THE CODE THAT LINKS US ©

Chapter Nine

MADISON

When it's dinner time, we order a pair of hamburgers and we eat them in silence. The day went by incredibly fast and was full of new things. I didn't think I could ever feel great with my parents again after what happened, but it seems like they aren't the way I thought, especially my mother. It's incredible for me all the things she has done for me during my whole life, she risked her career to keep me safe, even though we aren't biologically related.

"Mom?" I ask when I am done eating and she smiles eating the last bite of her burger, "you said you were there the day I born. Right?"

"Since the very beginning."

"Did you met my mother?" I say without double thinking it and she stares at me for a moment. She nods.

"I helped her to give birth to you," she replies still staring at me. Who would be able to give away a baby and let them hurt it?

"She never met you, if that's what you are thinking about," she says reading my mind again and I look at her, "the labs pay them a big amount of money for the pregnancy and they receive other payment when the baby is born, then they sign an agreement of full confidentiality and grant the custody of the child. Declaring that they would not have any interest in looking for the baby or cause any kind of trouble to the lab."

"She never wanted to see me?" I ask with a lump in my throat.

"She wasn't allowed to, the most she knew about you was how you cried when you born, she didn't know if you were a boy or a girl... nothing," she replies. "A blanket covered her vision the whole time so that she couldn't see you."

I nod and then we have a few minutes in silence, I guess she is letting me try to process everything and I do so, till Levy comes to my mind. I raise my view to see her again and she immediately asks what's going on.

"Levy knows it," I say and she smiles.

"I wasn't expecting less of you, he's your best friend since you started living," she says.

"You don't get it, Levy's mother has a case that -"

"That could end up with the experiments, I know," she ends calmly what I try to explain. "I'm going to tell her myself what's going on when it's safe."

"What?" I ask fully confused. Why would she reveal herself? When would it be safe? I understand nothing.

"The laboratories are aware of Levy's mother and the association she works with, everybody is warned about what could happen if they discover where they are."

"What do you have to do with this?" I ask.

"Since I got you out of the lab and with everything we went through with that, my thoughts about the experiments changed. To be honest, everything they test is not useful. I discussed it many times with your father, but he doesn't change his point of view about anything. Still, after so many years, she still sees you as an act that could've ended with the lab. He got so mad at me, we fight almost every time except when you are back home. We don't agree on anything. I have tried to divorce him since the moment the other girl born. I didn't want to know anything more about experiments. Nevertheless, the Control Centre accorded that my permanence in the lab was necessary and I had to sign a contract that establishes I'm going to stay till the new experiment is over."

"That explains way too much about my father," I think but actually say it out loud.

"A part of me wants to believe that despite all of this, he has a little bit of love for you, but his work needs a very hard heart with children," I nod and she forces a smile.