Reborn in the Enemy's Embrace

Andy seemed to pity Dexter.

But it definitely did not look like all Andy felt for Dexter was fatherly love. There were other complex emotions mixed in as well in his gaze.

Below the photo, my mother had written a note that read: "Number 0’s emotions seem more turbulent than Sophia’s. It appears as if he had a tendency toward violence and abuse, but this cannot be confirmed at the moment. Further observation is required."

My head suddenly ached horrible and I heard a voice in my head, "Sophia, you can’t have your own children."

"I’m really sorry, Sophia. But your genes and Dexter’s aren’t..."

"Sherry, what are you saying to the child?"

I could hear my mom’s guilty voice and my dad’s rebuke in my mind. Then, it was followed by the sound of things being packed into suitcases.

"Don’t affect her negatively with your emotions. Just act normal and don’t make it obvious that something is amiss. I’m going to put our things in the car first. After attending the ceremony at the orphanage today, we’ll leave Huma."

My mom sobbed and hugged me rather tightly, "Sophia, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t good enough for you."

"We don’t have much time. He has spies everywhere, we need to go as soon as we can," my dad urged.

"Have you given the police the documents and evidence you’ve compiled?" my mom asked, sounding fearful.

"It’d be too obvious if I handed those in myself. I asked Charlie to do it."

"Can we trust him?" my mom asked, sounding doubtful.

"We go a long way back, don’t we? His wife couldn’t conceive, remember? You ended up helping her with IVF. He’s grateful to us, so he’s bound to help us."

In my memory, it was clear that my dad seemed to trust this Charlie fellow.

I couldn’t remember who Charlie was.

I began tugging my hair from the headache.

I could vaguely make out a memory. On the day of the car accident, my parents had been unusually nervous. It felt as if they were planning to hide from some people and were trying to take me away.

They had entrusted some evidence and information to Charlie to give to the police.

But judging from the current situation I was in, it was obvious that Charlie had betrayed my dad’s trust. Not only did he not give the information he was supposed to to the police, but he might have even exposed my dad to the very person my dad was running from.

As such, my parents, along with Andy, ended up getting involved in that fatal and premeditated car accident on Hymn Bridge.

"Wifey..." Dexter’s whining snapped me back to reality. I instinctively switched my phone off and was immediately enveloped in Dexter’s embrace when I turned around.

My breathing started to become shallow.

I started to wonder if what Damien had told me was true. Perhaps Dexter had really imprisoned and abused me.

That was what my mother’s logs seemed to indicate, after all.

But until my memory got fully restored, I couldn’t speculate on everything just by relying on the information in the logs.

Because at this moment, I didn’t even trust my own parents.

Before the truth came out, I couldn’t even trust myself.

"Wifey, I feel dizzy." Dexter rolled onto the bed with me in his arms. Then, he started going into seduction mode.

He wrapped his long and muscular legs around me, preventing me from escaping.

"Sophia..." he said. He held me from behind and slowly tightened his grip on me.

My ears burned. There was something hot pressing against my waist from behind. Dexter was such a bastard.

"Sophia, I’ll just rub against you. I won’t do more than that, okay?"

"Fuck off."

"I’ll only touch you a little bit. I won’t put it inside..."

I really wanted to neuter him at this moment.

Fortunately, he still had some sense left in him. He knew that my body couldn’t handle his passion, so all he did was touch me a little without doing anything more.

But just his touch was too much for me to handle. His hands went everywhere.

"Dexter Black!"

Just when Dexter was at his peak, his phone rang.

His gaze turned icy. It looked as if he wanted to kill someone.

I smirked at him and said, "Answer the phone."

He didn’t.

I reached for his phone, but he tried to stop me.

"What if it’s something urgent?" I asked.

Dexter gritted his teeth and glanced at the screen. When he saw it was a call from Eason, he muttered, "it better be an emergency."

"Dexter Black! I got a hold of Sophia’s autopsy report and the genetic testing report done on the fetus in her womb. There’s a huge problem. Come to the forensic lab right now!"

When Dexter and I arrived at the forensic lab, Eason was sitting on the couch in the lounge. He had a grave expression on his face.

Eason wasn’t the only one there. There were several people wearing white lab coats around him with solemn expressions on their faces as well. They appeared to be researchers.

"Take a look for yourself," Eason said, placing the text report on the table.

Dexter picked it up and glanced at the report. He did not seem very surprised.

I looked at Dexter for a moment, then reached out to grab the report from him to take a look at it myself.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a thing.

Seeing that I looked clueless, Eason rubbed his forehead and started to explain, "This is a huge problem. It appears that Sophia had genetically modified the fetus in her womb during its embryonic stage. Then, the embryo was implanted into the host for gestation after that."

The other researchers looked equally somber.

Eason continued, "Furthermore, Sophia herself had undergone the most advanced genome editing possible."

"She should have been born with great intelligence, a superior physique, and great strength that made her stronger than any other human being. This means that she was essentially made to become... a superhuman."

This was a terrifying discovery. This meant that humans have somehow created a deity amongst men that was somehow also human.

"Genome editing?" I asked, looking at the researchers in astonishment. "Is this technology widespread?"

"It’s strictly prohibited, actually." Eason frowned and continued, "You probably don’t understand what genome editing will do to our society. Once it..."

Eason trailed off and didn’t continue. He knew that even if he did, I wouldn’t be able to understand him.

Dexter remained silent. He said nothing.

"Is it possible that some wealthy people have already started doing this? It sounds harmless enough to me. It’s just so that they can make their children more outstanding, right?" I asked tentatively.

Eason replied, "Research on genome editing is strictly prohibited. Experimenting it on humans is forbidden because there are too many uncontrollable factors to account for."

"For instance, if we cut off a segment of your genetic chain to make you naturally immune to a certain disease, it is highly likely that this splice will open up another door to another disease. The consequences of human genome editing are too uncontrollable and unpredictable."

The rich weren’t fools, after all. They wouldn’t dare to attempt such under-researched experiments on themselves lightly.

As such, in order to make sure the experiment would be successful, countless test subjects would need to be sacrificed until the best results were obtained.

Once genome editing was legalized, human society would be in total chaos. The wealthy would ensure their children were outstanding in all aspects from birth, while the poor got oppressed their entire lives.

I stared at the genetic test results and remained silent for a long while.

"So you’re saying that Sophia wasn’t the product of her parent’s love, but an experimental subject?"

"That’s highly likely," one of the researchers said with a nod.

Eason looked at Dexter and said, "You know why I called you here, don’t you? News of this cannot be leaked, or it will cause mass panic. We need to investigate this further. I suspect Sophia might not be an isolated case."

Sophia’s parents had logs that resembled experimental data, after all. As such, Eason suspected that Sophia was actually an experimental subject.

"And her death was most likely planned ahead by the ones behind this scheme. They wanted to destroy any living evidence of the experiment."

Moreover, it was very likely that the ones behind it considered Sophia a failed experimental subject. As such, they decided to abandon her by killing her.

"If their intention was to destroy the evidence, the person who killed me- I mean Sophia- wouldn’t have a reason to trap her body in a glass display case, right? Her body should have been obliterated," I argued.

I continued in a whisper, "Placing her body in a glass display case seems more intentional. Perhaps it’s so that she could be shown to the public. Maybe the person behind her death wanted to display her as a commodity and wanted to expose the conspiracy behind her existence to the public."

Maybe the murderer was against genome editing.

Furthermore, it was clear that the murderer was privy to a lot of secret information about the genome editing experiments.

"The most terrifying part of all of this hasn’t even been presented yet," Eason said, then took out another genetic testing report.

"This is the report done on the fetus in Sophia’s womb. It was shaped abnormally, had congenital malformations, severe genetic defects and chromosomal abnormalities..."

To put that in plain terms, the fetus was essentially a real-life monstrosity.

It was a malformed child that could not have been born.

"But why?" I asked in shock. I covered my mouth with a hand and trembled all over.