Chapter 26 - Hawthorne Academy
The blast threw me against the wall.
Dust filled the hallway.
Morales shouted.
“DOWN!”
Glass shattered.
Someone fired from outside.
The safe house had been compromised.
Again.
I crawled behind the kitchen counter.
My mother grabbed my hand.
“Claire!”
“I'm okay.”
Arthur tried to rise.
Daniel pulled him down.
“We move now.”
“Where?”
“Hawthorne.”
We escaped through the basement.
The academy was forty minutes away.
By the time we arrived, the sky was turning gray.
The school looked ordinary.
Too ordinary.
Stone buildings.
Tall windows.
Quiet grounds.
Children's bicycles near a side entrance.
The kind of place no one would suspect.
A security guard met us at the gate.
He looked at Daniel.
Then smiled.
“You came back.”
Daniel stopped.
“You knew?”
The guard nodded.
“Your mother told me.”
I stared.
“Which mother?”
He looked at me.
“Evelyn.”
My stomach tightened.
He opened the gate.
“She's waiting.”
“Evelyn is here?”
“Yes.”
We entered the building.
Down two flights.
Then through a maintenance corridor.
Then a steel door.
Inside was the archive.
Rows of cabinets stretched into the darkness.
Photographs.
Passports.
Birth certificates.
Medical records.
Bank records.
Names.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
An entire invisible world.
I walked past a shelf.
Then stopped.
A folder had my name on it.
Claire Margaret Williams.
I opened it.
Inside were photographs from before I met Ethan.
Before I met Daniel.
Before my father disappeared.
Someone had tracked everything.
Every school.
Every job.
Every relationship.
Then I found something that made my stomach drop.
Ethan's file.
His real name.
Ethan Cross.
Age sixteen.
Juvenile charges.
Recruitment date.
Then a photograph of him standing beside Samuel Black.
At sixteen.
I turned the page.
There was another photograph.
Ethan beside me.
Years later.
The marriage.
The file had been prepared before our first date.
I stared at it.
“He knew.”
Daniel nodded.
“He was assigned to you.”
“To protect me.”
“And to find the ledger.”
I closed the file.
Then I saw my pregnancy records.
I opened them.
My heart raced.
The genetic material used during the procedure had been listed under a donor code.
D-17.
Daniel stared.
“That's me.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“D-17 was my code.”
My body went cold.
“You were the genetic donor.”
He nodded.
“I didn't know.”
Arthur stepped forward.
“I did.”
I turned toward him.
“You used Daniel's genetic material for my child.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
He looked devastated.
“I thought Blackwell would use the embryo to control the succession.”
“You turned my child into a key.”
“I turned your child into someone they couldn't erase.”
I didn't know whether to hate him or understand him.
Then we heard footsteps.
Evelyn appeared.
She was bruised.
But alive.
“Claire.”
I rushed to her.
“You're okay.”
She nodded.
“I escaped.”
“From Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone helped me.”
“Who?”
She looked at Daniel.
He frowned.
“Who helped you?”
“Your husband.”
I froze.
“Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“He escaped?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
“He opened the cell.”
“What?”
“He gave me the access code.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“Then he can get out.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“He stayed behind.”
“Why?”
“To buy us time.”
My phone vibrated.
A message.
The archive was not supposed to be opened.
Then another.
YOU HAVE TWO HOURS.
Then a final message.
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
We turned.
A man stood at the end of the archive.
Police weapon raised.
It was Mr. Bennett.
May you like
The real one.
Alive.
