Chapter 22 - The Daughter of Sloane
St. Jude's had been abandoned for eleven years.
The windows were boarded.
The emergency entrance was chained.
The parking lot was cracked and covered in weeds.
But one building still had electricity.
The old maternity wing.
My father's truck stopped behind the hospital shortly after midnight.
Nobody spoke as we got out.
Mercer checked the perimeter.
Torres helped my father from the vehicle.
He was weaker now.
I could see it.
Every step cost him.
“You should stay here,” I said.
He shook his head.
“No.”
“You're bleeding.”
“I've bled before.”
“That's not the point.”
“The point is that my daughter is walking into the place where her brother disappeared.”
The word brother landed differently than it had an hour earlier.
Brother.
Not subject.
Not asset.
Not second subject.
Brother.
I turned toward the hospital.
“Let's go.”
The rear door opened without a key.
That terrified me.
Someone was expecting us.
Inside, the air smelled like dust and old disinfectant.
Our footsteps echoed through the hallway.
Mercer found an elevator.
Dead.
Torres pointed toward a stairwell.
We descended two floors.
The lights came alive one row at a time.
I stopped.
“Someone's been here.”
On the wall were fresh boot marks.
My father nodded.
“They've been using the basement.”
“Why?”
“Because the second archive isn't a place.”
He looked at me.
“It's a person.”
I stared.
“What?”
“The archive was never only documents.”
“What does that mean?”
“The memory is stored inside witnesses.”
Torres frowned.
“Human witnesses?”
“Yes.”
My father walked toward a steel door.
“People who carried Northstar's secrets.”
I felt sick.
“What did they do to them?”
“They didn't kill them.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“They erased their legal identities.”
He put his palm against a scanner.
The lock opened.
Inside was a small room.
A single chair.
A camera.
A table.
And one file.
My name was on it.
MARA ELLISON.
I picked it up.
My father's hand stopped me.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because once you open it, there is no pretending.”
I looked at him.
“I'm done pretending.”
I opened the file.
The first page was a birth record.
Hospital: St. Jude's Medical Center.
Mother: Evelyn Ellison.
Father: UNKNOWN.
Date: twenty-three years ago.
I turned the page.
The father field had been changed.
V.S.
My fingers went numb.
“Victor Sloane.”
My father nodded.
I kept reading.
There was a second page.
INFANT FEMALE: RELEASED TO PRIVATE CUSTODIAN.
Custodian: Gabriel Ellison.
I looked up.
“You.”
“Yes.”
“You took me.”
“I protected you.”
“You took me.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
I flipped the page.
Another line.
INFANT MALE: TRANSFERRED TO NORTHSTAR PROGRAM.
My breathing stopped.
“That's my brother.”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
“Evan.”
I whispered it.
“Evan.”
The sound seemed to settle somewhere inside me.
A name was a person.
A name meant somebody had once held him.
Fed him.
Known him.
Maybe loved him.
I turned another page.
The next document made my blood run cold.
GENETIC COMPATIBILITY: 99.8%
Below it were two columns.
SUBJECT ONE: MARA ELLISON.
SUBJECT TWO: EVAN SLOANE.
I looked at my father.
“Why is his last name Sloane?”
“Because Sloane claimed him.”
“Claimed him?”
“He believed blood was ownership.”
I kept reading.
Then I found something unexpected.
PATERNAL DNA MATCH: VICTOR SLOANE.
MATERNAL DNA MATCH: EVELYN ELLISON.
I stared.
“He really is my brother.”
“Yes.”
I turned the page.
There was one more line.
PATERNAL SUBJECT DISPOSITION: WITHHELD.
“Where is he?”
My father didn't answer.
“Where is Evan?”
“I don't know.”
I slammed the file shut.
“You don't know?”
“He disappeared from the program twelve years ago.”
“Disappeared?”
“He escaped.”
I stared at him.
“You've been telling me for years that people disappear.”
“They do.”
“You knew he was alive.”
“I suspected.”
“And you told me nothing.”
“If you knew about him, Sloane would have used your connection.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He's already using it.”
A sound came from behind the wall.
Three knocks.
Everyone froze.
Three more.
Mercer raised his weapon.
Torres moved toward the left side of the room.
The knocking came again.
This time, a voice.
“Mara?”
I stopped breathing.
My mother.
I rushed toward the sound.
My father grabbed me.
“No.”
“That's Mom.”
“It could be a recording.”
The voice came again.
“Mara, don't trust your father.”
I looked at him.
He closed his eyes.
I shoved his hand away.
A hidden panel opened in the wall.
My mother stood behind it.
Alive.
Pale.
A bruise marked her cheek.
She was holding a handgun.
When she saw me, her expression shattered.
“Mara.”
I ran to her.
She dropped the weapon.
I wrapped my arms around her.
For one second, everything disappeared.
I was a child again.
Then I remembered.
“You knew.”
She pulled back.
“I know.”
“Sloane is my father.”
Her face collapsed.
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Dad knew.”
“Yes.”
“You both lied.”
She nodded.
I stepped back.
“Why?”
She looked at my father.
“Because when you were born, Victor wanted you.”
My mother's voice trembled.
“He said children like you were proof that Northstar worked.”
“What does that mean?”
“You weren't just his daughter.”
She wiped her eyes.
“You were his experiment.”
I stared.
“What experiment?”
“He believed loyalty could be inherited.”
My father added, “Sloane was obsessed with genetic predisposition.”
“He thought children born from certain families would naturally follow orders.”
My mother looked at me.
“You were the first child he selected.”
“And Evan?”
“My brother.”
“The second.”
She nodded.
I swallowed.
“Why did you give Evan up?”
“I didn't.”
Her voice cracked.
“They took him.”
Silence.
Then my mother reached into her coat.
She pulled out a folded photograph.
Two babies.
One crib.
A silver bracelet.
And in the corner, written in black ink:
SUBJECTS ONE AND TWO.
My mother whispered, “I stole that photograph the night they took him.”
I stared.
Then I noticed something.
One baby's bracelet had been removed.
The other still had it.
“Which one is me?”
My mother pointed.
The baby on the left.
I looked at the other baby.
“Why does he have the bracelet?”
She swallowed.
“Because the bracelet belonged to your father.”
“Sloane?”
“No.”
My mother looked at Gabriel.
“The father who raised you.”
I turned.
My father looked away.
“What does that mean?”
He said nothing.
My mother whispered, “Gabriel didn't adopt you because Sloane was your father.”
She paused.
“He adopted you because he was supposed to kill him.”
I stared at the two of them.
“What?”
My mother continued.
“Twenty-three years ago, Gabriel was ordered to eliminate Victor Sloane.”
My father closed his eyes.
“He didn't.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“He chose to save his daughter instead.”
I felt the room tilt.
“You knew me before I knew myself.”
My father said quietly, “Yes.”
“And you still won't tell me everything.”
He looked at me.
“Because the part I haven't told you yet is the part that gets people killed.”
A gunshot exploded somewhere above us.
The ceiling shook.
Mercer pulled me down.
Torres drew his weapon.
My mother grabbed my arm.
“It's started.”
I stared at her.
“What started?”
May you like
She looked at my father.
“The purge.”
