The great city of Ethica and it’s perfect bloodlines. I was seriously
going to throw up.
“I’m afraid not.” He scooped up the charts and tapped the folders
against the desk to straighten them. Paper trails. He was still old school, but
they’d be entered in the database soon and after that, there was no escape.
“What is it?” My mind was still spinning and I focused on not
ripping the papers from his hand to burn them. Think of ice water. I was
disassociating, going to the place that had kept Coral and me safe for all
these years, but I would figure this out.
I’d take care of her.
There wasn’t another option.
“A mutant variation of the lycanthrope sequence. It’s a miracle she’s
avoided detection for this long, but from what we understand, a human
parent breeding with a…” the derogatory term died on his lips and he
coughed to clear his throat, “an other can cause the offspring to have latent
abilities.”
This has to be a joke. I looked Dr. Bradley straight in the eyes,
wondering if the dry old man was screwing with me. “Even if the abilities
were latent, you would have seen something like this in her DNA at birth or
any other time she’s come in for care.”
“She hasn’t come in for medical treatment that required bloodwork
until now.” He shrugged like I should have seen this coming. “And your
father was the attending physician for Coral’s delivery and Melinda’s
subsequent death so he would have been able to falsify her documents.”
Like he did for you. Dr. Bradley didn’t say that part, but the
accusation hung in the air as he put the charts in his briefcase.
Except this wasn’t anything like what my father did for me.
“How long do we have?” My vision was starting to blur and I
pushed back my chair, needing to get out of there fast before I caused a
scene. Later, there’d be time to process this all.
Right now, I had to get to Coral and make sure she would be safe.
“I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to get your affairs in order.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Now you have the decency to be ashamed? I
knew what my father’s final request had been of the man and this definitely
wasn’t it.