Touch (Denazen #1)(78)

Not quite the heartwarming, long-lost-daughter welcome I’d hoped for. “He didn’t know. I’ve kept it a secret.” I let go of Kale’s hand and took a step forward. “I only told him after I found out you were alive and trapped at Denazen. I did it so I could get you out of there.”

“I can’t believe this is happening!” she cried. “You kids have to leave this building now!”

“I agree,” Dad said from the doorway. “Why don’t we all leave together?”

“Dammit,” Mom cursed, and with an eerie shimmer, mimicked. She was no longer me, but a beautiful, tall blonde woman with a pixie-like face and long, flowing hair. Her eyes, the exact same shade of honey-brown as my own, darted from me to Dad. “Please Marshall, if you ever loved me, let our daughter go.”

For a second, he hesitated. I had the insane notion that he might actually step aside and let us leave. Silly, I know, but there was something there. Something I couldn’t remember ever seeing before. A flicker of emotion—a small twitch of his right cheek and the subtle flexing of his fingers. The equivalent of an emotional breakdown, considering the source.

“Please,” Mom urged.

More hesitation. He’d taken several steps into the room and was watching her with a mix of annoyance and something else. Regret? For a moment it was as though he’d forgotten all about me and Kale. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A sharp intake of breath and a step back. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone.

The little cracks in his armor, giving me a glimpse that there might be an actual person inside, vanished, and he was his old self again. A cold, clinical, Denazen monkey. “You were an experiment. An enjoyable one, but still, one of many.” He grinned, but something about it seemed a bit forced. Or maybe I simply wanted it to be.

Mom sighed and shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was like a soft, barely there brush of a feather. “Does that make it easier? Telling yourself it was all about the job?

He ignored her, but I swore he flinched. “We found a way to enhance the abilities of Six offspring. The chemical boosted the abnormality of the sixth chromosome, making it, in ninety-nine percent of the trials, ten times stronger. While not every gift manifests exactly the same from parent to child, there’s always a similarity. The project was called Supremacy.”

Supremacy. That’s what Dad and that Vincent guy mentioned in the emails. “Deznee is the result of that project. As is Fin.”

Experiment? Like mold in a Petri dish? And one of many? That meant there were more than me and Fin? How many had Dad… conducted personally? God. I might have siblings out there somewhere. Maybe stuck inside Denazen.

He pointed from Mom to me. “Sueshanna’s ability to mimic someone else was highly useful, but sadly limited. Nothing more than a simple illusion. Deznee, on the other hand, has far greater range. I imagine with age it will continue to increase unless…”

“Unless what?” I whispered, sick.

Dad sighed. He avoided making eye contact with Mom. “You’re second generation. Your predecessors were amazing. The perfect employees with abilities greater than we had ever imagined. They didn’t need to be coerced or lied to. They didn’t need to be motivated or threatened. They were raised to be the perfect Denazen soldiers. They knew how special they were and that there were great things in store for them. But we must have made a mistake with the chemical composition. One by one, as the children turned eighteen, they became irrational. Impossible to control. All remnants of the first phase of the experiment were retired.”

“Retired? You killed them?”

He glared at me like I was an idiot. “They were uncontrollable. In the end, nothing more than animals. We did them a favor.”

“So you’re telling me I might lose my shit when I hit eighteen? Go bonkers?” Really, it was the least of my problems at the moment, but if I made it out of this alive—and free—it’d be a major concern sooner rather than later. I’d be turning eighteen in eight months.

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “It’s a very real possibility, yes. The first of the second trial Supremacy group turns eighteen next month. It will be exciting to see how it turns out.”

Exciting? Not quite the word I was thinking.

“We started over again. Picking those we found most useful, and injected the improved chemical into the amniotic fluid. Once the babies were born, they were placed with Denazen employees. Most showed signs of their gift before the end of their first year. They were the easy ones. A generation brought up to believe in what we stood for right from the start.”

I thought about Flip, the guy I’d met in the cafeteria on my first day. The things he said. The total and complete conviction that he was a good guy. That Denazen was out there making the world a better place. He was devoted, and he hadn’t been raised there. Imagine what lifers would be like.

Dad’s expression twisted into some horrible, distorted version of the controlled, blank one I’d known my entire life. “Two never developed gifts—unfortunate, but it does happen. When, by the age of five, you showed no signs, I chalked it up to a loss. You and Fin were our only failures. But you were sneaky, weren’t you? You developed abilities and kept yourself well hidden. Tell me—when did you first get them?”

“I was seven when it happened the first time.” Not like telling him mattered. It actually made me feel warm and fuzzy. He’d obviously been watching for it and I’d still managed to keep it a secret. Score one for me.