Chapter 9 - Bloodline Deception
Dr. Jordan swiftly turned the deadbolt on the locker room door, then gestured for Lena to follow him into an adjoining, windowless storage room filled with outdated medical equipment.
"My phone was destroyed in the house fire," Lena whispered, catching her breath while clutching the thermal container. "How could they track me?"
"Not your cell phone, Lena," Jordan said gravely, pulling a portable medical scanner from his medical kit. He motioned for her to roll up her left sleeve. "The subcutaneous micro-transponder they embedded when you were twelve under the guise of an allergy chip."
Lena stared at him in horror as Jordan waved the scanner over her forearm. A high-pitched tone beeped from the handheld device, confirming an active low-frequency signal.
"Hold still. This will sting," Jordan warned.
Without waiting, he swabbed her skin with antiseptic, produced a sterile scalpel, and made a swift, shallow incision. Lena clamped her teeth down on the cuff of her sleeve to keep from crying out as Jordan extracted a rice-sized glass capsule and dropped it into a lead-lined container, snapping the lid shut.
"There," Jordan said, taping a pressure gauze over her bleeding arm. "We have twenty minutes at best before they realize the signal has gone stationary."
"Explain what that note meant," Lena demanded, pointing at the laboratory files. "Who am I, Dr. Jordan? Arthur said Eleanor brought the syndicate to him. Eleanor said Arthur was testing drugs on me to make me forget."
Jordan pulled off his surgical gloves, sighing deeply. "Neither of them told you the full truth because both of them were terrified of the consequences. Arthur Vance didn't marry Eleanor out of love, and you weren't born into that family. You were adopted through an illegal black-market intermediary seventeen years ago."
Lena felt the ground drop out beneath her. "Adopted?"
"Your biological mother was Dr. Victoria Reyes, the lead researcher who originally developed the Aegis compound to treat degenerative memory disorders," Jordan explained softly. "When she realized Arthur's consortium intended to weaponize it as an untraceable interrogation tool, she tried to blow the whistle. She was killed in a staged car accident a week after you were born."
The air left Lena's lungs. "And they took me."
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"Arthur kept you as collateral. Your DNA was the only biological key mapped to decrypt the proprietary chemical synthesis codes Victoria locked away," Jordan said, pointing at the toxicology charts. "Every dose of sedative he gave you was an attempt to extract that sequence through neurological stimulation. But yesterday, the test worked. The synthesis code decrypted in your blood work."
A heavy crash rattled the outer entrance of the clinic. The unmistakable sound of boot soles echoed through the hallway above.
