Chapter 4 - The Brother's Secret
I dropped the rifle and rushed to help my bleeding brother-in-law.
I dragged Lucas onto the living room rug and applied heavy pressure to the gunshot wound.
"Who did this to you, Lucas?" I demanded, pressing a clean towel against his stomach.
Lucas coughed violently, speckling his pale lips with bright red blood.
"They found out I was helping her hide the boy," he whispered weakly.
I looked back at Ethan, who was watching us with wide, terrified eyes from the corner of the room.
"You knew Sarah was alive this entire time?" I asked, anger mixing with my absolute shock.
Lucas nodded slowly, his breathing becoming incredibly shallow and ragged.
He explained that Sarah discovered the sinister truth about my company's genetic division a month before her supposed death.
She realized that the corrupt board of directors was using my money to fund illegal cloning and harvesting.
"She faked her death to protect you from the truth, Andrew," Lucas choked out.
"But why did she have to hide Ethan?" I asked desperately.
Lucas looked at the boy and then back up at me with profound sadness.
"Ethan isn't just a donor, Andrew," Lucas revealed softly.
"He is the first successful genetic clone created entirely from your own DNA."
I felt the room violently spin around me as the horrific reality finally set in.
This boy wasn't a stranger, he was a perfect, younger biological copy of me.
"Sarah rescued him from the lab, but they took her back yesterday," Lucas explained, his eyes losing focus.
He reached into his bloody jacket and pulled out a small, silver thumb drive.
"This is the master override key to the underground facility where they are holding her," he said.
Lucas grabbed my shirt collar with his last ounce of strength.
"You have to save her, Andrew, before they harvest her for the new experiments."
His hand went completely limp, and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
Lucas was dead.
I closed my eyes for a brief second, allowing myself to mourn the brave man on my floor.
I gently took the bloody thumb drive from his lifeless hand and plugged it into my laptop.
A live security video feed immediately popped up on my bright screen.
It showed Sarah violently strapped to a metal surgical chair in a sterile white room.
A digital countdown clock on the wall above her head displayed exactly sixty minutes remaining.
A tall man in a pristine white lab coat stepped into the frame, holding a massive, lethal-looking syringe.
May you like
He turned toward the camera and smiled directly at the lens.
It was my brilliant co-founder and supposed best friend, David.
