he continued Hearth?”
“Not at that scale.”
“What scale did you know?”
Maria became quiet.
“Long-term monitoring.”
“Without consent.”
“Yes.”
“Children hidden in Facility 19?”
“No.”
“Emily Vale?”
A pause.
“You know about Emily.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know Thomas kept the program alive because Samuel’s intervention never stopped causing damage.”
“That’s his excuse.”
“It isn’t entirely false.”
“I’m tired of things being technically true.”
“So am I.”
Her voice cracked.
For the first time, she sounded frightened.
“Claire, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Laura did not hide the reversal because she wanted it destroyed.”
“Then why separate it?”
“Because she wanted no single person to control it.”
“Especially Samuel.”
“Yes.”
“Why you?”
“Because I had survived his work and turned against him.”
“And Voss?”
“No.”
“Yet you ran to him.”
Maria inhaled.
“I ran because Nathan escaped.”
“Nathan wanted it for Emily.”
“Yes.”
“And Voss?”
“He said he could secure the protocol in NorthStar’s clean laboratory.”
“That sounds exactly like what someone running NorthStar would say.”
“I know.”
“Then why believe him?”
“Because he’s my brother.”
I closed my eyes.
There was no answer to that which she had not already given herself.
“Tell me what Laura discovered.”
“The reversal is not one drug.”
“Dr. Shah said sequence.”
“It’s a staged protocol.”
“What stages?”
“First, reduce active tumor burden.”
“Chemotherapy.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Suppress vector expression.”
“With the first half?”
“Yes.”
“And the second?”
“Restore normal regulatory signaling gradually.”
“Why gradually?”
“Because Laura’s death showed what happens when you reverse too much at once.”
I felt cold.
“She tested it on herself.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know she could die?”
“She knew there was risk.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Maria went quiet.
“No.”
Same answer.
Same failure.
“Samuel hid data.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“Not until after.”
“But you helped change the death certificate.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her voice broke.
“Because Laura begged me not to let Samuel bury the reversal with her.”
I stared at the phone.
“What?”
“She was conscious at the end.”
Samuel had never said that.
“What did she say?”
Maria breathed unsteadily.
“She told me you might need the work someday.”
My throat closed.
“She knew she was dying?”
“Yes.”
“Did she blame Samuel?”
Another silence.
“Maria.”
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
“She blamed herself too.”
“Why?”
“Because she had pushed for the reversal trial.”
I sat.
“She knew her cancer might be connected to the original intervention?”
“Yes.”
“And she wanted to undo it.”
“Yes.”
“Even experimentally.”
“Yes.”
“Then why hide the truth from me?”
“Because you were sixteen.”
“I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“I know.”
“You had twenty years.”
“I know.”
“What were you waiting for?”
Maria’s voice became very quiet.
“For certainty.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That word ruins lives.”
“Yes.”
“I waited to know whether Laura’s intervention had actually protected you. Then Sophie was born. Then Samuel found her. Then every year I told myself I would speak when I knew enough.”
“And suddenly ten years passed.”
“Yes.”
She sounded like Eric.
Fear becoming delay.
Delay becoming complicity.
“Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Is Voss there?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
“Claire—”
“Put him on.”
A moment later Voss spoke.
“Claire.”
“You tried to have my daughter erased.”
“No.”
“The order had your authorization.”
“It had my signature.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It was applied outside its intended scope.”
I almost shouted.
“Explain that without hiding behind corporate language.”
“The termination order was for contaminated research assets and data.”
“Sophie was on the list.”
“She should not have been.”
“But she was.”
“Yes.”
“Who added her?”
“I’m investigating.”
“You expect me to believe someone forged a list under your authority?”
“I expect you to believe NorthStar is larger than me.”
Nathan had said that.
Samuel had implied it.
Now Voss admitted it.
“Then who controls it?”
“A governance committee.”
“Names.”
“I cannot give them over an unsecured line.”
Bell wrote something on a pad.
ASK LOCATION.
I ignored him again.
“Did your committee send men to Geneva?”
“Yes.”
Voss finally stopped deflecting.
I felt Daniel stiffen.
“Not Samuel?”
“Samuel sent another team.”
I stared.
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
Two armed groups chasing the same archive.
No wonder the repository had become a battlefield.
“What were your orders?”
“Recover the archive before Samuel did.”
“By force.”
“If necessary.”
“People got shot.”
“Yes.”
“Did you authorize that?”
“No.”
“Did you know it could happen?”
“Yes.”
At least he understood the question.
“Why does everyone think committing a crime with a medical reason turns it into medicine?”
Voss said nothing.
“Put Maria back.”
She returned.
“Claire.”
“Do you trust him?”
A long silence.
“I trust him to protect the protocol from Samuel.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Finally.
Something honest.
“Do you trust him with Sophie?”
“No.”
“Then bring the protocol back.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Thomas isn’t letting me leave.”
Bell’s head snapped up.
Daniel mouthed, There.
“Are you being held?”
“Not physically.”
“What does that mean?”
Voss’s voice sounded farther away.
“Maria.”
She continued quickly.
“He says if I leave, NorthStar will seize the protocol under litigation authority.”
Bell whispered, “Ask address.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know the exact address.”
“Window?”
“No.”
“Building type?”
“Research suite.”
“What do you hear?”
She paused.
“Ventilation. elevator bell. trains.”
Bell wrote PHILADELPHIA RAIL.
Maria whispered, “Claire, don’t come.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
That was a lie.
Daniel knew.
He gave me a look.
Maria continued.
“Use Laura’s first half only when Dr. Shah understands the timing.”
“Not without the second.”
“Correct.”
“Will you send it electronically?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the protocol includes a biological calibration step.”
“What does that mean?”
“It has to be matched to Sophie’s current gene-expression profile.”
“Can Dr. Shah do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then send the instructions.”
“The algorithm is physically locked.”
“Of course it is.”
“Laura designed it that way.”
“Apparently my mother loved difficult containers.”
Maria almost laughed.
Then I heard a door open.
Voices.
Voss again.
The call ended.
Bell immediately traced the partial signal.
“Philadelphia medical district.”
“How many NorthStar properties?”
“Three.”
Eric entered behind us.
“Four.”
Everyone turned.
“What?”
“There’s an old diagnostics building near the rail corridor.”
Bell looked at him.
“Address?”
Eric gave it.
“NorthStar sold it years ago.”
“On paper?”
“Yes.”
“Real owner?”
“A holding company.”
Bell started moving.
Daniel caught my arm.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re going.”
“She has half the treatment Sophie may need.”
“Bell has agents.”
“I know.”
“And Sophie needs one parent in this hospital.”
I looked through the glass.
She was awake.
Watching us.
That ended it.
“I’m staying.”
Daniel studied my face.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
This time I did.
Bell left with a federal team.
Eric remained.
I sat beside Sophie.
She held up a drawing.
Three circles.
One purple.
One gray.
One black.
“What’s that?”
“Me, Grandma Laura and Kevin.”
“Kevin gets black?”
“He’s rude.”
“Fair.”
She pointed at the gray circle.
“Grandma is in the middle.”
“Why?”
“So she can keep Kevin away.”
I had to look away.
Sophie noticed.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
“That’s what I say when I’m not.”
I laughed softly.
“You’re becoming annoying.”
“Daniel says I’m advanced.”
“He would.”
She put the drawing down.
“Did Grandma know me?”
“No.”
“But she knew I might happen?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She knew I might have some of the same health problems women in our family had.”
Sophie thought.
“Did she try to fix it?”
“Yes.”
“Did it work?”
“Not completely.”
“Did she die because she tried?”
There was no safe answer anymore.
“She died after trying an experimental treatment.”
Sophie was quiet.
“Like me.”
My chest tightened.
“Some of what’s happening is similar.”
“Are you scared I’ll die like her?”
I could not lie.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Me too.”
I took her hand.
“But your doctors know things hers didn’t.”
“And you know the secrets now.”
“More of them.”
She leaned against me.
“Then maybe I have better odds.”
I kissed her hair.
“That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Hours passed.
No word from Bell.
Dr. Shah restarted a reduced chemotherapy schedule once Sophie’s swelling remained controlled.
Kevin was shrinking.
Slowly.
The hCG level had begun to fall.
That should have been the best news we had received.
Instead it carried another problem.
As tumor markers fell, Sophie’s endocrine readings changed sharply.
Dr. Shah frowned at the results.
“What?”
“Her hormone system is shifting faster than expected.”
“Dangerous?”
“Potentially.”
“What do we do?”
“Monitor closely.”
Again.
Always monitor.
At 2:11 a.m., Bell finally called.
“We found the building.”
“Maria?”
“Alive.”
“Voss?”
“Gone.”
“Of course.”
“He evacuated before entry.”
“Did Maria leave with him?”
“No.”
I exhaled.
“Protocol?”
Bell paused.
“What?”
“It’s gone.”
My body went cold.
“What do you mean gone?”
“Maria says Voss took the second half.”
I stood.
“Then find him.”
“We’re trying.”
“That treatment belongs to Sophie.”
“I know.”
“No. You understand the sentence. You don’t know what that means.”
Bell stayed silent.
Then Maria came on the line.
“Claire.”
“You trusted him.”
“I know.”
“He took it.”
“Yes.”
“You gave him access.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That Samuel had already moved.”
“What does that mean?”
Maria’s breathing caught.
“He said Samuel wasn’t in custody anymore.”
I turned toward the hallway.
Bell said, “Claire, we’re confirming.”
Too late.
An alarm sounded.
Not from Sophie’s monitor.
From the secured wing.
Daniel stood.
Eric went pale.
Footsteps thundered outside.
A guard shouted.
Then Samuel Hale appeared at the end of the corridor.
No handcuffs.
Blood on his shirt.
Two security officers behind him.
One unconscious.
Samuel looked directly at me.
“Voss took the protocol.”
I stepped in front of Sophie’s door.
“You’re not coming near her.”
Samuel stopped.
“I’m not here for Sophie.”
“Then why are you here?”
His expression hardened.
“Because Voss took Laura’s sample too.”
A terrible understanding arrived.
The sample.
The second half.
The calibration algorithm.
He had everything needed to reconstruct the reversal.
Everything except one living component.
Samuel looked through the glass at Sophie.
“He still needs Claire.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: Voss’s Plan Required Claire’s Living Cells, Forcing Her to Decide Whether Protecting Sophie Meant Becoming Part of the Experiment Herself
The Test Result Made No Sense Until One Terrified Father Pointed at the Man His Daughter Called Dad
Part 14 of 28
