The Eve Genome (6 page)

Aunt Bethany nodded, then her eyes widened. “Adriana, is there a chance you are being monitored?” she asked.

“I…I don’t know,” I said.

“You’d better watch out.” Bethany warned. Grandma bobbed her head in agreement.

“Would Uncle Les know anything else? About where Genevieve went?” I asked.

“No!” My mother said with a wild expression. Her mouth clamped shut.

Bethany agreed. “Les can’t be trusted. After what he did to your sister… Well, he’s a despicable man. There’s something wrong with his damn noggin’.” She tapped her head with her finger.

I cringed at the thought of Les, the old pervert who felt Analiese up when she was only twelve. The fact that Analiese was now dead only intensified my feelings of hate toward the nasty pedophile.

“What happened to the babies?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to know what they would say.

“Genevieve gave those unnatural babies away,” Auntie Bethany said. “Sent them to different ends of the country, and she went into hiding.”

Mom’s eyes flashed, her nostrils flaring. “Where did she go?”

“We never heard of her again. Not once did she try to contact us. Not once did she call. She disappeared. Fell off the face of the earth. After a while, we tried to forget about her. It was safer that way.” Aunt Bethany looked at grandma, and they nodded in agreement.

“Safer. Why?” I asked.

Aunt Bethany’s eyes darkened. “Because Virginia died two weeks before those babies were born. From ‘unknown causes.’”

I swallowed. “And you think…?”

Now it was Auntie Bethany’s expression that was dark. “They killed her. The scientists murdered our Virginia.”

Grandma grew agitated, pacing the room and cursing weird old swears like
little buggers
and
damn ragamuffin
. It was strange to see how the brain worked, or, perhaps more accurately,
didn’t
work. It was as if
shut down
occurred at the most inopportune moments and grandma was the unwitting victim to its randomness.

It was time to go. Everyone agitated and rattled, we left with the minimum of goodbyes.

Immediately, we went to Mom’s house and headed into the basement to search through grandma’s old boxes. We found the autopsy report from Virginia’s death.

“Patient died of unknown causes.”
I continued to read, watching for details about Virginia’s anatomy. There was a cursory comment on the blood type and how it was likely due to lab error. Further down the report it was noted that she had a surgical scar at the bottom of her abdomen, where,
“it appears the patient had some sort of surgical procedure involving the ribcage, based on the scar tissue along the top row of ribs. While there is some evidence of a possible former presence of a supernumerary rib, however, there are currently twenty-four intact ribs.”

Had Virginia’s extra rib been removed?

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

-Genesis 4:9, The Holy Bible

CHAPTER SIX

ADRIANA SINCLAIR

“I think I know something about what happened to your mother.” The words spilled from my mouth.
Damn it.

Kalan sat in an armchair at the foot of the hotel bed, making a list of places to look once we were in Maryland. I sat on the bed across from him. His eyes widened. “Really?”

I swallowed on the lump in my throat. “I think you and Marcus… I think you’re an experiment.”             

Kalan’s mouth dropped open. He looked at me for several seconds before he finally responded, as if his mind was searching for words that evaded him. His eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I’m an experiment?”

A shiver passed over my skin. “Why are you here? Be honest. Why did you seek me out? It’s not just because you wanted to find your mother, is it?”

A hurt look passed over Kalan’s face, but it was gone so fast I wondered if I’d seen it at all. “It sounds to me like you’ve got a theory. Why don’t you tell me?”

“My grandmother says scientists impregnated your mother,” I said.

Kalan turned away and swore a string of profanities. I’d never heard him swear before and I found it somewhat startling. His eyes were hard, imperious. Like brushed steel. “What else did they say?”

I explained everything Grandma and Aunt Bethany told me.

“They knew my mother?” Kalan asked, his voice almost breathless.

“Yes.” I hesitated. “And there’s something else. Two weeks before you and Marcus were born, Virginia died. She was in her late thirties.”

Kalan’s posture drooped and he swallowed. “I need to tell you something. I don’t expect you to believe this, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” He held my gaze. “You already know I’m searching for answers to my existence. It’s clear we’re from a genetic line of… well, something different. But there’s something you don’t know.”

I suddenly found it difficult to suck in a full breath. I felt like if I did, it would risk his disclosure.

“Marcus and I are different. You can see the physical stuff, with me being albino.” Kalan looked down. “But there’s more.”

Silence passed between us. Finally, after what felt like a long, awkward moment, I broke the silence. “Continue.”

Kalan let out a breath he was holding. “We have qualities about us that aren’t normal… we have abilities that are beyond the average human.” I sat there, unsure what to say. How do you possibly respond to a declaration like that? Kalan continued, “Marcus can do things. Things that I can’t.”

“He can do things,” I said slowly. “Like what kinds of things?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. He has always been able to do these…
things
. He’s always instinctively known how to tap into certain abilities, to get what he wants. It hasn’t been like that for me. While he seemed to know what to do, even from an early age, my abilities came and went randomly, and I had no control. It didn’t help that I didn’t want to accept the truth of what I was. I wanted to be normal.” A dark rumble came out of his mouth.

“I still have no idea what you’re referring to, Kalan. What are these
things
, these
abilities
Marcus possesses?”

“To begin with, we are both very strong. Stronger than normal. Marcus has more strength and speed than any other person I’ve ever met. But there’s more. Actually, I don’t even know of everything he can do.” Kalan’s forehead creased, perhaps in embarrassment? “He’s revealing it to me slowly. I don’t think he totally trusts me yet. I can only assume that is true because I don’t trust him yet, either.”

Right now, I think my head is going to explode.
“You must be aware of at least one of those abilities, besides strength?”

“Marcus has psychic abilities. He can manipulate thoughts, control people.”

“Jesus.” My head was pounding. “How do you know for sure?”

           “We are staying in this hotel
for free
.”

“Holy shit,” I said.
This is crazy
.

“The truth is stranger than fiction when it comes to the two of us.” Kalan paused for a beat, and then continued. “My abilities are more complicated, more… touchy. I wish I could tap into them the way Marcus does. But he’s spent his entire life working on it, practicing. I’ve been so busy trying to convince myself I was normal and living in denial I’ve lost valuable time I could have used trying to figure it all out.”

“What abilities do you have that you are you aware of?”
And he could leap tall buildings in a single bound…

Kalan ran a hand through his hair, and the strands fell back down like silver threads of gossamer silk. “I don’t have full-on mind control like Marcus, but I do have the ability to influence others’ thoughts, to manipulate them. The first time was when I was eight years old and my foster mother brought me with her to the grocery store. I was intent on getting a toy soldier. I begged for her to buy it for me. She repeatedly said no, but I wouldn’t stop badgering her. Finally, after she threatened to punish me, I grew quiet, but inside, I was screaming at her with my mind. I thought the same thing, over and over: ‘You
will
buy me the soldier! You will!’ Then the strangest thing happened. She stopped dead in her tracks, turned to me with a big smile, and said, ‘I bet you’d like that toy soldier, wouldn’t you Kalan?’ But as soon as I realized I could do it I felt so guilty. I thought I was an evil child. I thought that if others found out, they would know how bad I was. So I went out of my way trying to deny it, and pretended it never happened. Only recently have I attempted to use it again.”

I sucked in a deep breath, my mind whirling. “You control people’s thoughts.”

“I manipulate thoughts. I can’t control them, not like Marcus can.”

“Semantics. You control what other people think, and therefore, you can make them do things they wouldn’t normally do.”
You are getting very sleepy
…

Kalan’s mouth dropped open. “If you’re thinking I would do something to you, without your permission, I wouldn’t.”

“Would I even know the difference?”

He considered this for a moment. “I guess you wouldn’t. But I’m asking you to put some faith in me, to trust me when I say I wouldn’t do that to you. Ever.” he said.

Was this feeling I had toward him, this empathy and understanding, was it really me? Was I in control of my own thoughts and feelings right now? I felt like myself, like my thoughts were a result of my own free volition. If this was mind manipulation, it didn’t feel like it. The feelings I had for him felt genuine, I was certain. “Okay.”

Kalan’s lips pursed together. “Are you horrified?”

Was I horrified? I wasn’t sure. I hesitated.

“I need to know, because I don’t want you to think negative things about me. I don’t think I could stand the idea that you are reviled by me.”

I swallowed. “Why is my opinion of you so important?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You just met me. You hardly even know me at all.” I said.

Kalan covered his mouth with his hand. “I know. But I can’t explain it because I don’t understand it. All I know is that when I’m around you, it’s like…everything changes. What was once dull and boring is now exciting and vivid. What was once typical and mundane is like a brand-new experience. I like how I feel when I’m around you. Like I’m finally
alive
.”

My heart skipped a beat.
I feel the same way.
“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything,” he said.

A few moments of silence passed between us. “Does Marcus control people all the time, or just sometimes?”

“It seems Marcus uses it only as needed. If he meets resistance.”

I thought of him, Zoe and Tait, last night. “Did he use it on Tait or Zoe? To convince them to help him find your mother?”

“No, I don’t think so. He prefers consent,” Kalan said. “It’s easier, because people are more lucid, more useful. He’s more likely to use it if he’s meeting serious barriers. Like no money and nowhere to stay. It’s not that important for hotel staff to remember minute details. They merely need to hand us a key card and we’re set.”

I imagined Marcus hovering over some poor young hotel clerk.
You are getting so very sleepy…

I shifted my weight and looked at the clock. “We should probably get going.”

We left the hotel and transferred my luggage into Kalan’s Acura. We had seven states to fly over, and I was travelling with an almost complete stranger who had just disclosed to me he had superhuman strength and powers.
This is crazy
. I glanced out the window at the gnarled, leaning jack pine along the highway that was interspersed with towering cedars, the trees woven so close together it was as if they were one giant, continuous blanket of trees. The mountains were off in the distance, a thick haze covering them so the tips were hidden.

Kalan pulled something out of his back pocket. “Here’s your airline ticket,” he said as he handed it to me.

“Wait. You bought me my ticket?”

Kalan waved a dismissive hand. “I got the money from Marcus. I’m sure he swindled someone out of it or won it gambling or something. I didn’t ask too many questions.”

Clearly Marcus was as shady as he looked.

              We boarded the plane and, a few hours later, landed in Maryland. We rented a car, something small, blue and uninspiring but reasonably priced. As we neared the entrance, I noticed the bird shit dappled all over the concrete steps. It definitely hadn’t been there when Mom and I were here last. Dr. McGill was expecting us so there was no wait when we arrived. A tight-bun, tight-face secretary led us directly to his office.

Today, Dr. McGill wasn’t wearing his John Lennon glasses. He eyed Kalan with interest as soon as we entered. “It is nice to see you again, Adriana. Though I wish it were under different circumstances. This is the most peculiar situation I’ve encountered in my entire career,” McGill said. My thoughts echoed with the ER doctor’s sentiment after losing Analiese,
“In twenty-three years of practicing medicine, I have never seen anything like this before.”

“You, too, Dr. McGill,” I said. “This is my friend, Kalan Kane.”

Dr. McGill stepped forward to shake Kalan’s hand. “Hello, Kalan. Achromatosis, correct?”

“Yes. That’s correct,” Kalan said as he shook his hand. “And I also have Adriana’s blood disorder. I guess I’m something of an enigma.”

Dr. McGill smiled broadly. “Well, we are in the business of enigmas.”

I grew irritated by this idle chit chat. “Do the police have any leads? Any theories about who is responsible for this?”

Dr. McGill shook his head. “There is very little to go on, I’m afraid. She was in the morgue, there was a shift change, and the next time they did inventory, she was missing.”

“Someone with access to the morgue, then,” Kalan said. “Have the police interviewed all staff with direct access?”

“Yes. But unfortunately, the police don’t seem to think this is a very serious issue. A missing body. A person who was already dead, by natural, well, er…you know,
known
causes. Nobody was hurt or murdered, no drug lords involved, so it appears to not be much of a priority.”

I steadied my breathing, my fists clenched at my sides.
None of you appear to be taking this very seriously.
“Can you take us to the morgue, to the location where her body was last seen?”

Dr. McGill glanced at his watch. “Of course. But I’ll need to clear it with the investigators, of course.”

He left to speak to the police, who were busy interviewing institute staff. I watched them look at Kalan and me, and then nod. I was surprised. I would have expected them to say it was a crime scene, off limits. Perhaps Dr. McGill was correct—they didn’t see this as a big deal.

“Right this way,” Dr. McGill said. He led us into a dark stairwell, lit by orange-yellow bulbs. Immediately I could smell the formaldehyde, a distinctly sulfurous stench. Dr. McGill opened the large steel door to the morgue and a man in a white lab coat working on a pasty greyish cadaver looked up at us. “Dr. Lobb. This is the Sinclair girl’s twin sister.”

Dr. Lobb nodded, his gloved hands clutching a scalpel. The cadaver was cut open with a giant V from his belly button to either shoulder. “Can you hurry? The police want to come back in here again, and I don’t want to have to close him up.”

“We’ll be in and out,” Dr. McGill said. He led us to the back of one side of the room, which had three rows of steel doors, side by side on all three walls. He stopped at number forty-three, a door right in the middle, and pulled it out like a knife drawer.

I jumped at what I saw. I was expecting an empty compartment, but there was a covered body inside, the toe-tag facing out. Dr. McGill mumbled
What the?
under his breath. When the drawer was all the way out, he pulled the white cloth down from over the face, his brow heavily furrowed.

It was Analiese! Her face was blue-grey, her pallor stark against her rich, dark hair. Her face was slack, expressionless in death. I shrieked.

Dr. McGill let go of the white cloth like it was laced with a biohazard. “Oh!”

The other scientist, Dr. Lobb, hustled over to see what the commotion was about. He gaped at Analiese as well. “How did this…?”

“You don’t know?” Dr. McGill demanded. “How does this happen twice on your shift? Can you answer that, Dr. Lobb? How does a body go missing and then suddenly reappear, both times on your shift?”

Dr. Lobb looked down at Analiese, his demeanor unchanged. “I cannot explain, doctor.”

Dr. McGill’s hands shook, and he shoved the door closed again, my sister sealed within, an inch of cold metal separating the two of us. The distance between life and death. “We have to tell the police. They’ll want to know this immediately. They’ll have so many questions. Questions… I can’t answer.”