[5 Weeks, 5 Days Coma]
The morning air was biting as Ethan pulled into the gravel lot of O'Malley's Corner Mart. The sky was a bruised, heavy grey, reflecting the storm brewing inside his own chest. He felt the weight of the moment pressing into his ribs, a physical pressure that made every breath feel earned. He didn't just need a story anymore- he didn't just need the pieces of the puzzle. He needed a verdict.
Margaret was a master of the narrative- a queen of manipulation who could weave a web of lies so intricate that Dylan, a man of science and logic, had been blinded for a decade.
Margaret could explain away a late night- she could explain away a missing sum of money; she could even explain away the girls' presence in the hospital. But she couldn't explain away biology. DNA was a cold, hard fact, a mathematical certainty that no amount of red-headed charm or crocodile tears could erase.
When he stepped inside the store, the chime of the bell felt like the starting pistol of a race Ethan had been running for four years. The shop was dim, smelling of stale coffee and industrial floor cleaner.
Brandon was behind the counter, looking worse than the store itself. The man was a physical wreck. His eyes were bloodshot and watery, his skin a sallow, sickly grey that made the resemblance to Kyson even more jarring- it was like looking at a "Before and After" poster for a life lived in the gutter.
A box of cheap, generic tissues sat open next to the register, and Brandon was leaning heavily on the counter as if his bones had turned to lead.
"Back again, Ethan?" Brandon rasped. The words were immediately swallowed by a wet, hacking cough that shook his entire frame. He grabbed a tissue, blew his nose with a loud, congested sound that echoed in the small shop, and tossed the crumpled, damp paper into the small, overflowing plastic bin tucked beneath the counter.
"You're persistent, I'll give you that. Most kids your age are out chasing girls or throwing balls, not hanging around a dusty corner store."
Ethan leaned against the counter, sliding a pack of cinnamon gum toward the register. He forced his features into that soft, suggestive mask- the one that made his skin crawl with a deep, internal revulsion, but he knew it was the only way to keep Brandon's guard down. Brandon was a man who lived on the ego he'd salvaged from his high school glory days, he wanted to be noticed.
"I told you, I like to know what I'm up against," Ethan said, his voice dropping into that low, flirty register he'd used before. He let his gaze wander to the front door, then back to Brandon's tired, sickly face. "Since you're so 'heavily spoken for,' I figured I should at least know the name of the woman lucky enough to keep you in this state. What is she? A 'Sarah'? A 'Michelle'? I'm starting to think you're making her up to keep me at arm's length."
Brandon chuckled, a dry, rattling sound that turned into another cough. He was clearly amused, his vanity stoked by the "interest" of a younger, fit guy like Ethan. He leaned in, a conspiratorial glint in his watery eyes. "Try 'Margaret.' And believe me, kid, she's more woman than you could handle in three lifetimes. High maintenance, high temper, but worth every damn second."
Margaret. Hearing him say it out loud- hearing the casual, disgusting possessiveness in his voice, made the blood roar in Ethan's ears. It was a confirmation that felt like a slap. But he just smiled, a sharp, dangerous glint in his green eyes that Brandon mistook for a playful challenge.
"Margaret. Classic," Ethan noted, his voice smooth. He fumbled with his wallet, intentionally pulling out a five-dollar bill and letting it flutter toward the floor, right next to the trash can. "Oops. Clumsy."
As he knelt to "retrieve" his money, Ethan's hand moved with the lightning speed of a varsity athlete. He didn't look at the bin, he didn't need to. His fingers closed around the discarded, damp tissue Brandon had just tossed. He tucked it deep into the pocket of his hoodie in one fluid, practiced motion before standing back up and slapping the five-dollar bill on the counter.
"Catch you later, Brandon," Ethan said, taking his change and the gum. "Hope you feel better. You look like you're falling apart, and a woman like Margaret probably doesn't like things that are broken."
Ethan didn't head home. He didn't even go back to the hospital. He drove straight to the Combs' residence, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He knew the schedule by heart now. Dylan was at the hospital, likely finishing a morning rotation, and Margaret had mentioned a "charity committee brunch"-another one of her polished shields.
He didn't use the front door. He headed for the mudroom window at the back of the house, the one he'd intentionally left unlatched during a "visit" weeks ago. He slipped inside, the sudden silence of the house feeling like a physical weight on his shoulders. The air smelled of Margaret's floral perfume and expensive lemon wax, a scent that now made Ethan want to gag. Every corner of this place felt tainted by the secret she was housing, but he moved with silent, lethal intent toward the stairs.
He reached Kyson's room. It was the room of a boy who had been told he was a king but was actually a pawn.
Trophies lined the shelves, most of them for football, and a varsity jacket was thrown carelessly over a chair. Ethan went straight to the dresser. There, sitting next to a bottle of expensive cologne Kyson probably used to hide the scent of his own insecurity, was a black hairbrush.
Ethan leaned in, his fingers precise and steady. He plucked four thick, blonde strands from the bristles, making sure the follicles were intact.
"Sorry, Kyson," Ethan whispered into the empty, sun-drenched room. "But it's time you knew who your real father is. It's time you realized you've been hating the wrong person for ten years."
The final piece of the puzzle required more than just stealth- it required the last of Ethan's savings and a complete lack of concern for the rules. He drove two towns over, past the local clinics where Dylan might have friends, to a private forensic pathology lab- the kind that advertised "Discreet Paternity Testing" in the back of local papers. It was a sterile, nondescript building that dealt in the ugly truths people were too afraid to say out loud.
He stood at the plexiglass window, the fluorescent lights overhead making his bloodshot eyes look even more haunted. He handed over two separate, labeled envelopes to the technician behind the glass. One contained the tissue, the other, the blonde hair.
"Relationship test," Ethan said, his voice flat and cold, devoid of the flirtatious mask he'd worn for Brandon. "I need to know if Subject A is the biological father of Subject B."
The technician, a middle-aged woman with a tired expression, looked at the samples and then at the teenager standing in front of her. She'd seen enough desperate people to know not to ask questions. "Standard turnaround is ten business days. It's four hundred dollars."
"I don't have ten days," Ethan said, sliding a stack of bills under the slot. "I need the express 24-hour turnaround. I'll pay whatever the fee is."
The technician sighed, counting the money. "It'll be another three hundred for the rush. You'll have the digital results by tomorrow morning. We'll email the PDF to the address on the form."
"Do it," Ethan said.
He walked out of the lab and into the bright, unforgiving afternoon sun. He felt like a man carrying a live grenade, the pin already pulled and the lever held down only by his own grip. In twenty-four hours, the "perfect" Combs family would be a memory.
The structure Margaret had spent eighteen years building- the marriage, the house, the manipulated son, would come crashing down.
He thought of Annie's heart jumping in that hospital bed, the way her body had reacted to his voice. He thought of her pain, the bridge, the car, and the years of silence she had endured to protect a father who was being lied to every single day.
"Hang on, doll," he muttered, climbing into his truck and slamming the door. The engine roared to life, a low growl that matched the resolve in his chest.
"The truth is coming, and it's going to burn everything in its path. And I'm going to be the one holding the match."