“Good idea. Who do you think he’s sending to finish your job?” asked Alik.
“Farrow. She’s probably still on the island.” Creed said and looked down at his watch shaking his head. “It could already be too late.” He looked up at the metas apologetically.
“If our mother’s dead, then so are you,” Alik said evenly.
Creed nodded and flipped open the in-flight phone console. He typed in a code before passing the receiver to Alik. “Go ahead. Make the call,” he said.
39 Love Story
In an effort to stay busy, Margo returned to the lab. Watching the car drive away with the three most precious gifts she had ever known was enough to make any mother sob silently. Knowing they weren’t just leaving her, but beginning a journey that was going to unfold painfully made Margo sick with fear for them. To control her anxiety, she found if she kept her hands busy, then at least she could try to distract herself long enough not to go insane with worry.
“Can I get you something to eat?” Theo asked. Knowing Margo must be exhausted with worry, Theo had come to check on her in Paulie’s laboratory.
Margo’s soft brown eyes were completely obscured by the powerful microscope in which she peered. She was mumbling something.
“Margo? Are you hungry?” Theo tried again.
Her simple and beautiful short dark hair was tucked neatly into a protective blue cap. With as much time as she had been spending in the lab these days, her scrubs had become like a second set of skin. Perched on the edge of a stool he saw she was even wearing blue booties over her shoes. Ever the scientist, she followed protocol for a sterile environment to the letter, though their patient was no longer in the room. She probably did everything automatically after all these years.
Theo thought to himself how much he adored this woman. He loved her passion for science just as much as her love for her family. All he wanted was to live out his days beside her, basking in the glow that was her aura. But keeping this love of his life safe had been terrifyingly difficult. Most men only have to worry about their love leaving them for another man—maybe someone who made more money or had more hair. Theo had to worry about another man taking his Margo away by snuffing the life out of her.
As he stood in the laboratory doorway watching her enveloped in her research, he couldn’t help himself but remember how close to death she already had been. A year hadn’t passed, and she was still weakened by the long-term effects from her extensive injuries at the hands of Williams’ henchmen.
His beautiful Margo, small-framed and delicate and fiercely devoted with the strength of a lioness; her spirit made him want to drop to his knees and beg for her hand in marriage. His eyes slipped to watch her tiny, gloved hand move to adjust the view in her scope. He stood in awe of her and for a moment allowed himself to imagine that beneath that size small latex glove was a band of gold wrapped around her finger. And engraved words inside pressed against her warm skin, two simple words of devotion: Love Story.
“This can’t be right,” Margo muttered to herself, still unaware of Theo’s presence.
“Margo?”
She spun in her chair and said, “Theo, I need you to see something. Scrub in, quick!”
“What did you find?”
“You’re not going to believe me. I don’t even know if I believe me. Hurry so you can see for yourself,” she said and spun back to look into the microscope again.
“Okay, be right there.” He couldn’t think of anything a microscope could show her to make her sound so excited right now, but he wasn’t going to argue. Instead, he hurried to put on his blue scrubs, cap and booties. With his teeth, he ripped open a sterilizing scrub presoaped package and began vigorously cleaning his hands.
Within minutes, he was sitting in the same stool that had been occupied by Margo and peering into the same microscope. “What am I looking at, Margo?”
“Remember the blood samples I took from Creed when he offered to donate for Meg?”
“This is Creed’s blood?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. It looks like the children’s blood. I assume the increase of plasma and white blood cells is a standard meta thing.”
“Right. I believe it has to do with their rapid regeneration, clotting, healing and so on.”
“Makes sense.”
“I ran a standard workup on it and found nothing unusual, for a meta. So I went further. Paulie happens to have one of the few forensic DNA testing facilities on the island right here,” she said waiving toward a complex machine in the far corner of the room.
“You ran a DNA test on Creed’s sample? Why?”
“I really was just fishing. I thought maybe, being a more recent creation of Williams’, his DNA might hold some information I hadn’t thought of before.”
Theo looked at her incredulously.
“I know. I told you I was just grasping at straws. I really didn’t think I’d find anything of interest.”