Free The Eve Genome by Joanne Brothwell Page B

scientists.”
    “Scientists? Who? The Human Genome researchers?” I asked.
    Grandma glanced to Bethany, who shrugged. “We’re not sure.”
    It now seemed like an appropriate time to tell everyone about Kalan and Marcus. “I have something I think I’d better tell you all.” I did so, explaining that they were here in search of their biological mother, who also had the blood type and the extra rib.
    Auntie Bethany looked like she’d just gotten an incurable diagnosis. “Oh, no. Marion, the worst has happened, hasn’t it? They’ve found each other.”
    “Wait. What do you know about them?” I asked.             
    Grandma and Bethany locked gazes and something passed between them, an unspoken communication.
    “The girl, the one that looked exactly like Virginia,” Aunt Bethany looked like she was about to cry, “their meeting wasn’t accidental. Virginia was told by government officials she had to report to the Center for Inherited Disease Research, following an incident involving her blood when Virginia was ten.”
    An unwanted image of Analiese lying lifeless atop the stretcher following the botched blood transfusion flashed through my mind and soured my stomach. That moment was inexorably burned into my brain.
    “What was the incident?” Mom asked.
    Bethany continued. “A blood donation. Virginia had donated her blood for the first time, and when it was typed, they placed it in the O-negative category. But as we all know, it isn’t O-negative, is it? The blood she donated killed a seven-year-old girl with nonfatal leukemia.”
    My stomach flipped. “No.”
    Bethany spoke next. “After that, they wanted Virginia and bothered her for years. Even eighteen years later, they continued to hassle her. And apparently, they wanted this girl as well. She also had the strange blood. Eighteen years after the fatal blood donation, Virginia and this girl were both asked to come to the Center for Inherited Disease Research on the same day.”
    “Who was the girl?” I asked. But I already knew the answer.
    “The mother of those twins,” said Aunt Bethany.
    An icy shiver tiptoed up my back.
    “Genevieve!” Mom said, less of a question and more like she’d finally made the connection.
    Grandma nodded. “Yes. You remember her, Carla?”
    My mom nodded, her eyes glassy, absent.
    “Poor Genevieve. And to top it all off, she was already pregnant with twins!” My heart thumped so loudly in my ears I barely heard the rest of what grandma said.
    “How old was she? Genevieve?” I asked.
    “Still in high school, I believe.” Bethany replied. “About the same age as you, Carla.”
    “The same age?” I said.
    “Well, within a few years of one another,” Bethany looked at grandma for corroboration. Grandma blinked. “I think Genevieve was about ten years younger than Virginia.”
    Virginia and Genevieve were ten years apart. Virginia was ten when she made the fatal donation of blood. They looked like carbon copies of one another. And yet, they weren’t related, not even distantly. What were the odds?
    “She was absolutely hysterical with fear,” Bethany said. “She couldn’t abort them. She tried, but it didn’t work. Those demon babies refused to be terminated.”
    Demon babies . My skin crawled at the idea of Kalan having nearly been aborted. “She tried to abort them? Why?”
    “Because,” Bethany answered. “Genevieve was used. The scientists used her body for a scientific experiment. They used her body, like she was an animal, to create a new breed.”
    A new breed . I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “What did she do?”
    “She came to live with us,” Grandma said. “And spent the remainder of her pregnancy with Virginia, who took care of her, tried to keep her protected from those people. But Virginia couldn’t protect her, and they both knew that. That’s why they were so secretive, those two. They couldn’t have been more like twins if they’d come out of the same