Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
As expected, there was nothing on the maternal side of the tree, but just beneath her generic pink profile image was a cartoon of a man’s profile in blue and the words 99.9999% paternal match.
Her mouse hovered over the link, and a balloon popped up.
You are approved to view this profile.
Sick with anticipation, Ren clicked, and it felt like the floor opened up beneath her as she began to read.
Name: Christopher Koning
Known relatives: 100133654 (spouse); 100133655 (daughter); 100136482 (brother); 100136485 (sister-in-law); 100137298 (aunt); 100137291 (cousin)
Allergies: Tree nuts, dust mites
Ancestry report: 99.9% Northwestern European (53.6% Scandinavian, 30.3% French & German, 16.1% Broadly Northwestern European)
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Green
Profession: Chemical Engineer
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
At the bottom was a hyperlink reading, simply, Christopher Koning. With her fingers trembling on the computer mouse, Ren clicked the link, and a new window opened, filling the screen with a full-color photo.
Ren didn’t realize she had her hand pressed to her mouth until a sob broke free.
Staring back at her was a face that was so familiar it felt almost like a photo filter comically turning her into an older, male version of herself.
Ren pushed away from the chair, taking a few stumbling steps back from the computer.
Her eyes, her chin, the color of her hair—everything was the same.
Maybe he was an uncle. A cousin. Something. It didn’t mean he was her father. Her brain scratched around wildly for understanding. There had to be an explanation.
But no matter what it might be, her detective work tonight confirmed one thing: She had more family out there. She had people she belonged to who she’d never known existed. Who might not even know she existed.
Her heart twisted painfully, and she stepped closer again, staring at the face of the man on the screen. She wanted to memorize him, to see him in motion, longed to tunnel down into the part of her most primitive self that whispered, I know you. When Ren closed her eyes, breathing deeply and working to steady her rocketing pulse, sparklers popped behind her eyelids, and she felt a pull, a desperate ache in her chest. She wanted to see him.
No…she needed to see him, to understand who he was to her. But Georgia was so far away. Ren couldn’t think of a single scenario that would put her in Atlanta.
A tiny creak in the building startled her back to herself, and Ren jerked to attention, trying to pull it together. She quickly wiped her eyes, sucked in a jagged breath. She could freak out back in the dorm, under the covers. Not here.
Still stunned, Ren carefully returned the assay sheet to the folder and shut down the computer. But when she moved across the room to put her file away, a light from under the connecting door to Dr. Audran’s office caught her attention. Her heart launched into her throat; a million horrifying scenarios raced through her thoughts—where security caught her in the lab after-hours, where she was disciplined, where she lost her scholarship and was sent home for good.
In a panic she turned to quickly leave…but then stopped. This didn’t look like the sweeping cone of a security flashlight. It was dimmer, like the concentrated glow of Miriam’s phone from beneath the covers.
Ren had been told time and time again that she was too curious for her own good. She’d been kicked in the gut when she got a little too close to Callie during calving season. She’d tried to fix a tractor tire with gasoline and a lighter like she’d read in an ancient copy of Popular Mechanics and nearly gotten her head blown off when a fireball erupted in front of her. It took six months for her eyebrows to look normal again.
She knew she should slip out and get back to her room, but something itched in her thoughts, some sense of Not Right. And there was relief in this distraction, in this delay of thinking about that other, enormous thing.
Moonlight cut through the blinds in stabs of light across the floor as she crept closer and peered through the small rectangular window cut into the door. She immediately recognized the slope of those shoulders, knew the strength in that back and the imposing presence that made goose bumps erupt along her skin.
He turned his face into the light of the computer monitor, and Ren knew that she was right; Fitz was on the other side of the door, hunched over in the dark as he furtively typed something into Dr. Audran’s computer.
CHAPTER NINE
FITZ
Fitz had done a lot of questionable things for an A grade.
He’d worn a tour T-shirt of a professor’s favorite band to class, pretending to also be a huge fan. He’d organized fundraisers, joined jog-a-thons, picketed, and canvassed for signatures to benefit their favorite causes. He’d rounded up groups of students to fill the auditorium for guest speakers and helped students who were struggling with the material. He’d flirted with professors—he’d done far more than flirt with their TAs. He’d made sure the dean loved him, leveraged his father’s reputation at every possible opportunity, and never regretted it, not once, because he was so close to the finish line he could taste it.