Chapter 15 - THE CURE AS A WEAPONFor nine years, Maren had refused to dream about walking.
Not because she had accepted everything gracefully.
Grace was a word other people used when they wanted suffering to look pretty.
Maren had refused because hope could be cruel. Every experimental trial, every headline about breakthrough spinal therapy, every well-meaning stranger sending links with too many exclamation points had taught her caution.
Now someone had looked directly into a camera and offered her the one thing she had buried deepest.
Not as a gift.
As a threat.
The treatment that could help you walk again.
Maren sat very still after the screen went dark.
No one dared speak first.
Finally, Celeste whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Maren turned on her so fast Celeste stepped back.
“Do not make my legs about your guilt.”
Celeste nodded, crying silently.
Vivian’s voice was rough. “Samuel’s therapy worked?”
Nora looked shaken. “The released vault data suggested the trials were suppressed before completion. But if Helena Cross continued the research—”
Gabriel interrupted. “My mother is alive.”
Everyone looked at him.
His face was unreadable, but his hands were fists.
“My mother is alive, and someone used her to threaten Maren. That is what matters right now.”
Maren studied him.
Gabriel had protected her without asking for gratitude. He had pulled her from gunfire, carried her when necessary, and never once looked at her like she was fragile.
Now he stood with the same wound she carried.
A dead mother returned as a weapon.
Vivian stepped toward him.
“Gabriel, I didn’t know.”
His laugh was bitter.
“You people say that often.”
Vivian flinched.
Maren understood the hit.
She also knew Vivian deserved it.
Nora cleared her throat. “Forty-eight hours. They want Celeste. Why?”
Maren looked at Celeste.
Celeste hugged herself.
“Because Reed already gave them my blood?”
“Maybe not enough,” Nora said. “Or maybe they need a live sample.”
Vivian shook her head. “Samuel’s genetic locks required consent markers—stress hormones, live neural response, voice confirmation. He wanted to prevent exactly this kind of theft.”
Maren laughed once.
“Yet here we are.”
Vivian looked pained but continued. “If Celeste is part of the access chain, they may need her alive and conscious.”
Celeste whispered, “What happens if they get me?”
No one answered.
That was answer enough.
Maren looked at Gabriel.
“Find Helena Cross.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m already trying.”
“No. Find her through your memories.”
He frowned.
Maren rolled closer.
“My father hid passwords in love. Lioness. Live first, fight second. If your mother worked with him, she may have done the same.”
Gabriel looked away.
“I was twelve.”
“What did she call you?”
His expression shifted.
For one moment, the soldier disappeared, and a boy stood in his place.
“North Star,” he said quietly. “Because I got lost at a state fair once and told her I followed the North Star home.”
Nora began typing.
“North Star plus Helena Cross, Laurel BioSystems, old lab records.”
Vivian looked at Gabriel.
“Your mother designed the biological lock framework. If she is alive, she may have hidden failsafes.”
Gabriel’s phone buzzed.
He looked down.
His face changed.
“What?” Maren asked.
He turned the screen toward them.
An email had arrived from an address that had not existed five minutes earlier.
Subject: FOR MY NORTH STAR
Gabriel opened it.
One line.
The girl in the chair is not the only patient.
Attached was an old photograph.
Maren’s breath caught.
It showed a hospital nursery.
Two newborns lay side by side.
One bracelet read MAREN W.
The other read CELESTE W.
Vivian staggered.
Maren looked at her mother.
“What is this?”
Vivian whispered, “No.”
Celeste began shaking her head.
“No what?” Maren demanded.
Vivian gripped the bed rail.
“You were not twins.”
Nora zoomed in on the photograph.
The date matched Maren’s birth.
The hospital matched.
Maren felt the room narrow.
Celeste whispered, “I’m three years younger.”
Vivian shook her head slowly.
“You were supposed to be.”
Maren stared.
The photograph did not lie.
Two babies.
Same date.
Same mother.
Same bloodline.
Vivian sat as if her bones had dissolved.
“Samuel told me the second baby died.”
Celeste made a small sound.
Maren’s chest tightened.
The world shifted again.
Celeste was not her younger sister.
Celeste was her twin.
Hidden.
Raised younger.
Lied into a different life.
No wonder the genetic locks wanted both.
No wonder Celeste’s blood mattered.
No wonder their resentment had been cultivated so easily.
Maren could barely speak.
“Who took her?”
Vivian covered her mouth.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel read the email again.
“The girl in the chair is not the only patient.”
Nora whispered, “Maybe the therapy requires both genetic profiles because both were part of Samuel’s original protective design.”
Celeste stared at Vivian.
“You knew?”
Vivian shook her head, crying now.
“I swear on your father, I didn’t.”
Celeste laughed brokenly.
“Everyone keeps swearing on dead people who aren’t dead.”
Maren looked at her sister.
Twin.
The word felt impossible.
But also horrifyingly explanatory.
Celeste had spent her life feeling second because someone had made her second on paper.
A younger sister.
A lesser heir.
An afterthought.
Not by birth.
By design.
Suddenly, Reed’s seduction of Celeste seemed even more precise.
He had not chosen the weak sister.
He had chosen the hidden key.
Maren closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the shock was gone.
“What does Helena want us to do?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“How do you know she wants anything?”
“Because she sent the photograph. If she only served them, she wouldn’t have given us the truth.”
Nora nodded.
“The email may contain metadata.”
She worked quickly, fingers flying.
Then she stopped.
“There’s a location fragment.”
Gabriel leaned over.
Nora looked up.
“Not New York.”
“Where?” Maren asked.
Nora swallowed.
“Vermont. Old Whitaker pediatric research retreat.”
Vivian’s face went blank.
Maren saw the recognition.
“Another place nobody told me about?”
Vivian’s voice was barely audible.
“It burned down twenty-eight years ago.”
Gabriel stared at the email.
“Apparently not all of it.”
Maren turned toward Celeste.
For the first time, Celeste did not look like an enemy.
She looked like a missing piece.
Still guilty.
Still dangerous.
Still her sister.
Maybe her twin.
Maren spoke slowly.
“They want us to bring Celeste.”
Celeste looked terrified.
Maren’s eyes moved to Gabriel.
“So we bring both of us.”
Vivian stood. “No.”
Maren looked at her mother.
“Don’t trade, remember?”
Vivian went silent.
Maren touched the red notebook, the drive, and the printed photograph of two newborns.
“They turned my body into a cage, Celeste’s blood into a key, your life into a ghost, and Gabriel’s mother into a hostage.”
Her voice hardened.
“We are done reacting.”
Gabriel nodded once.
Celeste wiped her face.
“What are we doing?”
Maren looked toward the blank screen where Helena Cross had appeared.
“We are going to Vermont.”
“And if it’s a trap?” Celeste asked.
May you like
Maren’s smile was cold.
“Then we bring better teeth.”
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