Page 105 of Captured Immune

“Everything,” I say breathlessly. “I want to know everything.”

“All right. Um, how about I start from the beginning? Your mom, Suzie, and I met during our first year at California State University in Fresno. We became instant best friends and did everything together. That’s the year she met Andy too. They began dating right away. He proposed the next year and they got married the next.”

Li leaves our talking square and returns with the photo album she had earlier. She pulls out a 4x6 print and hands it to me. In the photo, my mom is wearing a lacey white dress. Two ladies stand on each side of her. One is Aunt Debbie. The other is a younger version of Li. They’re wearing matching burgundy dresses and holding bouquets of flowers.

“I was a bridesmaid. Suzie’s sister was the maid of honor. Small wedding. Close friends and family only. Victor flew in from New York just to attend. Over the years that Suzie and Andy were together, she and Victor didn’t have many interactions. Victor was super focused on finishing his engineering degree, and he spent a lot of time with his fiancée, Jodi, in New York. After he finished his degree, Victor and Jodi moved to Three Rivers, where Victor started working at ZIRDA. Shortly after, they were married as well.

“Suzie and Andy had already been ZIRDA agents for about a year. They were researching how to transfer the healing ability from a Healer’s tears into a usable product. It was Andy who theorized that itcouldhappen and the both of them who put in the years of research tomakeit happen.

“In the end, it was Suzie who made the groundbreaking discovery of which chemical component of a Healer’s teardrop gave it its healing abilities. She named itChemical T, after Tao.”

I’ve never heard the history behind Chemical T’s name before. As a kid, I thought my mother named it after me. Now I’m realizing it couldn’t have been named after me. She discovered the chemical before I was born.

Li continues, “Once Suzie and Andy knew which chemical component had the healing ability, they needed a way to extract it from the teardrops. That’s where Victor comes in. He was the engineer who designed the machine that could remove Chemical T. Smart man, that one. He designed, built, and modified hundreds of machines before it worked.

“Anyway, through long nights working in the lab together, Suzie and Victor fell in love. You should have seen them, Trey. Your parents were made for each other. From the way they looked at each other to the way they could communicate without saying a single word. There’s no doubt in my heart they were soul mates.”

I know the feeling. That’s exactly how I feel about Arella. There’s not a single doubt in my heart that she’s meant for me.

Li continues again, “The night Suzie found out she was pregnant was the night I found out about the affair. Tao and I had already moved here to Vegas, so Suzie and I didn’t get to see each other much. We were still best friends though. We spoke on the phone every day. I thought we didn’t keep secrets from each other until she called to tell me she was pregnant with her husband’s brother’s baby.

“That weekend, she and Victor drove out here so we could talk. That’s when Tao and I got the whole story. They told us that the affair had been going on for a while and that no matter how many times they tried to end it, it felt like torture to be away from each other. They cried over how much they already loved their unborn baby. Getting pregnant only reinforced their love for each other and confirmed how badly they wanted to be together. I told them they should be together, until they explained why they wouldn’t divorce their partners. It was a wholesome reason, really. Very selfless. Those two always had the good of Zordi people in mind.”

“What was the reason?” I ask, desperate to know. “Why couldn’t they be together?”

“At the time, Andy was in the midst of creating a liquid solution that could preserve Chemical T. You see, the chemical doesn’t survive outside of a Healer’s body for more than five minutes. That’s why it took so long for Suzie and Andy to discover the chemical in the first place. Can you imagine putting something under the microscope to study for over a year, not realizing that the chemical component you’re looking for had died off within five minutes of it leaving its source? The time they wasted...” Li shakes her head with a sigh.

“Because Andy was in the middle of creating the preservation solution and was near completion, your parents decided they couldn’t tell him they were in love. They were concerned that if Suzie left Andy, he would quit working on the project and they would never see it finished, so your parents made the tough and heartbreaking decision to raise you as if Andy was your father.

“In the end, it took Andy another year to finish the preservation solution. Then it took them all another three years of research to create healing products in the forms of a beverage, an ointment, and a mist.

“For all those years, Tao and I watched how much it killed Victor to have to say he was your uncle. The only times he ever got to freely be your dad was when they came here to visit us. Here, Victor didn’t have to hide how much his spirit brightened every time you sat in his lap. He could barely take his eyes off you as you ran around and played with our kids. The way he looked at you was the same way he looked at your mother—with pure love and happiness.”

I think I’m in shock. I can’t move. I can’t do anything but blink. Everyone’s staring at me, waiting for me to react. I don’t know how to, mostly because I don’t believe it.

Does this lady really expect me to believe that the cruel and abusive man I grew up with is my father? The man who allowed adults to beat on me until I bled—when I was a kid? The man who refuses to call me by name and opts for demeaning terms? The man who used me in his Royal-based schemes, who just days ago almost murdered me? That man? Myfather? No way in hell.

“How did my mother know for sure that Victor was my father?” I ask. “If she was having sex with both of them, it could have been either of them.”

“I asked the same thing,” Li says. “Turns out, when Suzie found out she was pregnant, she and Andy hadn’t been intimate for months. Once the decision was made to raise you as Andy’s son, Suzie went home and seduced him that night. Two weeks later, she made a show of being shocked by a positive test. When you were born, she told everyone you were early. Since Andy and Victor look so much alike, no one questioned it when you grew up looking like Victor, because you looked like Andy too. Tao and I were the only ones who knew the truth.”

“No!” I burst out of my chair. It falls behind me with aclank!The unopened bottle of water in my lap tumbles to the floor and rolls away. My ribs burn from the sudden movement. “You’re lying! Victor can’t be my father.”

Tao, who has barely spoken a word this whole time, calmly says, “Ask yourself, Trey, what reason do we have to lie?”

I think about that for a moment, then sigh. He’s right. They have nothing to gain from lying to me.

“Here,” Li says as she hands me the entire photo album. She points to one of the pictures on the page. It features a toddler me sitting in Victor’s lap. He’s hugging me tight as he kisses my cheek with a light in his face I’ve never seen in him before.

I flip the page to find more pictures of me with my mom and Victor. Most of the photos look like they were taken somewhere in this shop. Some are of me learning to walk while Victor holds my hands. There are a few photos where he’s got me sitting on his shoulders with my little fingers gripping his dark hair.

In one picture, my mom stands with me on her hip, feeding me a blue popsicle. The colorful evidence is all over my face. In the background, Victor stares lovingly at my mother the same way I always stare at Arella.

I flip the page again, and my heart drops. These images were shot so early that my mom is still pregnant. Victor has his hand splayed across her rounded belly as he kisses her temple. In another photo, they kiss each other’s lips as he hugs her from behind and cradles her belly like it’s his entire world.

The more pages I flip, the more I get a glimpse into a past that seems impossible. My mom and Victor look genuinely and hopelessly in love with each other.

“We assumed you already knew,” Li says. “After Suzie and Andy were killed, didn’t you go live with Victor? Why didn’t he tell you the truth? By that time, Jodi was long gone, and without Andy around, he had no reason to keep it a secret anymore. We figured he would have told you right away.”

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