D for Deimos. L for... Lucy?
A jolt of pure, icy adrenaline hits my heart. Why would she have Lucy’s DNA? And who is the third?
I watch her face as the machine begins its slow, whirring cycle. She leans against the cold metal table, her head in her hands. She looks terrified. She isn't acting like a woman who just found a way to put a killer behind bars. She looks like a woman who is afraid the ghost she’s hunting is actually her own shadow.
"You’re digging up the garden, Doctor," I growl, my grip tightening on the edge of the desk until the wood groans.
"But you have no idea how deep the bodies are buried."
I realize then that she isn't just investigating a crime. She’s investigating me. My origin. My blood. The one thing I’ve kept scrubbed from every database.
I reach for my phone and dial the private line to the morgue’s security override. I could shut the power down right now. I could erase the data before the first sequence even finishes.
But I don't. I need to see the truth.
The sequencer emits a final, high-pitched chime that cuts through the hum of the morgue like a gunshot. On my screen, I see Madeline stiffen. She slowly lifts her head from her hands, her movements shaky, hesitant, as if she’s approaching a bomb.
I lean in, my face inches from the monitor, my eyes scanning the data stream as it populates.
The results for "D" and "L" flash first. Sibling Match.
The air leaves my lungs in a sharp hiss. Sibling? I stare at the screen, my mind reeling. Lucy. The girl I’ve been hunting, the girl Madeline has been protecting… She's my blood?
My hands are trembling now, a rare, terrifying loss of motor control. I’ve spent my life alone, a solitary monster built from scrap and shadow, and now the screen is telling me I have a sister. A step sister. She can’t have the same mother.
Then, the third sample, labeled "C", links to the rest of the chain. The software begins the paternal comparison. The bars align. The probability peaks.
Paternal Match: Charles [REDACTED].
I fall back into my chair, the world tilting on its axis. Charles. My father. The man who shaped the hollow spaces in my soul. He created another life, another child. Lucy is younger than me. He must have had another woman and created a whole new fucked up family to ruin, all over again.
I watch Madeline on the screen. She’s staring at the results, a sob breaking from her lips that I can't hear, but I can see her shoulders shake.
She knew. She suspected this, and she hid it from me. She slept in my arms, felt my heart beating against hers, all while holding the secret that my entire existence was a lie. The shock in my chest curdles, turning into something much colder and far more familiar: a white-hot, incandescent rage.
The "praise" I gave her last night, the way I touched her vertebrae, the way I let her see the man behind the Arbiter, it was all a performance for a thief. She wasn't investigating a case. She was investigating my failure.
I reach for my phone and hit the direct line to her private office. On the screen, I see her jump as the phone rings, the sound echoing through the sterile morgue. She looks at it like it’s a venomous snake. I wait. Five seconds. Ten.
She finally picks up, her voice a mere thread of sound.
MADELINE:"Hello?"
ME:"The 'C' stands for Charles, doesn't it, Madeline?"
My voice is a low, lethal whisper, stripped of all the warmth from this morning.
On the monitor, I see her go completely still. Her eyes dart toward the corner of the room, finally finding the hidden lens of the camera. She looks directly at me, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.
MADELINE:"Deimos... I can explain," she whispers.
ME:"Explain what? That my father has another child? Or that you decided to play God with my bloodline while you were pretending to be mine?"
I stand up, my shadow stretching long across the office floor.
ME:"I told you last night that you belong to me, Madeline. But it seems you’ve forgotten the most important rule."
I pause, savoring the way she’s shaking on the screen.
