Chapter 45 - Bloodline Inoculation
Marcus drove his uninjured right shoulder directly into Eleanor’s midsection, tackling his mother against the steel framework of the examination table.
The gun went off wild, the bullet ricocheting off the reinforced granite ceiling before burying itself harmlessly in the far wall. Eleanor shrieked with fury, clawing at Marcus's face, her manicured nails digging bloody furrows into his cheek.
"You insolent bastard!" she snarled, spitting blood onto his face. "I gave you life! I gave you everything you have!"
"You gave me a nightmare," Marcus roared.
He ripped the pistol from her grip and threw it into the dark recesses of the flooding room. With his other hand, Marcus reached into his coat pocket. There was one injector left—the empty one, its hollow titanium needle still coated in the concentrated neurotoxic residue of the original extraction.
Marcus pressed the needle against the exposed skin of Eleanor’s neck.
"Do you know what this is, Mother?" Marcus panted, his breath ragged, his bleeding shoulder thumping with agony. "It’s the exact compound you put in Chloe's IV bag at Boston Memorial. The one you thought would never be traced."
Eleanor froze, the terror finally breaking through her cold, calculated gaze. Her pupils dilated as she felt the sharp bite of the needle against her jugular vein.
"Marcus... you wouldn't," she stammered, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "I am your mother. You are a Vance. We don't destroy our own."
"You already destroyed us," Marcus said.
He plunged the plunger down.
Eleanor gasped, a sharp, choked sob tearing from her throat as the neurotoxin entered her bloodstream. Within three seconds, her legs gave out. Marcus let her slide down the front of the table onto the wet, freezing floor. Her hands twitched uncontrollably as the cascade protocol began locking her nervous system, exactly as it had done to Chloe hours earlier.
Marcus turned his back on her. He had no time for revenge. The laboratory was collapsing.
Freon fumes were thick, choking the air. Marcus scooped Chloe up in his right arm, then reached into the open pod, wrapping his left arm around the trembling, freezing original child, pulling her out of the icy fluid and pressing her shivering body against his chest beside her sister.
Two identical little girls, clinging to his neck, their tears mingling on his bleeding shoulder.
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"I've got you," Marcus choked out, staggering under their combined weight. "Daddy's got both of you."
***
