Chapter 689

I stood in place, staring at the small box. It contained the first child I had with Steven. I smiled helplessly. I now understand why he could be so effortlessly natural as a father to Ashton and Xan—he had probably imagined how to be a good father countless times. "Hang in there, Stephanie. Please hang in there, okay?" It was as if I could still hear Steven's words in my ears. He tied me to the beam when I was struggling and hurting myself due to my pregnancy hormones. He had hugged me and pleaded for me to endure it while choking back sobs. Despite barely being an adult himself, Steven must have been anticipating the child. The experimental subjects in the laboratory weren't "humans" to Genome Society. We were mere experimental subjects and vessels. They needed us to conceive and produce viable third-generation experimental subjects. They desperately wanted to have an experimental subject born out of my and Steven's genes. Unfortunately, my genes weren't perfect, and my body c