Chosen

Chapter 38

"Ha ha, very funny," I say stupidly. There's no way. She's pulling one over on me.

"It's true," she says impatiently.

"But—we're only a few months apart!" I gasp. "That's not possible!"

"It is when you have different mothers," Celia retorts.

No way. "Crane's your father, too?"

West's hands are frozen, following our exchange in pure shock. It still doesn't seem quite real to me, but I could see Crane doing this, cheating on my mother all those years ago, just because he could.

Celia's nodding, almost like she can hear my thoughts. "Audrey is my mom. She and Crane dated when they were in school. She says they were planning to pair off until he met your mother. I don't know if this part is really true or not, but she told me that Crane always loved her, but saw more value in Charlotte as a partner. She said they kept meeting in secret throughout their marriage, and for a year or two after your mom died."

I'm dumbstruck. Yet this does seem to go along with Crane's words about my mom when he was torturing me. Plus, Celia has Crane's black hair and his blue eyes, although hers don't look so cold, now that I see her more clearly.

I catch movement out of the corner of my eye; West is dropping his needle and thread back in his bag and rising up next to me to face Celia. "Are we supposed to believe that Crane had a secret affair and a secret kid this whole time? There's no way he'd be able to cover a thing like that up," he scoffs.

She fixes him with a glare. "Well, he did. I did my research. Everything adds up. Crane is my father. My mother married a man named Gregory right after she found out she was pregnant and convinced everyone the baby was his, at Crane's insistence. He died shortly before I was born, supposedly in an accident. But once my mom came clean to me, I looked into the reports surrounding Gregory's death. The autopsy said he tripped and fell down some stairs and broke his neck. I think we all know by now that's not how it happened. Plus, he had blond hair and brown eyes, and looks nothing like me." Celia clears her throat. "I only found out very recently. I could never understand why my mother was pushing me so hard with this chief thing, why Crane accepted me at all instead of just insisting you take the position. I finally confronted her. When she told me the truth..." She looks at me, coming back to the present. "Did you ever stop to think about how we're both so good at tech? We get that from Crane you know. He wanted Norman's position, actually, but Juniper didn't let him abdicate since she had no other children."

What the hell. My mind is blown. Of all the ways I could imagine to fit the pieces of my life together, I never could have come up with this. I unwittingly rub my temples to try to soothe my overworked brain, but stop and hiss through my teeth at the pain. I almost forgot my face is a pummeled mess right now.

"I don't even know what to say right now," I say, staring at her wide-eyed. Or as wide as my eyes can get with all the swelling. "I can't believe we're related. All that competing while we were growing up makes so much sense now, doesn't it? Even though it was so pointless." I pat her hand. "Crane never gave either of us a shot at a real childhood, did he?"

Celia yanks her hand away and scowls at me. I'm alarmed at the change in her demeanor. "Look, we may be related, but we're not the same. We had completely different lives leading up to now, and it's going to stay that way. Don't think that we're going to start braiding each other's hair and having sleepovers."

I look at her, my previous nemesis, the future chief, my half-sister. "Okay" I say softly. I don't want to push her. There are years of pain on both sides that won't be forgotten in one night.

"I really need to get you patched up," West says, instantly reminding me of his presence.

"You're right" I say turning back to him. "Could you hurry? We need to come up with a game plan."