THE SECOND GIRL IN THE FILE
Walter was transported to the hospital under armed guard.
By sunrise, federal investigators had sealed the underground laboratory.
I sat in a secure hospital room with Wyatt and Melanie while Detective Beckett placed a thin file on the table between us.
Two photographs lay inside.
The first showed me as an infant.
The second showed another baby girl with dark hair and a tiny scar beneath her right ear.
Melanie stared at the photograph.
“That’s me.”
Walter nodded weakly from his bed.
“You were both treated.”
My sister looked at me.
“For the same condition?”
“No,” Walter said. “Sadie had optic nerve degeneration. Melanie had a severe immune disorder.”
I remembered how often Melanie had been sick as a child. Hospital stays. Fever. Months of isolation.
Our parents had always said she had simply grown stronger.
“She would have died before her third birthday,” Walter continued. “Harold used a modified version of the treatment to repair her immune response.”
Melanie’s face crumpled.
“Grandpa saved me.”
“Yes.”
“And I helped them kill him.”
“You were fifteen,” I said.
“I carried the pills.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But I stood on the porch while Dad hit you.”
Her voice broke.
“I knew that was wrong.”
I had imagined this moment countless times—the moment Melanie finally admitted what she had done.
I expected satisfaction.
Instead, I felt grief.
Because beneath the cruelty, jealousy, and competition, I suddenly saw the frightened child our parents had shaped into a weapon.
“You wanted Wyatt,” I said.
She stared at the floor.
“At first, I wanted what you had. Mom kept telling me you had stolen my future. She said Grandpa meant to leave everything to me until you manipulated him.”
“You believed her?”
“I needed to.”
