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As the days passed, I became more lucid for more extended periods of times. I noticed the distinct smell of body odor from me. Like I hadn’t bathed in weeks. My hair hung listlessly around my head in a snarled mess. I was hooked up to an IV, and to my mortification, I noticed the catheter bag and tube hooked up to me as well.
I found myself in a downward spiral of depression and hopelessness. Memories of my last moments seeing the guys and Gavin crowded my mind. I wanted to believe they were okay. I wanted to think Gavin was, but I knew optimism was fruitless.
I cried a lot. I wept to point I made myself sick. I sobbed to the point I could barely see out of my eyes which were swollen shut from crying. I cried until there was nothing left but a hollow emptiness.
My best friend was dead. I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. I saw the spark of light hit his chest. I saw his eyes lose the light.
One afternoon as I lay listlessly staring out the window watching the snow come down, Horatio and Alison came strolling into the room. Both of them came in dressed like they were ready for a night out to the ballet or an opera, sophisticatedly attired and polished.
The lead stone returned in my stomach. I was supposed to go to the ballet with Noah sometime this month. Then I was reminded of the playoff game I was supposed to attend with Jaxson if his team made it, which they had been projected to by a mile. So many missed opportunities because I had made some rash decisions.
“Hello, my dear, so glad to see you up,” Horatio said with a smile.
I stared at him in loathing and shock as he talked to me like I was just a visitor, here of my own volition.
He tsked at me. “You can call me Papa or Dad, which ever you prefer, but you should probably do it sooner than later.”
I continued to glare at him mutinously.
“Such stubbornness. You get that from me, I suppose,” he said proudly as a younger woman came into the room pulling a cart behind her. “Now, I have a proposition for you. It’s an easy one, really. Join the family business…mine, and together we can rule the world. Or continue to defy me. You won’t like the consequences.”
“Screw you,” I muttered through a dry throat made scratchy from disuse, my lips dry and chapped.
He laughed hollowly as my sheets were brought down.
“What are you doing?” I screeched out as the younger woman began to lift up the gown I was wearing.
“It’s called incentive,” Horatio stated with a cold smile.
I looked around wildly as a man came into the room and closed the blinds and turned off the lights. Alison looked just as puzzled and concerned as I was but her calm, indifferent mask slid back into place. The girl who was now squirting a cold liquid on my abdomen refused to meet my eyes as she kept her eyes downcast.
“Get off of me,” my voice was harsh and came out in a croak. I wondered once again how long I had been there.
In my panicked state, I tried to rip the restraints off my arms, using my gift of strength, but a painful jolt went through my brain before coursing through my body. I felt my bladder release once more. I was too angry and too terrified to care that I was only adding to the bag hanging by the bed.
I was out of breath, and my body was tense as the effect of the electric jolt left me.
Horatio tsked once more as I felt something pressed against my abdomen.
“What, who?” I heard Alison’s whisper in shock as she was staring off to my right where the girl was standing.
I heard a distinct sound of heartbeats followed moments later by more heartbeats. I whipped my head to the side barely discerning the woman’s movements on my stomach any longer.
“Our grandchildren,” Horatio said gleefully.
I stared in horror at the little bean-like shapes on the screen. I looked down at the little wand in the woman’s hand as she almost painfully dug it onto my stomach as she continued doing what she was
doing. I’ve seen enough shows to know that it was an ultrasound machine I was looking at, that the technician was measuring the images and analyzing the heartbeats of not one child but two.
I whipped my head back at him. “You lie. You’re tricking me.” I hissed at him even as my heart sunk.
This couldn’t be possible. I was on birth control. I knew I had switched the method, but there was no way!
“Not only is my Blake pregnant with twins, but…” Horatio said with a smile at Alison. “One of the babies shares the same genetic marker you do, Alison.”
“How?” Alison whispered. She seemed just as surprised by this revelation as I was.
“I wanted to get Blake started in our program immediately. I had a few samples left from Herman, and I wanted to see if their offspring would show a stronger marker than Bridgette and her child. Imagine my surprise when I found out she was already pregnant with not just one child but two. I waited until the technician said the babies measured at eight weeks and more samples were taken. Then I was surprised once more to find out my daughter now carried bi-paternal twins. One of which carries your DNA.”
