A Cold Legacy (The Madman's Daughter 3)

But my father wasn’t in my blood. He wasn’t even my father. He was just a stranger’s skeleton on a faraway island. Which left me alone with the body of my best friend and a thousand unanswered questions, but only one mattered:

What should I do?

I glanced again at the scalpel on the floor. A wild idea entered my head. There was one way to spare me this terrible decision. I could take the scalpel, make two quick slits, and let my blood pool on the floor with Lucy’s. I could join her in whatever dark place of peace she was in now.

I crawled toward the scalpel slowly, picked it up, and pressed it lightly against my wrist, just to test the feel of it. A person would bleed out in ten minutes, but lose consciousness in two. Two minutes and it could all be over. Radcliffe wouldn’t find the Origin Journals in Elizabeth’s secret hiding place. Frankenstein’s science would end. Lucy would still be dead, but I’d be with her, at least.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, tart and salty.

Was I ready to die?

With an anguished cry, I threw the scalpel across the room. I pushed to my feet and paced to the window, throwing it open and breathing in fresh air mixed with rain. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

Below, in the fading light of the house, I could just make out the barn. A lumbering figure moved slowly along the exterior wall of the courtyard. It was Balthazar, who must have snuck away from Radcliffe’s men and was now headed to the barn to take over Lucy’s role sheltering the little children.

Balthazar hadn’t been made with a purpose, but he had found one.

If he could, then I maybe I could, too.

I wasn’t a madman’s daughter. I wasn’t a Moreau. I wasn’t a Ballentyne either, not in my heart. Before, I had feared I’d be left with nothing and no identity, but now I realized it left me stripped free of shackles. For the first time in my life, I could make my own decisions, unbound by the shadow of my father. From now on, every thought, every word, and every decision was my own to make.

Starting now.

I turned to the table. Father wouldn’t have hesitated to bring Lucy back, but I wasn’t my father, and it was time I started making my own decisions.

IN DEATH, LUCY LOOKED older than seventeen. There was a darkness around her eyes that made me imagine what she’d look like at twenty, thirty, forty. She would have been a good wife and a good mother. Maybe in a different life she’d have married Edward and had children of her own playing Catch the Huntsman in the hedge maze behind her house.

I brushed a strand of dark hair from her face, smoothing the wrinkles from her eyes. Her body still held the lingering warmth of life.

I could give you back that life, I thought. I have the power.

It wasn’t long ago that Edward had been strapped down to this same table. I’d been so convinced at the time that bringing him back was right. It had been my father’s ghost urging me on. Now, no voices whispered in my ear, no urges compelled my hands to act. I took a damp cloth and dabbed away the spots of blood on her face and chest.

“I could give you back your life,” I whispered as my voice broke. The cloth shook in my hand as a rise of emotion swelled.

It was time to make the first decision of my life that was truly mine and not influenced by my father. I had the power to cure death, but what had new life brought to Hensley, or Frankenstein’s monster, or Edward? Only more pain.

I couldn’t shake Montgomery’s words that there was only one life, and we must live it well. When you can never die, he had said, do you ever really live? Lucy’s life had been short, but she’d lived it well. She had chosen her own fate, bleak though it was.

I closed my eyes and listened one final time for voices. For my father’s, for my mother’s, for Elizabeth’s. There was only silence, and in that silence, I let my own voice speak.

The whisper was quiet, but it was there.

A tear rolled down the side of my face.

“I could bring you back,” I whispered again. “But I won’t.”

A sob hung in my throat. I leaned over her body on the table, crying against her bloody dress. All these tools and books had held such meaning for me once, when I had yearned for Father’s approval. Now I understood that such science never came without a steep cost. Pain. Suffering. Loss.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. I can’t do it. No more experimentation. No more ends justifying the means. No more screams in the night. I’m not like my father.”

With a deep breath, I wrapped the coat tightly around Lucy’s body, hiding the wounds the best I could, and carefully dragged her body off the table. I set her on the floor, sitting upright with head slumped as though she’d fallen asleep. There was a hard object in her pocket; I took it out.

A box of matches, empty now. She must have taken it to light a small fire in the barn to keep the girls warm overnight.

An idea worked its way into my head. I couldn’t get to the Origin Journals, but I could make sure Elizabeth’s personal notes and experiments never fell into Radcliffe’s hands. I began to open the books with a wild madness. I tore out the pages, crumpling them, stacking volumes. Outside, thunder cracked closer. I studied the coming storm with a grim determination. Lightning could bring a body back, yes—but it could also destroy.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” I whispered. “I have to break my promise.”

A creak from the eastern wall caught my attention. It came from the drainage grate that drew Lucy’s blood from the room. It must be some of Hensley’s rats crawling in the walls. They would burn if they didn’t get out in time. My heart pounded, but there was nothing I could do. Their fate was their own, just as for the rest of us.

I poured Elizabeth’s vat of sterile alcohol over the books and papers. Four generations of women protecting this knowledge, passing it down, and it would all end tonight. As much as I admired what the von Stein women were trying to do, I no longer agreed with them.

In my careless hurry, alcohol splashed on my dress.

“Blast.” A a crack of lightning lit up the sky. Any moment lightning would strike the rod and all this would go up in flames—and my soaked dress with it unless I found a way to escape.

I peered out the window, but the four-story fall was too dangerous. That only left the door, which was locked and guarded by one of Radcliffe’s armed officers. More scurrying came from the grate, and I thought of those poor rats trapped in the walls. I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save Lucy.

I couldn’t even save myself.