CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
I stared at the now-closed door, anxious about how that conversation would go.
It was hard not to compare my family to Nova’s, to notice how protective her father was.
I’d spent half my senior year crashing at Pua’s with Jaiden, and Jacinta either didn’t care or didn’t notice.
Harder still not to wonder if things would’ve been different for me if my parents had raised me together – or cared even an ounce more.
But maybe the distance from my family was for the best.
It made it easier to leave.
I tried to listen through the door, but their voices were muffled. I paced. What would Nova tell her dad? Would he look at me differently if he knew what my family had done? I pulled at my hair and groaned. There’s a freakin’ cure.
I needed a distraction before I spiraled.
Nova’s side of the room was alive with her art –walls crowded with sketches, her desk split between chemistry textbooks on one side, and pastels and pencils scattered across the other.
In the corner hung a picture of her no more than eight years old, chocolate smeared on her face as she hugged her mom’s pregnant belly, giving it a kiss.
There was so much of her in every inch of the space.
The Williamses’ family room had felt the same – lived-in, full of personality.
Full of love. It made me think of how Jacinta had designed the Fox estate as a curated image of wealth, privilege and status.
Nothing about it reflected our family, the Foxes, but then again, I didn’t know who the Foxes were any more.
Nova came back in with two plates of pancakes. ‘We are good to go.’
I thanked her as she handed me one. ‘What did you tell him?’
She met my gaze, the faintest furrow between her brows. ‘The truth. I’m tired of lying.’
I cleared my throat, looking away. She said it so easily. She had no reason to keep anything from her family. They were exactly that – a family.
I sat beside her, digging into the pancakes as she set up the projector.
I focused on my plate – anything to escape the details these files were about to reveal, but also because the pancakes were just that good.
I was grateful to have something to do with my hands and a reason not to speak.
The lies the files uncovered worsened with each page.
Dr Anand hadn’t just discovered a cure; Grandfather had tested it.
After her death, Grandfather perfected the procedure in secret.
He’d completed it nearly a year ago. He knew how to remove helical disease from its host, with no need to give the pain to anyone else.
I shuddered. This wasn’t about me; it was about so much more than my life.
But selfish thoughts still wormed their way in.
Grandfather could’ve healed me. Instead, I’d crashed during a hellflare, almost drowned during another.
His solution had been to give me the most addictive drug on the market and break his own rules so someone else could carry my pain.
Dr Anand’s research hadn’t started with a cure, and Dominion hadn’t tasked her with finding one.
It began with pain tolerance levels. She’d taken multiple reports to Grandfather showing Black and Brown people didn’t experience pain any differently from white people.
There was a memo from Dr Orion suggesting Dr Anand’s termination for her repeated ‘fabrications’.
Dr Anand’s work stood in the way of new trials for surgeries and medicines that required participants with high pain tolerance and minimal anesthesia.
Nova lurched. ‘They wanted to experiment on people,’ she whispered.
Light left her eyes. Anger surged through me.
Then Dr Anand found the cure. I stared at one of her final memoranda to Grandfather, suggesting Dominion’s collapse as his motivation for ignoring her findings.
With a cure, the company would cease to exist within a few years.
And just as I started to accept that my family’s motivations might have been greed, Nova flipped to a report stamped with the seal of the United States of the West Presidential Office.
Nova’s jaw dropped. I struggled not to choke on my last bite of pancake.
‘This goes all the way to the President?’ Nova’s eyes widened.
‘I don’t – I can’t –’ The words wouldn’t form. I couldn’t grasp what that seal could possibly mean. ‘Go to the next page.’
The report detailed projections of societal growth without helical disease.
Class divides – far wider than I’d ever realized – would shrink significantly.
The middle class would double, and while barriers to the highest echelon would remain, opportunities would grow.
I hadn’t thought about it before – the way families with wealth dominated certain industries, families of Pain Givers.
Without marginalized communities being held down by the disease, new blood could break into technology, research, entertainment, athletics.
It would shift the balance of power and political parties.
The report ended with election forecasts for the next primary cycle: the Legacy Party edging out the People’s Astrum Party, regardless of candidate.
‘This is about political control,’ I whispered. ‘It’s about controlling who rises and who stays buried.’
My heart hammered, blood roaring in my ears.
I stared at Nova, but she was still reading the last page.
Helical disease existed to keep everyone in their place.
And my family stood at the helm. Other corporations were named – many of their CEOs sat on Dominion’s board.
Heat flared under my skin, and my eyes watered.
My family did this. Grandfather spearheaded this.
He said he was never going back, but I hadn’t realized he meant keeping everyone else behind him.
This pain coursing through me was unlike anything I’d known.
I’d had things so good my entire life. I’d never wanted for anything.
But my family’s riches and privilege were built on the backs of others who never had a chance and didn’t need to suffer.
I wanted to scream, kick something, do something. My chest heaved.
‘The Secret Service is the muscle keeping anyone who speaks up quiet,’ Nova said, pointing to another section of the report.
Grandfather knows. Jacinta has to know. Gemma? She was so deeply embedded in Dominion with her new comfort program, her B12x supplement injection. She’d built her career to align with the Fox empire. Something I couldn’t bring myself to do. Something I never would.
I can’t trust my own family.
There was too much for me to ignore or make excuses for. Dominion was complicit in hurting too many people. This wasn’t the Dominion I knew, or the Grandfather I knew. He made me the way I was; he made me proud of him. All the philanthropy, all the speeches – just a mask to bury the guilt.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said hoarsely. ‘How could he do this?’
Nova softened. ‘Take a minute. You need to process. Then we can think about a plan.’