The Law and the Codas

Chapter Thirty-Five

Daughter.

The word hovers in the chasm between us, while everything else falls away. Once again, it's just Dove and myself and all I can do is focus on the blue of his irises, and how similar they are to mine. The smile lingering on his face adds to my disbelief. Was he hopeful? What for? Did he think I would embrace him on the back of such a preposterous lie? My mouth opens and closes but no words slip out. Dove's smile eventually vanishes.

O'Mallory chuckles. "Her expression's priceless."

Daughter.

Dove's daughter.

I shake my head. "That's impossible." The hard edges return to Dove's features. "You can't be..." My hands grasp at the air, trying to find something tangible to latch on to.

Dove's hand rests on my shoulder -calm, steady, fatherly. At his touch, I'm roused from my daze and wrench myself free. A thousand words bombard my mind and I can't spew them fast enough. "You're not my father. My mother would never choose you. She hated the Law." Dove's hand falls back to his side. "She hated this world you helped create. She wouldn't let you breathe the same air as she let alone touch her."

"I loved your mother," Dove says, his voice small and frail. Before, when he' speak his voice could quiet a stadium, but now his words are little more than whispers.

I turn toward him, rest my gaze on his face, search the wrinkles and bones for the parts of him that could have made up half of me. "You what?"

He tenses. "I loved her."

"Don't say that." My curls fall in front of my face, shielding me from whatever expression he now wore. "Don't stand here and try to feed me lies. I know how you operate." I slash my hand through the air and let a laugh escape. "I was trained and tortured into being the next you." Tears blur my vision. I grit my teeth, desperate to keep them from falling.

Dove steps toward me and in a knee-jerk reaction I step away. "It's not a lie, Allison," he says in the same tone one would use to silence the ramblings of a madwoman. Is that what he thinks of me?

I erupt into a fit of hysterics. "Allison?" My cackling echoes off the barren walls. Dove frowns. "I think you're the one who's insane here." I point to myself. "My name's not Allison and if you'd known my mot—"

"She called you Pearce."

His words steal the last of my laughter. I turn toward him, breathless. "How'd you—"

"She'd wanted to name you that before we'd decided on Allison. After she stole you, she probably decided to give you the name she ought you should have." Something akin to sorrow flashed across his gaze but that had to be a hallucination. Why would he ever feel sad? Especially about someone's life he helped destroy?

"Allison was the name of a woman near to my heart." The corners of his lips turn upward. A smile pushes to the surface. "I'm sure your mother wanted to erase all trace of me so she stripped you of your name, but believe me when I say you are Allison Dove."

I flinch at this kast part. Allison Dove, a Councilman's daughter.

"I'll never be--"

Dove's shoulders go rigid as he stands to his full height, the very air around him changing. Darkness creeps onto his face. "Your little rebellious routine is getting tiring, Allison." I shirk from his reprimanding tone. "You are my daughter and despite what you have been taught, this situation does not allow for you to create your own truth."

I gulp. He was right. When our eyes meet, I was staring into my father's face.

Dove turns, hands clasped behind his back, sunlight highlighting his profile. "All Councilors are clones of their predecessors. There have always been ten of us and there always will be." He shoots me an over-the-shoulder glance. "We were created to lead, Allison. All of us raised in labs until the day we would graduate. You're the exception. I chose to be with your mother and to have you. I gifted you with something no other Councilor has ever experienced."