Chapter 8 - The Price of Creation
"Look at me, Mark," the clone said, her voice echoing hollowly in the pristine lab. "I am what your family made. I am the daughter your father and aunt created in a test tube, discarded like trash when the law got too close. They left me to rot, to die a slow, agonizing death as my own body turns against itself."
"You're a monster," Mark said, his eyes locked on Lily, who was crying softly on the table, still untouched by the needles.
"I am a survivor!" the clone screamed, her calm facade finally cracking, revealing a manic, terrified woman facing her own mortality. "I have two minutes left before my cellular stability drops below the point of no return. This baby’s stem cells will repair my genetic sequence. She will survive the harvest, Mark. She might be weak, she might be sick, but she will live. And so will I."
"No," I stepped forward, pushing past Vance’s outstretched arm. "You're lying. Leo found the research. A harvest at this stage will drain her completely. It will kill her."
The clone’s silence was all the confirmation we needed. She tightened her grip on the remote detonator. "A necessary sacrifice for the original design."
"Elaine!" Mark shouted, using her creator's name. "Look at the camera screen over there. Look at what you're doing!"
On the secondary monitor in the lab, a live feed from the prison interview room was playing. Detective Rossi had stayed behind with the real Elaine Mercer, forcing her to watch the warehouse cameras in real-time.
On the screen, the real Elaine Mercer was crying.
"Stop it!" the real Elaine’s voice echoed through the monitor speaker. "Stop it, Alpha! Don't do it!"
The clone froze, staring at the screen. "Mother?" she whispered, a sudden, childlike vulnerability leaking into her voice.
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"I left you because I was a coward," the real Elaine sobbed through the monitor. "I let them destroy the lab because I was terrified of what we had created. But this baby... Mark's baby... she is innocent. If you kill her, you destroy the only real, pure thing our family ever produced. Please, Alpha. Don't let our legacy be murder."
The clone stared at the screen, her hand trembling violently. The digital countdown hit 00:45.
