Page 141 of Us Defiant Few

“Me?” The blood drained from her face.

“Yes.” Alexander stalked toward her like a rising storm, ready to sweep away what was left of her world.

“Haven’t you wondered why I dwell in your dreams? Why you see and hear things from a different time? Why your picture was in Desert Spring?”

She swallowed, unable to speak. If one more utterance escaped her lips, the nightmare would become real. Khalani was just a normal girl. She had parents. A life.

She had nothing to do with Alan’s plan.

The edges of her vision blurred, but Alan snapped his fingers, refocusing her attention.

“You’re in denial, Khalani. But you know it’s true. You’ve felt it your entire life. Having to look over your shoulder because you sensed someone’s gaze upon you. Missing a world you never lived in. Always feeling like no one ever truly understood you.” His voice softened as he stared into her scared eyes.

His words triggered something buried deep inside her. A feeling she’d stuffed down since she was little.

She’d always had a difficult time making friends growing up. Her mom used to tell her that it was just kids being mean. But perhaps that wasn’t right.

Maybe the problem was her.

But one thing the Governor had said was false.

Someone used to understand her. For a brief moment in time, a man with the darkest eyes stared into her soul like he recognized her.

But like everything else, he was taken away.

The Governor studied the turmoil building inside her and whispered, “Let me show you the truth.”

The image in the center of the room grew brighter until Khalani’s mother stood before her. She wore a long blue dress, her smile radiant, more real than the visions in her dreams. And she was pregnant.

“Mom,” she rasped, lurching forward, but the restraints kept her stationary. Her heart sank, realizing that her mother was just a hologram.

“As you know,” Alexander stated, his analytical gaze fixed on the screen, “all expectant mothers must undergo prenatal screening in Apollo. She was young, healthy, and I selected her to be the bearer of a new type of child. One genetically engineered to carry my code in their DNA.”

Genetically…engineered?

The words didn’t compute. None of it made sense.

And when Alexander saw the confusion in her eyes, the image shifted. Her mother lay unconscious in a white bed, her eyes completely shut, with a thin sheet covering her stomach. A man in a white coat appeared in the projection, and he shut the curtains around her. He lowered his surgical mask, and Khalani jolted when the Governor pulled out a long needle.

She braced herself to scream, to warn her mother in the image, but she had to remind herself that this had already happened.

The Governor lifted her gown, exposing her sleeping mother’s stomach, and methodically inserted the needle deep into her skin.

“The procedure was painless. Your mother left the clinic, and when she had you, she thought you were like every other child. But you weren’t. You were always something more.” Alan’s mouth upturned, his silky-smooth voice growing more terrifying. “When I injected the fetus with synthetic genes, an extra structure grew inside your brain. A vault for my memories. When you grew up, those engineered neurons activated, connecting you to me.”

Her gaze drifted past him. Unseeing. Numb.

Tears dissolved from her system. She felt weightless.

No longer inside her body.

“Your mother wasn’t the only one chosen,” he added, oblivious to her near catatonic state. “Several other women bore children injected with my code. I kept a close watch on you all, but I couldn’t risk those files being found in Apollo. I put them in Desert Spring and created photo albums of all my children.”

His words sailed at her like swords, each nick and cut digging deeper crevices into her soul. Until she was no longer Khalani Kanes. She was something else entirely.

“That’s why my photo was in the library,” she whispered in a detached voice.

“Yes. I genetically engineered you to be closer to me than even those clones I brought back,” he said with a soft smile. “In a lot of ways, I’m your second father.”