Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Sorrow in those blue eyes so like Theo’s. “I think, if it had been just me, Theo, I would’ve forgiven Father. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“No.” Theo’s throat was thick; she understood this woman as no other could. “He was a charismatic man and he was the fulcrum of our world.”
A blink and the softness was gone. A muscle ticked in Keja’s jaw, her lip pulling up in the first whisper of a snarl.
Theo saw it then, the other dark trait that tied them together. “You’re like me,” she said, forcing herself not to look at Yakov even as anxiety ate through her bones. Why was her laughing, wild bear still so quiet? How hard had Keja hit him? Had her aunt miscalculated and done damage that would lead to a slow but sure death?
Keja laughed that broken laugh that grated on Theo’s senses. “I was the original you,” she said, her eyes bleeding to black in front of Theo—the eerie thing was that the black didn’t spread outward from the pupils, but inward from the edges.
It gave the impression of a voracious virus swallowing her up.
“The perfect candidate had to be a lower gradient,” Keja told her, “a Psy whose mind wasn’t powerful enough to resist and thus cause unintended damage. Higher-Gradients like Santo and Janine resisted too much, and lobotomized themselves in the process.”
“Why the children of the family?” Ugly as it was to think, her grandfather had had access to any number of people unconnected to him.
Yet he’d taken two young girls who’d trusted him.
Her own rage awoke. Gritting her teeth, she fought it back; she couldn’t afford to be immobilized by her bracelet.
Keja’s hair slid over her shoulders as she put both feet on the ground and leaned forward. “Do you really not know, Theo?”
“No. It makes no sense. Grandfather wanted the world to see the Marshall family as a power. Why would he risk that by permitting staff members to know the line could birth such weak members that they were considered disposable? He couldn’t guarantee their silence beyond any shadow of a doubt; I don’t care how powerful he was.”
“Oh, sweet child,” Keja murmured, the indicators of rage replaced by a gentle warmth. “We were trained for this. We were brought up for this. Isolated and taught certain skills. Did you never wonder why he nudged you to learn how to hack? Why you speak multiple languages? Why your caretaker taught you exercises designed to keep you flexible and nimble?”
“No,” Theo said, even as Keja’s words smashed the memories of her past into incomprehensible pieces. “I made those choices. That was all before the procedure.”
“Adults can influence a child in countless ways. An abused and abandoned child? Give them a crumb of praise for a choice, and they’ll never deviate from that path.” Keja’s gaze held hers. “He raised us to be cattle to the slaughter. We were nothing but meat for him to cut into, hunks of flesh he owned.”
Chapter 63
This project is the most important of my life. It will be my legacy.
—Marshall Hyde’s private notes (circa 2057)
“HE WOULD’VE KILLED you without a qualm if you hadn’t had a twin who he valued.”
Theo didn’t react to Keja’s barb—that truth was no surprise to her. “What did he make you do?”
“He made me a monster.” No tone, her eyes obsidian.
Sensing the rage in her aunt rising again, Theo shook her head and leaned on the truth. “If you were a monster, Aunt Keja, Janine and Santo would be dead.”
Keja looked at her, unblinking and unmoving.
“You mentioned Queenie, too,” Theo continued. “Did you get all the patients out?”
A blink, and Keja leaned back in her seat. “Of course I did, Theo.” That same chilling smile, of a marionette come to life. “I might be a monster, but I have standards.”
Theo’s blood ran cold. She knew without a single doubt that Keja hadn’t done that. Only a minority of the patients would’ve been like Santo and Janine—functional to the extent that they could live under a carer’s watch. The others would’ve needed to be institutionalized—and where would Keja have found an institution willing to take so many people without question?
“He was furious when you began to act out,” Keja said all at once. “He never put it that way, of course. But if he could’ve murdered you to wipe out the error, he would have.”
“He broke my brain,” Theo said flatly. “The rages didn’t come from nowhere.”
“It happens with Santo and Nene as well.” A raised eyebrow at Theo’s inhale. “Oh, Cissi didn’t tell you that? She is a loyal employee. But yes, all of the ‘successes’ suffer from the same unfortunate secondary effect.”
Theo couldn’t stop the question on her lips. “Did they ever work out a way to treat it?”
“Mood-altering drugs.” Keja named three. “They work, but turn us into zombies. No mind, no life.”