Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,93

fell into the hell into which she’d been born.

He read for hours, and when he finally glanced up and saw the time, he realized she must be starving. He set the laptop aside to go check on her and found her back in bed—this time, sound asleep.

He stood there a moment, looking at the healing cut on her head and the bruising all over her face and neck, and then walked out before she woke up and caught him staring.

He didn’t have words for what he was feeling, but it wasn’t pity. She’d become an integral part of his business life, but seeing her like this, and knowing what she had endured in her short life, hurt his heart in a different way.

* * *

The media outlets were the first to react to what she’d sent. They’d just had the story of the century handed to them. Journalists and editors went ballistic, thinking they had been the sole recipients, and started scrambling to verify it.

But then the first story broke in an online paper only a day later, and then another one from another news outlet, and then another from a different paper in a different part of the country. At that point, it became apparent that everyone had been given the same information and, in the current mode of the day, were running with what they’d been given without verifying anything or anyone. In the long run, it wasn’t going to matter, because the God’s truth of Universal Theorem—and Jade Wyrick’s life—was in every file.

Ironically, the first story the media broke was the one about her. The media dubbed her the Genesis child—the only one of her kind, created by an updated version of mad scientists, in a place called Universal Theorem, headed by a man named Cyrus Parks.

And then someone in the media made the connection between Cyrus Parks the mad scientist and the Cyrus Parks who’d recently donated forty million dollars to hurricane-ravaged islands, and the hunt was on as to which interview they’d score first—the one with the mad scientist or the Genesis child he’d created, but as it turned out, the Feds got to Parks first.

* * *

It was snowing in Virginia. The flakes were the kind Cyrus’s mother had called “duck feathers.” So big and so soft that they floated, landing with wet splats on windshields, melting upon impact.

He was in the company limo and on his way home from work when he got a call. He recognized the number—an informant he had within the justice system—and answered quickly.

“Hello.”

“Your target went down, but she didn’t die and she’s back in Dallas.”

For a few moments, Cyrus felt faint. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“And you know this, how?” he asked.

“I know because she just unloaded proof of everything you and your people are about upon the world. File upon file of data, readouts of testing, names, places, even videos of experiments. And then she gave herself up as proof. I got word that it went nationwide in the media, as well. You can’t bury this. It’s never going to go away. I can’t protect you anymore.”

Cyrus still had the phone to his ear when the call went dead.

She was shot and crashed and she’s still alive? What the fuck? Is she turning into some comic-book immortal?

As for leaking the stories, it was his worst fear coming true. He’d pushed too hard, and then failed twice in taking her down. She was giving herself up to destroy him. He’d gambled and lost, and he knew it. His days as a free man were numbered.

He’d thought about running, but there was no way he’d get out of the country, and he wasn’t sure if there was a safe place for him to be. Jade hadn’t just set the hounds on him and UT. The collateral damage from this was going to be massive, and there were a lot of powerful people who were going to be caught up in the sweep. The evidence was so complete and so damning, there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

Even if he had his people scrub every computer on the premises at UT, he knew there were people skilled enough to retrieve it. But from what he’d just been told, the files she’d turned over were so massive and so detailed that copping a plea was never going to be an option. He thought of putting a gun to his head and then shelved it. He was too