Chapter 8 - My Father in the Rain.
I wanted to embrace my father and punish him at the same time.
Instead, I pressed Luka's torn sleeve against his wound while Thomas Bennett watched me with tears in his eyes.
“Thirteen years,” I said.
“I counted every day.”
“Counting is not the same as coming home.”
Thomas led us through an old storm tunnel to a municipal pumping station.
June arrived with Ava twenty minutes later.
The moment my father saw his granddaughter, his face collapsed beneath the weight of everything he had lost.
He did not touch her until I nodded.
“She looks like your mother.”
“Tell me how my mother died.”
Thomas looked toward Luka.
“Celeste Bennett was a nurse at Morrow before she became its seventeenth test subject.”
Morrow promised to treat the autoimmune disease that had nearly killed her during pregnancy.
She had written letters to medical regulators, but Eleanor intercepted them and altered the hospital dates.
Thomas kept copies inside a safe-deposit box that Morrow spent years trying to find.
My mother had not entered the trial because she was careless.
She had entered because she wanted enough time to watch me grow.
The people who exploited that hope later described her as an informed volunteer.
Instead, they patented her immune response and concealed the treatment complications that caused her death.
Thomas discovered the ledger and tried to expose the company.
Eleanor Cross framed him for selling patient records, burned the original laboratory, and threatened to put me into state custody.
“I ran because every agent assigned to protect us was already on her payroll.”
“You left me with Aunt Carol.”
“She was the one person Morrow believed I hated.”
The explanation made sense, which only made the abandonment hurt more.
Luka asked why Thomas had contacted Grant.
“I didn't.”
Thomas revealed that he had infiltrated Vale Meridian, Morrow's parent company, under a false name.
Grant recognized him from an old photograph two nights before Ava's birth.
He tried to capture Thomas, but Thomas escaped and followed him to the parking structure.
The groan on the phone had been a recording.
The rescue had not been luck.
My father had been watching the exchange from inside one of the tactical vans.
“You let me believe Grant held you.”
“It was the only way to make him appear with the drive.”
“You used me too.”
Thomas lowered his head.
“Yes.”
His honesty hurt more than another excuse.
He handed me a thin folder containing the M-17 laboratory schedule.
Vale Meridian planned to announce a revolutionary immune therapy at its annual gala in two days.
The investors believed the discovery came from ethical adult trials.
The proof that it came from my mother and targeted my baby was stored beneath the gala venue.
“There is one thing I changed before your fertility procedure,” Thomas said.
“What did you change?”
He looked at Ava but did not answer.
Luka rose too quickly, anger cutting through the pain in his arm.
“Did you touch the samples?”
Thomas reached inside his jacket.
A small electronic device began chirping from Ava's diaper bag.
June emptied the bag onto the floor.
A transmitter blinked beneath the lining.
On its tiny screen was a live message from Vivian.
May you like
Thank you for bringing M-17B to us.
The pumping station doors exploded inward.
