SAGE
My brain worked to pull itself from the fog.
A dull fluorescent light droned from the ceiling above, keeping all things in my periphery in temporary darkness. I lifted my head and saw that Velcro secured my hands and legs to a bed. The room felt sterile and chilled, and goosebumps prickled my skin. My t-shirt and jean shorts were still intact. I dropped my head back to the mattress in relief—at least no one had stripped me while I was unconscious. When my head hit the sheet, the scent of rubbing alcohol wafted up around me.
Finn. Where was Finn? What had they done to him? I had to find him and get out of here. I started pulled at my wrist straps, testing if I could work my hands out of them like I had before.
“Hello,” a man’s voice spoke. I jerked my head to the side, my heart pounding. I squinted against the light and finally met a pair of eyes a few feet away. “I’m Dr. Adamson,” the man said.
He dripped of composure: the starch of his lab coat, the shine of his dark hair, the calm set of his face. The scent of lemon radiated from his direction.
“I apologize for the straps, but you kept thrashing,” he said, placing a stylus pen behind his ear. He slid his tablet into his lab coat and tucked his hands into the coat pockets. “You woke up quite early for the sedatives. Surprising, given your size. You can’t be over what—115 pounds? You shouldn’t even be awake right now.”
Mom and I had always been impressed with my extreme resilience to pain killers. But did my body handle sedatives in the same way? The doctor studied me while he pressed a button on the left side of the bed frame. My mattress started lifting. As my upper body rose, blood drained from my head, and a stabbing pain shot through my neck. From the car accident? The scuffle with the guard? When the bed stopped, I sat face-to-face with the doctor. The concrete room was small and empty save for the metal bedside tray and a surveillance camera up in the corner.
“Let’s get started,” Dr. Adamson said. “Your family is famous, at least in scientific circles. Your father, Robert Cunningham, along with myself, uncovered a modification code nineteen years ago. Using it, we created the world’s first genetically modified human embryo. My son, Jack.”
I stumbled over the words in my head, not sure of what would come out if I spoke. That’s not true. My father died when I was little, in a car accident. He was a farmer. We’ve lived in Kansas all our lives. But these were Mom’s words running through my head, not mine. Even as I spoke them, I knew they were not true.
My father wasn’t dead.
Dr. Adamson continued. “Your father ran off years ago—not long after you and your mother left—and he hid the code when he disappeared. We want it, and you’re going to help us get it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “This is impossible,” I whispered, not realizing the words were actually going to come out. Something shifted deep in the pit of my stomach, and I felt a tinge of relief. Mom left him. He didn’t leave us, she left him. Whatever else happened—even if my dad was a crazy, horrible person—he didn’t leave us.
“Not impossible,” Dr. Adamson said. “Very, very real. Your name is Hope Elizabeth Cunningham.”
Mom’s final words flitted through my head.
Hope. Run.
Everything Dr. Adamson said made no sense at all, and yet, somehow, it made all the sense in the world. Perhaps that’s why, instead of formulating how his words couldn’t be real, I started filling in the cracks of my life, the parts that had never made any sense.
I cleared my head, forcing my voice to remain even. “Where is my brother?”
“You’ll see him soon enough.”
“You think my dad cares about me? He doesn’t care about us. I’ve never met him in my entire life. Your plan isn’t going to work.” Even as I said it, something burned in my chest—a longing, a hopefulness that maybe my dad actually did care.
“Of course there are other options,” Dr. Adamson said. “If you know anything regarding your father’s whereabouts, then we could avoid this mess all together and let you and your brother go.” The bargain felt loaded, obviously not to be trusted. It didn’t matter anyway, I had no information to share.
“This isn’t right,” I said, angered that I hadn’t known more, that my mom hadn’t told me any of this. “You won’t get away with it. My mom will be looking for us. And our neighbors, too. And the police, and detectives and—lots of people!”
Dr. Adamson flashed a tight smile. “We have a way of covering our tracks.” He leaned in and whispered the rest. “And I’m sorry, Hope, but your mother won’t be able to help you any longer. She’s dead.”
My heart twisted, and I clenched my jaw. “That’s not true,” I said, stopping his words from sinking into me and swallowing me whole.
The doctor only straightened, unapologetic.
I refused to believe it. These people had everything to gain by lying to me, by keeping me afraid and making me feel completely helpless.
“That’s not true!” I said, louder than before. Beckett got to my mom. He found her, took her to the hospital. She would get better, and then she’d tell Beckett and his parents everything, and they would get to us somehow.
Dr. Adamson already stood at the door. “You care for your brother, don’t you? Make sure you’re not lying to me about information on your father.” He stopped his words there, letting the threat to Finn hang in the air. Then he pulled open the door, and a bright, warm glow of natural light shone in from the hallway.
“Jack will be in momentarily. Welcome to the island.” The doctor didn’t look back before he disappeared into the hall, his lemon scent trailing after him.