He looked across the table at Tabitha. “I can’t paralyze her without affecting the procedure. If she won’t cooperate, we’ll have to sedate her again.”
Again? When had I been sedated?
Tabitha leaned forward until her face appeared over mine. “Delilah. It’s in your best interest to cooperate...”
But her words faded into indistinct syllables as her familiar posture and tone triggered a buried memory.
Tabitha Vandekamp wears a light blue dress, tailored to her shape. Her hair is pulled back in an artful bun, and her eyes are alight with hope. But I can hardly keep her face in focus. I can hardly make sense of her words.
My eyes close, and it’s an effort to force them open again. That’s the sedation. I can’t fight it.
“This is fate, Dr. Grantham,” she says. “What else could it be?”
She believes everything she is saying. I amsotired, but I can see that. I can hear it.
“She won’t remember this, will she, Doctor?”
“No. The sedation is retroactive. But if this takes, she’ll figure it out eventually.”
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes. These next nine months are going toflyby!”
My sudden wave of nausea had nothing to do with pregnancy. “What happened in this lab?” I demanded, staring up at her. “What did you do?” The resemblance between my present reality and the hazy memory were startling, but there was one clear difference.
There’d been no reluctance or hesitation in Tabitha’s words, in my recovered memory. There’d been no doubt on her face. She hadn’t been preparing herself for the chance that my baby might be human. She’d beenconvincedthat would be the case.
How could she be so certain, after what she knew about Gallagher?
“Delilah, you asked for this test,” Tabitha said, ignoring my question. “We’re giving you what you want, but the doctor has to take basic safety precautions. Let him use the cuffs so we can get on with this.”
I hardly heard her, because my mind was still mired in the hazily remembered past. In a time when Tabitha Vandekampknewmy baby would be human. When she’d looked forward to the next nine months.
But it takes a minimum of two or three weeks to notice pregnancy symptoms, and I definitely would not have reported any even once I’d noticed them, because Tabitha had a history of forcing abortions. So she shouldn’t have known about my pregnancy until I could no longer hide the symptoms.
Shestillshouldn’t know, even eight weeks in. Especially considering that the first two weeks of the nine-month pregnancy calendar are actually preimplantation of the fertilized egg. Even in most cryptids, according to my college classes. So how had she known from the very beginning? From before implantation?
She couldn’t have. And she certainly couldn’t have been sure that the baby was human.
Unless...
“What the hell did you do?” I sat up on the table, and Dr. Grantham backed away from me, startled. “I’ve been here before, but it wasn’t for an ultrasound, was it?”
“You’ve been here twice, for your initial exam, then the ultrasound. If you hadn’t lost your memory, you’d remember,” Tabitha insisted calmly.
“But I wouldn’t remember the very first time, would I?” I demanded, as pieces of the puzzle began to slide into place, forming a horrifying picture. “You made sure I wouldn’t.”
“Mrs. Vandekamp?” Dr. Grantham backed farther from the table, reaching for a preloaded syringe lying on the rolling tray to his left. “Calm her down, or I’m going to have to use this. But that’s not ideal.”
“Tabitha?” I demanded, boldly using her first name. “What did you do?”
She glanced back and forth between me and the doctor. “I only helped fate along. The oracle told me you’d give me a baby. I just wanted to speed things along. And make sure it was Willem’s.”
No.
I clutched my stomach. “This is your husband’s baby?” I turned to the doctor, my hands shaking against my scrubs top. “You inseminated me? Without my permission? Without myknowledge?”
“I had you sedated,” Tabitha admitted. “Willem wasn’t ready to know, and you didn’t need to know until you started having symptoms. Dr. Grantham wasn’t even sure it would take.”
“You didn’t tell your husband. How did you even—” I bit off the end of my question. I didn’t want to know how she’d gotten a donation from Vandekamp without his knowledge.
