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“She’s lost too much blood,” Hesaya says, setting a hand to my arm. “She’s gone.”

“Why? Why did you give her the berries? Why did you do that!”

“It wasn’t the berries that killed her, child. She bled before they were given.” She lifts the placenta, further exposing the two attached, underdeveloped fetuses, pulsing with life. “Whatever this is, it isn’t natural.”

I run my hand over my own belly, the panic swelling inside of me at the sight of it.

“Go, Wren.” Heseya wipes her tears across the sleeve of her shirt. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Gaze trailing over the macabre, I catch sight of the lifeless child she’s placed at Mara’s side, and a sob chokes inside my chest.

“Go.”

On shaky legs, I push to my feet, and when I exit the tent, there’s a crowd gathered. The cool air stirs a dizzying rush to the distressing heat smoldering inside of me, ready to combust.

“Wren!” Six strides toward me, and the moment his arms are around me, I collapse.

Chapter 11

Cali

Standing off from the crowd gathered at one of the tents, I watch the woman I’d spoken with earlier, the one named Wren, emerge coated in blood. Her eyes carry what I surmise as horror, wide and unfocused, as she pulls her arms in close to her chest, her whole body visibly trembling.

“I’ve … never seen anything like it. She … bled. So much blood. And the baby. Three of them.” A string of incoherence tumbles from her mouth while she stares off at nothing. “Unformed fetuses … in … sacs attached to the outside.”

Her words strike a familiar chord, and I glance back to where Cadmus waits for me by the fire, smoking a cigarette. I heard of countless female subjects losing babies on the obstetrics ward back at Calico, which is what prompted my inclusion in the Alpha project, at all. They modified me to accommodate the pregnancies that my peers couldn’t carry.

“She was … impregnated by an Alpha?”

The woman’s eyes lift to mine, brows winged up in concern. “Yes.”

“Not a subject of the Alpha project, though.”

“I wouldn’t know. How would I know?”

“Was her head shaved before?”

“Yes.”

“Then, she was common group.”

“What does that mean? What are you saying?” The desperation in her voice is odd, given the woman apparently didn’t survive the birth.

“Only females assigned to the Alpha project are capable of carrying an Alpha’s child.”

The woman glances to the Alpha beside her, and if I’m not mistaken, she’s trembling even more.

“You’re full of shit,” the Alpha says, urging her away from me.

Wren wrenches herself free and steps closer, prompting me to step back. In my periphery, I catch sight of Cadmus, rising to his feet. “What happened to the ones from common group?”

Unbidden memories slip through my mind, of the almost angelic expression on Bryani’s face while she lay unconscious on the gurney, until I feel Wren’s hand on my shoulder, drawing me out of those visuals. “As far as I know, all of them perished.”

A blast of breath expels past her lips, and her chest rises and falls, as though distress is setting in. “Oh, God.”

“Wren, don’t listen to this. Please.”

“I’m telling you the truth. My sister was among common group. In a coma, while they used her body for impregnation. She wasn’t equipped to carry, either, even under constant monitoring.”