Page 51 of Worth

My fingers tighten around a pen, which is the only thing keeping me from snapping and committing patricide. “You haven’t heard if she’s been found?” I ask, shooting to sound casual.

But Father knows me too well. “No,” he answers with a smirk. “Not found yet. But when she surfaces, I’m sure the Lab could use a new subject. Right, Mordecai?”

I can’t help the way my lip curls. “If she’s found, I take her. That’s the deal we made well before she ever escaped. Ainsbury was supposed to sell her tome.”

“And the deal is off,” Father says pleasantly. “You should have known better, Mo. Ainsbury has agreed to give Blake to me, to make an example of her. She murdered a man. She will need to be punished appropriately to appease the public. No one wants to see a Skin act in such a way and then not pay the consequences.

“But I’ll throw you a bone, son. I’ll leave it up to you,” he adds, that self-righteous grin on his face never wavering. “It’s either public execution or the Lab. You pick.”

He saunters out of my office, not bothering to close the door. I lean back in my chair and pinch the bridge of my nose, a goddamn migraine popping up and already starting to fray at my nerves.

If I wasn’t involved in wanting to keep Blake alive and to myself, I’d have no problem making this choice. Execution, no matter how brutal, would be eons more merciful than putting Blake in one of our cages here. At least she wouldn’t end up as the subject of one of Father’s disturbing experiments.

It doesn’t matter what he says. Blake has always been mine, and I’ll ensure she stays safe. The question now, given the ultimatum Father just laid down, is how to keep her from ending up an experiment.

My gut lurches as I envision her stuck in 13C. The study group of ten women—all Skins—each represent a different household where the lady of the house either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get pregnant. All ten have been impregnated with three viable fetuses and all thirty fetuses were designed to the specifications of each household, which required altering of the genetics to accomplish the task—that’s where the experimental side came in. It’s amazing how much someone will pay to ensure that their child’s metabolism is genetically predisposed to run at a high level, or ensure that they have blue eyes.

It was only the third time this testing had been completed. I hadn’t been involved with the first group—13A. There had been no survivors, but not because of complications related to the pregnancies. One of the women, who had zero fetuses implant, Father had gutted in the middle of the Lab. He told the others as she bled out that if her womb was of no use, we might as well cut it out.

But then, just before the first trimester ended for the remaining women, all nine miscarried within a week of each other. Father had them all euthanized in response. His justification was that they had murdered those children; the children of someone who wasn’t a Skin.

I only found out later that he had dosed their drinking water with misoprostol, causing their uteruses to expel the otherwise healthy pregnancies. When confronted, he’d only clapped me on the back and pointed out that the couples who had been involved paid for a second round.

The second time, only one woman had survived the entire gestation, only to deliver a single living child with a birth defect. The parents hadn’t wanted the infant, and they profited off her sale the same day. The surrogate was allowed to live, but she’d been given a total hysterectomy to prevent any future children born with defects.

They had done that to the test subject despite the fact that the defect in question had been a genetic trait from the parents who sold the baby—not the Skin who had carried it for thirty-nine weeks and four days.

Forced impregnation isn’t the worst thing my father has inflicted on Skins. It isn’t even the worst thing I’ve personally carried out against a Skin in this Lab. But something about it is worse than the other fucked up things that were done in the name of science.

Except for maybe the L-series experiments.

I shove back the thoughts of those trials. Father doesn’t make me act as the lead on them any longer. He prefers someone as brutal as he is. I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that he recognizes I’m not like him.

The disturbing feeling of torment settles into my gut. I rarely agree with him on anything anymore, but Father is right about one thing. Blake murdering Jack Chapman with a fork made national news. When she resurfaces, there will be a mob calling for her head.

IfI can find Blake before anyone else, I may have to do something I’ve never considered before now.

I may have to let her go.

I was kept on a heartier diet than most Skins at Damien’s and, while I had still been underweight, I can’t say I’d ever gone hungry. Not like now.

I sit against the locked door for the seventh day since I last left my room. All I have consumed in that time is water from the bathroom faucet, and the last few remaining pieces of dried out toast from the breakfast Aiden had brought me after Zander enacted his punishment.

I hadn’t seen either of them since Aiden delivered the eggs, toast and fruit to me, right after Zander had gotten off all over my face. Shortly after I’d gotten my breakfast, an engine had flared to life outside. Curious, I had peeked out between the boards over my window and found Aiden guiding his red car away from the front of the property—the first time I had seen him use it since bringing me here.

Like he knew I had been watching, he had turned in the seat, the car coming to an abrupt halt. He looked directly at my window, face void of all expression, but I had known it was unlikely he could see me.

I keep holding out hope that Aiden will return and remember I am here, but seeing as I’ve yet to hear his car rumble back to the house, it’s a hope that is quickly dying.

My head spins with the lack of food, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin, not for the first time. I grunt as my head falls back against the door, another wave of nausea hitting me.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have to do what I’ve been refusing to try for days.

“Zander,” I call dully. “Please. Enough.”

He doesn’t answer. I doubt he even hears me.

I take a deep breath, preparing myself to expend the energy to yell. “Zander,” I bellow. “I’m hungry, you fucktard!”

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