“Now you know you were violated even more than you realized.” I kept my voice low, steady. “They didn’t just use you as an incubator for Langston’s kid. They turned your body into a lab. Used you to grow their next-generation prototype.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt, gripping tight. “Does Gage know?”
“I told him over comms in Montana. Right before we assaulted the facility.” The memory of his voice cracking over the radio hit me fresh. “He took it hard.”
“Hard how?”
“He went rogue. Nearly compromised the whole operation.” I smoothed my hand over her hair. “But he held it together long enough to help us win.”
Evelyn was quiet for a long moment, her breath warm against my chest. “Does Sophia know?”
“No. And she doesn’t need to. Not yet. Maybe not ever.” I tilted her chin up so she could see my face. “Listen to me. Biology doesn’t change anything. You’re still her mother. Gage is just the guy whose DNA they stole.”
“But he’s dying.” Her voice cracked. “You said he’s dying from what they did to him. From the modifications breaking down.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “Which means Sophia might...”
“Might have a time limit too.” She finished the thought I couldn’t say. “If she inherited his traits, she might have inherited his expiration date.”
The possibility had been eating at me since I’d read those files. A five-year-old girl engineered to be a weapon, carrying genetic modifications that were already killing her biological father. How long did she have? Ten years? Twenty? Would she make it to adulthood before her body started tearing itself apart?
“We don’t know that,” I said, but the words felt hollow. “Gage’s modifications were forced. Brutal. They broke him down and rebuilt him without caring if it would last. Sophia’s are inherited. Maybe her body can handle them better.”
“Or maybe it can’t.” Evelyn’s eyes were dry now, but something in them looked broken. “Maybe we’re rescuing her just so we can watch her die slowly.”
“Stop.” I gripped her shoulders, made her look at me. “We’re rescuing her because she’s a scared little girl who needs her mother. Whatever comes after, we deal with it.”
She nodded, but I could see the fear settling into her bones. The knowledge that even if we got Sophia back, even if we destroyed Innovixus, there might be a timer counting down inside her daughter’s cells.
“Does he want to meet her?” Evelyn asked. “Gage. Does he want to be part of her life?”
I thought about the way Gage’s voice had sounded over the comms. The raw pain in it. The fury. “I don’t know.”
Evelyn leaned her head back against my shoulder. “When this is over, when we have her back, we tell her the truth. Age-appropriate, but the truth. She deserves to know what she is.”
“She’s a five-year-old girl who draws butterflies,” I said. “That’s what she is.”
“She’s also genetically engineered to be a weapon.” Evelyn’s voice went flat. “And pretending otherwise won’t protect her from what’s coming.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to say we could keep this from her, let her have a normal childhood. But Evelyn was right. Sophia needed to understand what she was capable of, what her body could do, before those abilities manifested in ways that could hurt her or someone else.
“One thing at a time,” I said. “First, we get her back. Then we figure out the rest.”
“One thing at a time,” she echoed, but her grip on my hand tightened again.
The plane engines droned on. Behind us, Flynn shifted in his sleep. Gage’s breathing stayed deep and even, exhaustion finally dragging him under. Alistair’s head had tipped forward, his pale face slack. Ethan sat in the front row now, tablet in his lap, reviewing the facility blueprints we’d pulled from Kate’s intel package.
“Trent?” Evelyn’s voice was small now.
“Yeah?”
“If she only has a few years, I need them to be good ones.” She looked up at me, and the naked fear in her eyes nearly broke me. “I need her to know she is loved. That she matters. That she is more than what they made her to be.”
“She’ll know.” I kissed her forehead. “Because we’re going to make sure of it.”
Evelyn nodded and closed her eyes. Her breathing didn’t deepen into sleep, but her body relaxed slightly against mine. Taking what rest she could before we hit the ground running.
I held her and stared out the window at the darkness. Somewhere below, Sophia waited. Scared, confused, but alive. Still breathing. Still drawing butterflies in her mind, maybe, to keep the fear away.
