Chapter 7 - What My Mother Put in My Eyes
Running blind is mostly an agreement with pain.
You know there will be walls.
You just decide the person screaming matters more.
I dropped my cane and followed my mother’s voice.
Gideon shouted behind me.
“Evelyn!”
A doorframe struck my shoulder. I rebounded, found the wall, and kept moving.
Another scream.
Closer.
“Mom!”
“Here!”
I hit a metal door. My hands found a push bar.
Locked.
“Move back!” Gideon yelled.
I stumbled aside.
A shotgun blast tore the latch apart.
The door opened into a treatment room that smelled like blood and antiseptic.
My mother was sobbing.
Noah groaned from the floor.
I dropped to my knees.
“Dad?”
“Alive.”
I found his face. Swelling along the cheek. Wet blood near his temple.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
I touched her hand.
She gripped me hard.
“I’m sorry.”
The words landed like stones.
“For what?”
She could not answer.
Behind us, two men argued—my Adrian and the stranger who claimed the name.
Gideon said, “Everyone shut up.”
A new voice came from a speaker overhead.
Deep.
Old.
Amused.
“Still giving orders, Gideon?”
Gideon froze.
I knew the voice.
Solomon Reed.
Live.
“Where are you?” I called.
“Close.”
“You said my mother blinded me.”
Lillian made a broken sound.
Solomon said, “Ask her.”
I turned toward her.
“Mom.”
She cried silently for several seconds.
Then said, “I gave you the injections.”
My hand slipped from hers.
“You told me they were experimental treatment.”
“They were.”
“For what?”
“To stop something worse.”
“What could be worse than blindness?”
“Death.”
The room went still.
My mother took both my hands.
“When you were eighteen, Solomon’s company was testing an ocular delivery system for a neural tracking compound. It was supposed to let a camera identify a person through microscopic retinal markers.”
Gideon swore.
“Project Lantern.”
“You knew?” I snapped.
“Rumors.”
Lillian continued.
“Solomon wanted human trials. He had investors, military buyers, intelligence contacts. But the compound caused seizures in animals.”
“And you worked for him?”
“No. I worked with a public health investigator.”
“Then why inject me?”
Her fingers trembled.
“Because someone already had.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
“You came home from college complaining that lights looked smeared. We thought it was stress. Then your bloodwork showed traces of the Lantern carrier.”
Solomon’s voice floated from the speaker.
“She always was good at half-truths.”
“Shut up!” Lillian screamed.
I had never heard my mother scream like that.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
She inhaled shakily.
“We learned the marker compound had been put in your eyes without consent. Solomon wanted to track you because he feared someone would discover you were his daughter.”
“Why would tracking me protect him?”
“It didn’t protect him. It protected his bloodline.”
I almost laughed.
“My bloodline?”
“Solomon believed his enemies would use you against him.”
“And your injections?”
“A counteragent. It was supposed to destroy the marker.”
“It destroyed my retinas.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
My mouth went dry.
“You knew that could happen?”
“No.”
“Did you know it might?”
She cried harder.
“There was no time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Evelyn—”
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
My hand pulled away from hers as if burned.
For seventeen years, blindness had been a fact of my body.
A disease.
Bad luck.
Now it had become a decision someone made for me.
My mother.
The woman who taught me Braille.
The woman who sat beside me through orientation training.
The woman who told me I was still whole when I screamed that I was not.
“You chose for me.”
“I chose to keep you alive.”
“You chose blindness.”
“I chose you.”
“No. You chose the version of me you could keep.”
She broke.
I stood, shaking.
Noah said, “Evelyn, she saved you.”
“Did you know?”
Silence.
“Dad?”
“I learned afterward.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after the final injection.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“And you both kept it from me.”
“We thought the truth would destroy you.”
“So you lied for seventeen years?”
“We were afraid Solomon would find you again.”
“Apparently he never left.”
Solomon’s voice answered.
“I never did.”
I turned toward the speaker.
“Come out.”
“Not yet.”
“Coward.”
A pause.
Then a chuckle.
“You sound like me.”
“I would rather sound like a dog barking.”
“Careful. You may owe me your life.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me an empire.”
“No. I built that.”
“On my foundation.”
“I bought a dying freight company and rebuilt it.”
“I gave it to you.”
“You sold it to me for a dollar because nobody else wanted the debt.”
“Exactly.”
The speaker clicked.
A panel moved somewhere in the room.
Footsteps emerged.
One cane.
One slow left-leg drag.
And the faint hiss of portable oxygen.
Solomon Reed had used oxygen during the final month of his supposed illness.
The footsteps stopped in front of me.
“Hello, daughter.”
I did not move.
He smelled older than I remembered.
Cedar soap.
Medication.
Coffee.
My hands curled into fists.
“You died.”
“So the world believed.”
“I held your hand.”
“You held a hand.”
I felt cold.
“What does that mean?”
“Body double.”
Gideon said, “That’s impossible.”
Solomon sighed.
“You of all people should know better.”
The two Adrians remained silent.
Solomon continued.
“I created my death because someone inside Meridian tried to kill me.”
“Who?”
“Lillian believes it was me who harmed you. Lillian believes many things.”
My mother spat, “I saw the trial orders.”
“You saw forged orders.”
“You signed them.”
“My signature was cloned.”
The same trick used tonight.
I felt the shape of the trap.
Everybody had evidence.
Everybody had a lie.
“Who ordered Lantern used on me?” I asked.
Solomon answered quietly.
“That is why I brought you here.”
“You brought us?”
“Yes.”
“The hostage threat?”
“Not mine.”
“The gas?”
“Not mine.”
“The Blackglass transfer?”
“Mine.”
Adrian beside me said, “Why name me successor?”
Solomon laughed.
“I did not.”
“Then who did?”
Solomon turned.
His oxygen hissed.
“The person who has been inside Blackglass longer than Evelyn has.”
I heard Noah shift.
My father said, “Don’t.”
Solomon’s voice sharpened.
“Tell her, Noah.”
“Stop.”
“Tell your daughter what you did for a living before you became a quiet suburban accountant.”
I turned toward the man who had raised me.
“Dad?”
May you like
Noah exhaled.
“I designed Blackglass.”
