Page 93 of Forged in Flames (Made of Steel 2)

"I blocked it out, okay!?" I whipped around. "Don't you have something to do besides berate me?"

"What? Go follow a lead? We have nothing, Summer."

"Jane said that William Crawford was best friends with Don Roberts. Can't we use that to figure out who he actually is and find him? Maybe he is on our side. Maybe he can help us."

"Right, let me just pull up my best friend database," she said and rolled her eyes. "That information is useless. They were friends twenty years ago. It means nothing. What we need is a DNA sample to help us." She looked at me.

"You think he's my father?"

"I don't know. We could run it for a partial match. Jane said something about it being too late and that it was written in your blood. Maybe she's talking about the fact that you're related to Mr. Crawford."

It was crazy how much information you could get from a small sample of DNA. I lightly touched my wrist. My foundation had just been rocked. Not that I truly believed everything Jane had said. My mother was good. She was kind. But Jane's words stung. What if my mother wasn't who I thought she was? What if my father wasn't my father at all? "Can you really get that information from my blood?"

"It's not as good as a fingerprint for what I want to do, but it's something," Liza said.

"Oh my God." A light seemed to just go off in my head. "Holy shit." I started to walk past her. I felt so stupid. After getting the DNA sample from Heart of Darkness I should have put it together days ago.

"What?" she said as she watched me. "What's going on?"

I went into my bedroom and opened up my duffel bag. The copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was sitting there. I walked back out and held it up. "Mr. Crawford put this book in my suitcase. He had to have touched it."

"Okay. And you're touching it now..."

"Sorry." I dropped it on the table in front of her. "But there's also a sticky note." I grabbed a pen and lifted the cover page, turning to the front page where my father had inscribed it. Mr. Crawford's post-it note was stuck on top of the inscription. I tried not to think about the fact that he had covered up my father's words with his own. "You can run it for prints."

"Have you touched that too?"

"Yeah, but so did he. And he touched the book too. Surely you can get a print."

"I'll definitely try. But, Summer, that's not going to tell us if you're related to Mr. Crawford."

I nodded. "I don't want to know." If I was going to die tomorrow, I'd die knowing who my parents were. My memory was all I had left. I didn't want to tarnish that.

"We might still need a blood sample if this doesn't work."

"Okay. Work on the print first. I'll be back soon."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Do you really care?" My words sounded harsh, but it was true. Liza and I were working toward a common goal, but we weren't friends. I was pretty sure she hated me.

She shrugged her shoulders. "V will want to know when he gets back."

Right. And you don't want to let him down. My next words weren't going to help with that, though. "I'm going to go talk to Miles."

"You can't do that. We all agreed..."

"It's my last night," I said firmly. "I'm not going to tell him anything. I just need to see him." I thought about the letter sitting in my backpack. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do yet, but I did need to see him. One last time. "It's not like I'm going to die tonight," I said and laughed awkwardly.

"Well, we won't know for sure until I run this." She turned back to the book. "Jane could have been lying about everything."

Maybe. But the lump in my throat really made it seem like Jane was telling the truth.

Chapter 36

Thursday

I touched my Sagitta pendant in my pocket. I had kept it there since V had given it back to me. For some reason I couldn't bring myself to put it back around my neck. It was almost like V handing it to me had taken away part of what made it special. It was a gift from Miles to me. I had put a chain on it and worn it around my neck because that's where it belonged. Next to where my heart beat.

---