Chapter 149 The Truth of the Antibody

Chapter 149 The Truth of the Antibody

Dominic bit down on his tactical flashlight, brow furrowed tight, and freed one hand to carefully lift the test tube out.

"Ms. Hartwell, looks like something's underneath it." He passed her the tube, his voice coming out muffled around the flashlight.

Penelope reached out and took it immediately. The moment her fingertips touched the glass, she felt how cold and hard it was.

She closed her fist around it and followed the beam of Dominic's flashlight down to the bottom layer of the black shock-absorbing foam.

Nestled there were several yellowed paper documents, their edges badly curled, like they'd been sitting there for decades.

Dominic pulled them out, gently brushed off the dust, and held them out to Penelope.

She took them and, by the harsh beam of the tactical flashlight, quickly flipped through the thin pages.

It was a detailed medical blood test report. At the top, stamped in bold, was a top-secret emblem from the Joint Security Committee.

In the field for the subject's name, Penelope's own name was written clearly. The age listed next to it made her stomach drop: six months.

Her breath caught. It felt like an invisible hand had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart until her blood nearly stopped moving.

She scanned the dense rows of medical data — records of rejection responses and cell division markers that made no sense for a normal person.

Her eyes landed on the summary on the last page. The black printed text hit her like a blade straight to the eyes.

Subject 07. Successful integration of X-3 neurotoxin. Fully matured specific antibodies confirmed.

She read the words slowly in her head, one by one. The familiar cramping in her stomach surged back up with a vengeance.

She finally understood what this report meant. This wasn't a routine medical checkup. This was a human experimentation record, as cruel as it gets.

The antibodies in her body weren't something she was born with. They were forced into existence when someone injected a lethal toxin into her as an infant.

The neurological stomach pain and intermittent spasms she'd lived with for twenty years — all of it was the lasting damage left behind by that rare poison.

Everything the old man who called himself her grandfather had said on the phone was now confirmed in the most brutal way possible. There was nothing left to argue.

Preston had moved billions of dollars and sent his best overseas mercenaries to Harborview City to come after her.

It was never about the X-series core code. That had been a cover story from the very beginning — a perfect distraction to hide what he was really after.

Tucked into the back of the report was a page summarizing the Ward family's medical history. It showed a devastating hereditary disease running through the family. Several of Preston's brothers had all died of complete multi-organ failure before the age of forty.

Penelope stared hard at the test tube in her hand, at the dark red liquid inside. A bone-deep chill settled into her eyes.

The blood in that tube had to be the original antibody sample drawn from her body all those years ago for clinical observation. Physical proof of what they had done.

What Preston wanted was her. Or more precisely, what he wanted was the blood that kept flowing through her — blood that could keep him alive.

To Preston, she wasn't a person. She was a walking blood bank he could drain whenever he needed to extend his own life.

"Sick, twisted animals." Penelope bit down hard and spat the words out. The hand holding the report was shaking badly, beyond her control.

The humiliation and disgust of being used like an object — like a container — broke straight through the hard shell she'd been holding together.

Her nails dug into her palm. Even as they broke the skin and drew blood, she felt nothing.

Dominic stood beside her, reading every word of the report. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes went completely red.

His abdominal wound was still seeping thick blood, but he didn't care. He reached out and wrapped his large hand around her trembling one.

"Ms. Hartwell. Stop reading." His voice dropped low, rough and hoarse, barely holding back something violent that was close to breaking loose.

The heat of his palm — aggressive, almost burning — traveled through her cold fingertips and made her whole body flinch.

He pried open her clenched fist firmly, stopping her from digging her nails in any further. There was no room to argue with the way he did it.

Penelope snapped her head up. Her red-rimmed eyes locked onto his, filled with the kind of wild, shattered look that only comes when someone's been pushed past their limit.

"Dom. Do you see what they turned me into? They made me a blood bag. Something they could drain whenever they felt like it."

The smile that twisted her lips was worse than crying. Her voice had a sharp, brittle edge that made something in the chest ache — like she could shatter at any second.

Dominic looked at her — cornered, barely holding on, still fighting — and felt his heart get torn apart.

He stepped forward, closing the gap between them, his tall frame forming a solid wall right in front of her.

"I'm here. No one touches you. Not unless they go through my body first."

He said it slowly, each word deliberate, with an absolute certainty that left no room for doubt.

The scent of him — blood and cedar mixed together — wrapped around her completely, carrying a weight of safety that hit her all at once.

It snapped her back. She pulled her hand away and stepped back half a pace.

"Save the bodyguard speech. My life is mine. I don't need anyone's pity."

She drew a slow breath and forced the surge of emotion back down. She folded the blood report carefully and slid it into her windbreaker pocket.

Then she closed her fist around the test tube with the original antibody sample, and her expression settled back into something cold and controlled — the look of someone used to being in charge.

This tube wasn't just the lifeline Preston had been chasing. It was the most lethal card she had to bring him down.

As long as she held it, Preston wouldn't dare make a move to kill her. She had him right where it hurt.