Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (easy readers txt) 📕

Still, she couldn’t leave, not yet. “Come here. I won’t hurt you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“What?” She wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined the tiny voice. “What did you just say?”

“Yes, you will.” His voice rasped like small pebbles rattling down a slope.

Hadn’t Dr. Andrews said that Zeph refused to talk?

Her heart lurched. “Have the people here hurt you?” As she asked, she knew what a stupid question it was. He was a new specimen. They must have taken samples from him from all over, from every organ, every bone, every stretch of skin. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

He reached out, grabbed her hand. His small, chubby fingers curled around hers with remarkable force. “Lucia.”

She scooted closer, to touch him, feel him. “Baby.” His skin was warm. He smelled like warm milk and baby talcum. She caressed his soft hair, and he giggled.

No. She pulled back reluctantly, yet firmly.

His eyes sobered, not a child’s eyes, more serious, more grown-up than they ought to be. He held onto her hand. “Mama?”

The word tore through her like a knife, left her gasping.

“No.” She pried his fingers off her hand and stood, shaking her head over and over, trying to control the urge to run. “No, please, don’t.” To hell with the job and Freddy and everything. She couldn’t, shouldn’t stay longer. It was too much. “I’m sorry, Zeph. I have to go now.”

“Will you be back?” he asked and she thought she might weep.

She staggered away, and shoved past Dr. Andrews on her way out.

“He spoke to you!” He grabbed her arm, but she twisted out of his bruising grip. “I heard him. Ms. Winter, please. We hoped for that.”

“You set this up?” Hot tears pricked her eyes. “How could you? Why did you think he would talk to me?”

“Because,” he sounded tired, “we used one of your ova. But that isn’t all. He’s got some of your DNA, and I think he can sense it.”

Frozen, she stared at him. “What did you say?”

“He isn’t a true clone.” Dr Andrews scratched his cheek. “His DNA was well-preserved in the dry, cold, high-altitude air, but there were gaps in the sequencing of the genome. Your DNA was tested and found highly compatible. We think that perhaps you have distant relatives from that area. In any case,” he looked up, straight into her eyes, “we filled those gaps with your DNA. Zeph is a hybrid. And part of him comes from you.”

Her stomach cramped. Cold sweat rolled down her back. He did look a little like her, didn’t he? This boy — this child — carried some of her DNA. When had she agreed to that?

The donor card. Freddy had asked her, back then, when they had been trying to have a baby, if she might think about donating the remaining collected eggs for research. She’d signed a paper. Ecstatic to be finally pregnant, she hadn’t given it a second thought. Fred.

Fred had done it, without asking her first. He’d okayed the process of using her eggs for this, testing her DNA for compatibility, running all the tests.

He’d pay.

In a blur of faces, voices, and noises, she strode down the corridor, pushed past the other representatives, and left the building.

~~~

The ringing finally broke through the dream. Groggy, she picked up her cell phone. “Yes?”

“Lucia! I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“Damn it, Fred. What do you want?”

Images from the dream replayed behind her closed eyes: Sam playing in his room, Sam running in the playground, Sam eating his oatmeal.

Why was his hair white in the dream?

She rubbed her eyes.

“You can’t just walk away from everything that scares you, Lucy.”

“Shut up, Fred.” Her head felt stuffed with cotton. “What do you want?”

“You sound strange. Have you been drinking?”

“You know I don’t.” Though as memory returned, she decided she could use a stiff drink. Zeph. With frightening clarity she’d seen what must have gone before. Fred was behind all this mess.

He sighed. “Lucy. Look, I’m sorry I asked you to meet the boy. I thought, you know, he’s your son, you—”

“No, he’s not my son, Fred! Why didn’t you ask me before doing this?” Fury hazed her vision. She fought the urge to throw the phone across the room. “Only Sam, do you understand? Only Sam is my son. I’m only Sam’s mother.” And she’d been stripped of motherhood. Her only son was dead and buried.

A pause. “Yes. I’m sorry.” A cough. “Listen, Lucy, I just thought you might want to know. Zeph asked for you.”

“Really?” She clutched the covers at her lap with her free hand. Sweat trickled down the side of her face.

Zeph wasn’t her son. He could never replace Sam, DNA be damned.

“Dr. Andrews called me. He insisted you go back there.”

The moment stretched. “I don’t want to talk to you again, Fred. All this—”

“I never thought you’d mind. You believed in cloning back then, in helping science.”

“You planned this since Sam’s birth, didn’t you? Zeph is six, just a few months younger than Sam would have been. All these years you never said anything. You thought that losing Sam would mean I’d accept Zeph as replacement?”

“No. Yes. Lucy, you wanted more children. I thought that you’d like this.”

“This?” She thumped her fist on the mattress. “What, you thought you could bring Zeph home, and we’d live all together like one happy family?”

He said nothing.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“We still could, Lucy. He could—”

“No.” She thought of the boy’s soft face and felt empty. “No, he can’t. We can’t.”

He sighed. “For God’s sake, he’s got your eyes. You can pretend you felt nothing when you saw him, but it’s Zeph now, isn’t it? Not just a creature with no name.”

That stopped her cold. Don’t panic. “I can’t see him again.”

“Lucy.” He sounded cautious. He was about to try the rational approach. “He doesn’t bite, you know.”

“No. You’re right. It’s worse than that. He looks like Sam.” He looks like me. “He’s—” She had to swallow. “I can’t.”

“Please think about it.”

The pain in his voice matched her own. But she couldn’t