Chapter 33 - SOFIA’S BROTHER WAS NEVER ON THE MERIDIAN LIST—UNTIL HIS MEDICAL RECORD REVEALED WHY CHARLES HAWTHORNE HAD BEEN PAYING HIS BILLSSofia did not remember leaving Maine.
Only movement.
Airport.
Aircraft.
Daniel beside her.
Marcus coordinating with federal agents.
Luis calling Mateo repeatedly.
Isabella crying.
By the time they reached Mateo’s apartment, police had secured the building.
The door was broken.
Furniture overturned.
Blood on the kitchen floor.
But Mateo was alive.
He had hidden inside a maintenance shaft after escaping through the bathroom wall.
When Sofia saw him, she ran.
Mateo grabbed her.
For several seconds, none of the conspiracies mattered.
He was simply her little brother.
Alive.
Terrified.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“The blood?”
“One of them cut his hand.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Two attackers had escaped.
One had called him M-25.
The other had demanded a medical file.
Mateo stared at Sofia.
“What is Meridian?”
She closed her eyes.
“How much time do you have?”
He did not laugh.
They told him enough.
Not everything at once.
Sofia had learned that truth could become another form of violence when dumped onto someone without regard for what they could process.
Mateo listened.
Then asked:
“Am I your biological brother?”
Sofia looked at Luis and Isabella.
Luis answered.
“Yes.”
Isabella nodded.
“We conceived you naturally.”
Mateo stared.
“Thank God.”
Daniel muttered:
“That's a refreshingly simple sentence.”
Then Marcus found the file the intruders had wanted.
Mateo’s childhood medical records contained payments from a charitable account.
Hawthorne Foundation.
Charles Hawthorne personally authorized them.
Sofia frowned.
“Why?”
Mateo had been born with a minor cardiac abnormality.
Corrected in infancy.
The same category of disease Meridian studied.
Sofia looked at Luis.
“You never told me.”
“You were twelve.”
“Did Charles know?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Luis looked ashamed.
“Because I asked him for help.”
Sofia stared.
Luis had been working secretly against Eden.
When Mateo was born, he feared the cardiac issue might somehow be connected to his own exposure as Subject Zero.
Charles arranged independent treatment.
No experiment.
No stolen samples.
Just medical care.
Sofia exhaled.
For once, something was exactly what it looked like.
Then Mateo asked:
“Why M-25?”
Nobody knew.
They searched Arthur’s seized records.
M-25 existed.
Not a person.
A contingency.
MERIDIAN 25 — FAMILY CONTROL RESPONSE.
Sofia frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus read.
“If primary subject M-19 demonstrates resistance, observe behavioral response when nonexperimental sibling is threatened.”
Sofia stopped breathing.
Mateo had never been a medical subject.
He was worse.
He had been designated leverage.
A normal child categorized solely because he mattered to Sofia.
Mateo looked sick.
“They watched me because I'm your brother?”
“Yes.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I always knew you were annoying.”
Sofia hit his shoulder.
He smiled.
For one second, childhood returned.
Then he became serious.
“Did they ever hurt me?”
Marcus searched.
“No documented intervention.”
“Documented?”
Sofia glared.
Marcus corrected himself.
“No evidence they physically harmed you.”
Mateo nodded.
“That matters.”
Then he looked at Sofia.
“And now?”
“Now you're not a subject.”
“I was never a subject.”
Sofia smiled.
“Exactly.”
The attackers were identified through building cameras.
Former Eden contractors.
They had not been sent by Arthur.
Payment came from a private foundation.
The name made Daniel freeze.
HAWTHORNE LEGACY PRESERVATION TRUST.
He had never heard of it.
Charles created it thirty years earlier.
Beneficiary unknown.
Administrator:
Evelyn Mercer.
But Evelyn was under federal supervision.
Someone else controlled the trust.
Marcus traced the current signatory.
SAMUEL KANE.
Daniel stared.
His biological father.
Samuel was awaiting trial.
Yet his signature had authorized the payment two days earlier.
Sofia sighed.
“Prison apparently has excellent banking services.”
Daniel did not smile.
They confronted Samuel.
He denied ordering anything.
Forensic analysis supported him.
His signature had been cloned.
The authorization originated from the Virginia farmhouse Charles had named in his letter.
Sofia looked at Daniel.
“We're going.”
“Yes.”
Mateo stood.
“So am I.”
“No.”
Sofia said it automatically.
Mateo stared.
She heard herself.
The same word everyone had used on her.
She corrected.
“I don't think it's safe.”
“Neither do I.”
“You were attacked.”
“Yes.”
“You could die.”
“So could you.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
Mateo continued.
“You don't get to preach choice to everyone else and become Dad when it's me.”
Luis winced.
“Fair.”
Sofia looked at her brother.
“You're coming?”
“Yes.”
“Body armor.”
“Fine.”
“You stay with agents.”
“Fine.”
“You don't touch mysterious keys.”
Mateo smiled.
“That's oddly specific.”
“You have no idea.”
They reached Virginia the next afternoon.
The farmhouse looked ordinary.
White siding.
Red barn.
Fields.
No laboratory.
No security.
Inside, photographs covered the walls.
Sofia’s childhood.
Mateo’s.
Isabella.
Luis.
Daniel.
Everyone.
Mateo stared.
“This is creepy.”
“Welcome to my life.”
They found Charles’s journals.
He had used the farmhouse as an independent archive.
A place outside Hawthorne Villa.
Outside Eden.
The journals revealed M-25 had another meaning.
Mateo was the twenty-fifth child Charles tried to protect from Eden.
Not a subject.
A rescue number.
Twenty-four before him.
Children removed from programs.
Given new identities.
New families.
Sofia stared.
“Charles rescued children.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
But one journal page was missing.
M-01.
The first child.
Sofia searched.
A photograph.
A little boy approximately six years old.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
On the back:
M-01 — SAFE WITH HAWTHORNE FAMILY.
Daniel stared.
“That looks like me.”
Sofia looked closer.
It did.
But Daniel had not been six when Charles adopted him.
Or so they believed.
Daniel’s childhood records before age seven were suspiciously sparse.
He whispered:
“No.”
Marcus found another file.
DANIEL HAWTHORNE.
ORIGINAL NAME: UNKNOWN.
Daniel sat down.
Sofia stared.
“But Samuel and Eleanor are your biological parents.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would your original name be unknown?”
Mateo found an old videotape.
Charles appeared on screen.
Younger.
Exhausted.
“If Daniel ever sees this, I'm sorry.”
Daniel froze.
Charles continued.
“Samuel and Eleanor believe the infant they lost died at birth.”
Sofia’s blood went cold.
Daniel whispered:
“What?”
“Their biological son did die.”
Silence.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Sofia looked at him.
Then back at Charles.
“The boy I raised as Daniel was rescued from the Garden six years later.”
Daniel staggered backward.
Everything they knew changed again.
The DNA report matching Samuel?
Charles explained.
The Garden had created the rescued boy using Samuel and Eleanor’s preserved genetic material.
Not naturally conceived.
Another experimental child.
Daniel.
Sofia whispered:
“So the DNA was real.”
“Yes.”
“But the birth story was false.”
Daniel looked shattered.
Charles continued.
“Daniel was Generation Zero.”
The first successful artificially created child in the line that later produced Sofia, Victoria, Claire, and Lily.
Daniel stared.
Then Charles said:
“But Daniel was not the only child rescued that night.”
Sofia frowned.
Another photograph appeared.
Two six-year-old boys.
Identical.
Daniel whispered:
“No.”
Charles’s final words filled the farmhouse.
“I took Daniel.”
The camera shifted toward the second child.
“Evelyn took his twin.”
Daniel stared at the screen.
Sofia’s pulse hammered.
Charles whispered:
“And if that boy is still alive, he has spent his entire life believing Daniel stole the life that should have been his.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Everyone froze.
Daniel looked toward the staircase.
Footsteps.
Slow.
A man appeared at the top.
Same age as Daniel.
Same height.
Same face.
Almost.
A scar crossed his left cheek.
He stared at Daniel.
Then smiled.
May you like
“Hello, brother.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
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