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The medics both swore under their breath. I glanced down at my father to see an angry rash spreading all over his chest.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“Looks like an incompatibility reaction,” Dr. Paulson muttered. “He isn’t a B or AB type, Elias. He must be an O-type.”
“What?” I shook my head vehemently. “No, that’s impossible. I told you, I know my mother’s blood type and I know my own as well, so—”
He held up a hand and cut me off. “You must’ve remembered wrong. Now please be quiet and let me try to fix this before any more damage is done!” He turned his attention back to the paramedics. “He needs oxygen, more fluids, and a diuretic,” he snapped. “Let’s just hope his kidneys don’t fail before we get there.”
I sat back and watched them work, completely stupefied. How the hell was this possible? I didn’t misremember. My father’s blood couldn’t be an O-type.
I knew my own type from when we had to participate in some sort of blood drive back in high school, and all my mother’s old paperwork was burned into my mind like a brand. So I wasn’t fucking wrong. She was an A-negative and I was a B-positive. That made my father either a B-positive like me or an AB-positive like Dr. Paulson said earlier. Both of which should be compatible with me.
Unless I’d been lied to my entire life.
I went rigid as the possibilities swirled before me. My eyes narrowed as I stared over at my dad’s pale face. I could think of three things that might explain this, none of which were good.
Firstly, I could be adopted, and no one ever thought to fucking tell me. That would explain why my mother and father both had different blood types to me. It would also throw up a lot of questions about my mother’s death, seeing as she couldn’t have died giving birth to me if I wasn’t even biologically hers.
The second possibility was that my mother had cheated on my father and given birth to another man’s son. That threw up a lot of questions too, if it was accurate. Did my father know I wasn’t really his? And who was my biological father?
The third possibility was that Tobias King was my father, but Sylvie King wasn’t my biological mother. Even more questions were attached to that. Who was my real mother? Did she really die giving birth to me? Why did my father lie about my true parentage?
I sat back, breathing deeply as I mulled over the ideas, trying to make sense of what I’d just discovered. Whatever the case was, it all came down to one thing. Somewhere along the line, my father had lied to me about something pretty fucking major.
So what the fuck else had he lied to me about?
Could he have lied about Tatum?
We landed at the nearest hospital’s helipad fifteen minutes later, and I strode after the doctor and paramedics in stony silence. I sat in the waiting room with bated breath, refusing to eat or sleep, even when a nurse came to tell me it could be over ten hours until my father was awake or stable enough to see me.
I was more than happy to wait. There were enough questions swimming around my brain to keep me entertained for several days.
Finally, somewhere around three in the morning, a doctor came to get me. “He’s awake and wants to see you,” she said, one hand beckoning me to follow her.
I trudged behind her, heading down a long corridor with pale blue walls. When we reached my father’s room, he was sitting up, and despite all the tubes in him, he looked a lot better than before.
“Elias,” he said, his voice slightly croaky. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I stepped closer to him. “Me too. I’m glad you pulled through,” I said with a tight smile. “Because we need to have a fucking conversation….”