Twins Read Online Free PDF Page B

…”
    Gaia’s hand latched onto the binder and slammed it closed. It was a reflex that surprised her almost as much as it seemed to surprise her uncle. “That’s enough,” she announced, backing away from the desk coldly. “This is all bull. You’ve put this whole thing together. My father wouldn’t have done this, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have lied about it.”
    Gaia wanted to believe her own words. She said them as if she believed them, as if she was sure of them. But the fact was, she didn’t trust her father any more than she did her uncle at this point.
    â€œNow, you listen to me,” Oliver said, rising out of his chair and approaching her with determination. “You wanted the truth, so I’m giving it to you. These are the facts: your fearlessness is
not
genetic. That is alie your father told you as a child. Your fearlessness is chemical, injected into you at birth before you could have any say in the matter. The truth is your father offered you up as a government guinea pig with no regard for your feelings or your safety. He stole your humanity before your life had even started. He turned his own baby daughter into an experiment.”
    Gaia was unable to talk back. Now was the time to lash out, to hurl a long list of expletives and accusations at her uncle. To defend her father’s honor and recount his twelve years of perfect parenting before everything had gone so miserably wrong. But all she could muster was some halfhearted verbal resistance.
    â€œThat could be any baby in that picture,” she said “You could have doctored that picture with my father’s face.”
    â€œI could have, but I didn’t.” He moved a step closer. “And you know I’m telling you the truth. I can see it in your eyes. You’re starting to understand what he’s done to you. All those years of training you for battle. All those years of programming your mind and your body … and then he leaves you to fend for yourself at age twelve? He’s
testing
you, Gaia. They’re still testing you, do you understand that? He’s not interested in how his daughter is doing. They just want to see how their fearless
specimen
will react to ‘adverse stimuli.’ It’s disgusting. It’s dehumanizing.”
    Gaia wanted to hide from her uncle’s diatribe and avoid his penetrating stare. She wanted to climb underthe huge mahogany desk. Her perfect childhood memories were her only remaining solace. She’d turned to those glorified memories of her mother and father time and again whenever things got unbearably dark or too existential. The distant past was really the only thing in her life that had stayed intact. And now it seemed that, too, had been slated for immediate demolition. But it all made sense. Gaia couldn’t deny that. Every word out of his mouth rang true. And here were the pictures to prove it.
    â€œYou could have had a normal life,” Oliver stated coldly. “He stole that life away from you. And that’s why I’ve brought you here….” Finally his dark expression began to ease up. The veil of menace in his eyes peeled away. “To give it back.”
    Gaia stared blankly at her uncle. She could muster nothing other than puzzlement at this point. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œI’m talking about an antidote,” he replied. Suddenly his mouth spread into a wide grin. He smiled at her like a proud father holding out the largest of all her Christmas presents. “That’s why you’re here, Gaia. That’s why I’ve been trying to steal you away from Tom all this time. I thought they’d have to administer it in Germany, but they’ve agreed to come here.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe
doctors,”
he said, trying to enlist her excitement. “I’ve had them examining the file for years, tryingto develop a compound that would