Page 17 of Brax (Voodoo Guardians #36)

“Dear God,” muttered Gabi, looking over Suzette and Riley’s shoulders. The entire medical staff was in the conference room of the clinic reviewing the data. Kennedy, Cruz, Doc, Wilson, Lena, Ajei, Kelsey, Lucinda, and even the medical techs.

“Look at that poor woman,” whispered Ajei. “I don’t know how she’s moving her body is twisted so unnaturally.”

“Can you imagine the scrutiny she receives when out in public?” asked Kelsey. “Just the people walking by her every day either sneering at her, avoiding her, or laughing at her. I’m not condoning what she did, but if she has calcifications on the brain, she’s probably not thinking clearly.”

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” frowned Doc. “It looks like a cross between Proteus syndrome and neurofibromatosis.”

“Isn’t Proteus what Joseph Merrick, the elephant man, had?” asked Kennedy.

“It is. Poor man lived an awful life,” said Gabi. “But they checked for all of these things and didn’t see those markers. This is something else.”

“When we tested all of the geniuses, including Stephanie, we saw increased levels of certain proteins and enzymes. Their DNA was in unusual strands but relatively normal. Stephanie’s was the only one evident to be a clone,” said Suzette.

“What are you thinking?” asked Riley.

“What if this poor woman was the DNA donor for all the clones? What if, in order for him to get just the right mix of DNA, tissue samples, all of it, he was using this one person and, in the process, robbed her of her own body?”

“Jesus, you could be right,” whispered Gabi. “If she has a defect that doesn’t allow for the reproduction of those things, the recovery, this might be the end result.”

“We could help her,” said Cruz.

“Honey, we might be able to, but if she’s the person who’s been trying to get to Stephanie, that’s not something the team is going to like,” said Riley.

“But maybe she wasn’t trying to kill her. Maybe she just wanted to replenish her own body,” he said compassionately.

“I love where you’re going with this,” said Gabi, “but we have to be damn sure we know what we’re doing. I need anyone and everyone who can read these files and understand them to focus on this. Stephanie is not out of the woods yet as long as this woman is out there trying to get to her.”

They heard a shuffling behind them and turned to see Brax and Stephanie standing in the doorway.

“She wanted to know what was going on,” he said, shrugging.

“I could help her,” whispered Stephanie. “I mean, if what you say is true, if it’s correct, my body could help hers.”

“Maybe,” nodded Wilson, “but it also might damage your own. We won’t know any of that until we figure out what he did to her to get the clones.”

“Plural? There’s more than me?” she asked.

“We kind of always knew that, but yes, there appears to have been more than just you,” said Gabi. “But it doesn’t appear that they are alive. They’ve searched for them and never found them.”

“Then I’m her only hope,” said Stephanie quietly.

“Honey,” started Riley, shaking her head.

“I know what you’re going to say. It’s a risk. She’s dangerous. I could hurt myself. I get it. But that poor woman has suffered immeasurably because of that madman. I will never again complain about this body I was gifted. I want to help her.”

“Well, we have to find her first,” said Wilson. “She destroyed that complex in Houston and disappeared, which is quite a feat considering how she looks.”

“You forget that she’s also a genius,” said Brax. “She thinks like all of our geniuses do. We need for them to help us figure out where she would go.”

“Well, it’s obvious that she has some idea of where Stephanie is located, which means she may come back to this area,” said Doc. “We could put an ad for a scientist to do genetic research.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Suzette. “It would have to be very specific, and we’d need to have a facility away from the property. That will take us some time.”

“I’ll talk to Cam and Luke and see if we can get this moving,” said Doc, moving toward the door. “If we can use an empty warehouse, we have enough manpower to get the equipment in and set up for her to see if we can draw her in for an interview.”

“Man,” said Cruz, shaking his head, “it makes me wonder how that poor woman has done interviews in the past or anything that required face-to-face meetings.”

“That’s my point,” said Stephanie. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was an unwilling participant just like the rest of us.”

“Honey, we get it,” said Wilson, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going to risk your life for her. We will try to help her, though, if we can.”

“That’s all I can ask,” said Stephanie. “She’s suffered enough. How old is she?”

“Umm,” said Suzette, searching the file. “It looks like she’s fifty-four, almost fifty-five.”

“So, she’s more than twenty-five years older than I am. That means that they may have extracted everything from her and released her from the school.”

“Or the Depot,” said Brax. “We need to see if we can show her photo to the others. Is there a way to alter the photo to what she may have looked like as a young girl?”

“Sure. We can do that,” nodded AJ. “It’s a best guess, but it might be close enough if I can find all of her original statistics like height, weight, eye color, that sort of thing.”

“Eye color? Why would that change?” asked Brax.

“We’re not sure, but she has two different color eyes. That could be how she was born or could be an effect of what they did to her,” said Riley. AJ nodded at the others in the room, and Stephanie smiled at him, giving a soft nod.

“Let’s find out.”