If you ever touch my wife again, I will make sure you vanish from every medical registry in North America before sunrise.
Arthur left for a demanding five-hour transplant operation that afternoon, an absence that felt like a brief reprieve from the suffocating pressure of his gaze. As soon as his car was out of sight, I moved. The fake police file still burned in my mind, a chilling counterpoint to Evelyn Pryce’s medical dossier.
My fingers flew across the keyboard. My old remote hospital archive login still worked, a relic from my days as a quiet records clerk before Arthur’s world consumed me. I bypassed the usual search filters, delving into St. Jude’s master legal database.
Arthur had mentioned “groundbreaking research” on genetic therapies years ago. I searched for his name, combined with “gene vector” and “clinical trial authorization.” The system whirred, spitting out dozens of results. Most were academic papers, research grants.
Then, a forgotten contract. An “Institutional Research Oversight Agreement,” dated five years ago. It detailed the initial authorization for Arthur’s gene therapy vector – the same one killing Evelyn Pryce, the same one I was now receiving.
My eyes scanned the dense legal text, my heart pounding with each line. Buried deep within the boilerplate, under a section marked “Compliance and Renewals,” was Clause 14-B.
It stated, unequivocally, that all institutional authorization and patent rights for Arthur’s gene vector were contingent upon a mandatory, annual review by the ethics board. Failure to renew meant immediate revocation.
And then, the critical line: “Last renewal date: 3 years, 6 months ago. Status: Expired.”
My breath caught. Expired. Arthur’s legal authority to use that specific gene vector had expired exactly six months ago. The same timeframe I had been pregnant. The same timeframe he had started administering those daily yellow capsules.
Every single dose he had administered to me since my pregnancy began, every single injection disguised as a prenatal vitamin, was entirely illegal. Unauthorized. Unmonitored by any medical board.
I slumped back in the chair, a cold dread seeping into my bones. He wasn’t just gaslighting me. He wasn’t just experimenting. He was a criminal, and I was his unwitting accomplice, my unborn child his next test subject. The illusion of safety shattered completely.
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