Haylen

The call came in the middle of the night, and the young mother’s boyfriend lying next to her begged her to stay in bed. He said he’d take care of it, but the blonde was insistent. She wanted to know who would dare to call them this late at night. Things with Zack Merrick lately had been tensed, like walking on egg shells and she honestly just wanted an excuse to leave the bed. Walking to the phone, that was when she heard noises in her daughter, Haylen’s room. Her heart stopped and she grabbed the nearest heaviest weapon that she could lift… and she opened Haylen’s door. The object in her hand clattered to the ground as she assessed the situation and recognized the doctor’s faces… the ones who were there when she gave birth. “The hell do you think you are doing in my home… in my daughter’s room?”

Zack had came over to Haylen’s room and he was looking apologetically at the doctors, his hands instantly wrapping around the blonde mother’s wrists, restraining her effectively. The blonde mother struggled against his grasp, stomping on his foot more than once and trying to elbow him in the gut. She screamed at him to let her go, anger rising within her. “I’m so sorry, I tried to keep her from getting up but the mother subject insisted,” he said, clearly sounding displeased.

“Mother subject,” the blonde asked incredulously, yanking her wrist hard against his grasp, hissing when she heard a slight crack. “Mother subject? Is this a joke? You knew these people would be in our house and you didn’t think it important to tell me that people were going to be in Haylen’s room?”

“She’s just a clone,” one of the doctors said, starting to remove the EKGs attached to the young brunette child’s forehead. “We didn’t want you to know exactly what your womb was being used for because we wanted to study how a mother raises her child. You were kept in the dark for a reason, Miss Swift.”

Taylor’s eyes went wide and she stumbled backward in slight shock before her eyes darted to Haylen. She evaluated the choices she had: she could try to make a scene and maybe the cops would be called. But if Haylen was a clone… could she be arrested if they were telling the truth? She was involved, even if she was in the dark. She could yell at them that she was going to leave with Haylen, but they could retaliate and Zack was much bigger and stronger than she was and the gun was still locked in her dresser drawer. Plus… could she really kill? She vetoed both choices before she said, “Alright… then what do you want me to do? I can’t exactly forget what I saw.”

Zack had loosened his grip on her and she had made another choice: she would refuse anything they offered her. She would need her wits about her if she planned on transporting Haylen out of this house. The plan forming in her mind wasn’t anything amazing but merely what she knew of the best way to handle it: get Haylen out of here, get a burner phone, run as far away as possible. “Well, we were gonna wait another two years before making you aware, but since we already have enough data from you, Miss Swift, we are going to be in touch on how best to… move forward with the experiment.”

Taylor nodded slowly, her bright blue eyes kept on Haylen the whole time. “Of course… I wouldn’t want to interfere with science…”



The next morning, Taylor had gotten dressed in her usual style – Oxford kitten heels, a plain black pencil skirt, and a white blouse. She had no plans to stay dressed like this (after all, heels would be difficult to run in) but she did not wish to obtain suspicion from Zack. She had smiled at him as she put her thick curls into a manageable style. “Breakfast is on the table, dear,” she said as she brushed off Haylen’s play jumper, shoving her backpack full of clothes out of view. Haylen had a rather confused look on her face, but thankfully she was only three and could not fully communicate what she felt was off.

Zack had ignored her “dear”, as he had been for the past year. Taylor had the sneaking suspicion he never loved her and she worried that maybe she was correct. She stood up as Zack had gone to the kitchen, heading back to their room to start packing up as quickly as she could. She started flicking through old shirts, picking out the ones that were the ones she could move in. She tossed a few Fall Out Boy shirts onto the bed along with some ripped up jeans, jumping when she heard Zack. “Taylor… darling, what are you doing?”

Taylor turned around and smiled at him, ready to ramble until something came to mind. “Well, love… well, I just haven’t worn any of these clothes in some time and I was thinking that Haylen and I need to go shopping for new things anyway since she’s getting so big… so I’m gonna donate these clothes,” she said, fixing his tie and smiling at him. Even knowing he was a liar, even knowing he betrayed her… she still cared about him. And she knew that the minute she walked out of this house with the intent of leaving, she could never come back. “But you need to go to work. Whatever it is you do, anyway.”

There was a flash of guilt in his face and Taylor wondered if the reason was because of what she thought it was: that he had always worked for whatever scientist group had put together this experiment. She wouldn’t be surprised if he did. She let out a sigh of relief when he finally left, putting her bag together again and wondering how she was going to escape. If there was one thing that Taylor had figured out, it was that she had to know exactly what she was running from and so her firs though was to go find one of his pay checks that she had never seen before. Taylor moved over to where she knew he didn’t think she knew about – the safe behind the picture of his grandmother. She put in the date of his grandmother’s birth, shaking her head when it worked. “Predictable,” she mumbled as she raised an eyebrow when she reached in to grab the forms inside the safe.

She sat down the bed, reading the name of the company – Dyad. Her brow furrow as she wondered why she had never heard of Dyad if they were paying Zack this much. She looked over the papers, realizing she needed to draw some of the money out of the account. None of her credit cards could be used when she was on the run. What if they were tracking her? She pushed a check stub into a file folder, looking over research she couldn’t fully understand. Zack had encouraged her to drop out of college, she remembered. She was studying to be able to fully understand all of this. She was angered slightly, standing up to toss everything she could find into a bag.

Whoever was monitoring her and her family had to be prepared for her to try to escape and whatever was happening, she was certain they’d have a plan in place for her fighting against them. “Haylen, you and I are going to go to an old friend of mommy’s,” she said, a sudden stroke of realization as she started to yank the dress off and change into a more suitable running outfit.

She had grinned at Haylen as she put the bags in the back of the car, prepared to ditch the car whenever she could. She strapped Haylen into her car seat, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go see an old college friend of mommy’s.”



“Swift, what the hell are you doing here,” the petite brunette asked, annoyed that Taylor had interrupted her studying for a massive test. “I know you dropped out to have a kid with fuckin Merrick, but…” the woman cut herself as she realized that Haylen was with her. “You brought the kid with you,” the brunette woman said in shock. Taylor sighed as she shut the door behind her, taking the bags in with her. The brown eyed woman did not complain, suddenly curious. “You left Zack.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. Taylor never noticed the look on Tay’s face – the pure shock and the curiosity of Tay’s face. Taylor nodded at the girl before turning around. “Tay… what would be your reaction if I told you that Haylen is a clone and I had to get her away from Zack because he was letting strangers into our house to experiment on her?”

Tay paused for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I need a drink,” she said, heading off to the kitchen. Tay Jardine needed to process exactly what Taylor had informed her of. If it was true, then Tay was going to kill Zack for not just convincing Taylor to drop out of college but for taking advantage of her. She left her kitchen with a chilled beer in her hand. “So… start from the beginning. How did you find out Haylen’s… a clone? Do you know of other clones?”

Taylor paused, wondering why Tay would ask her about other clones. “Other clones? All I know is last night I walked into her room and there were… strangers doing an EKG on her and they claimed she was a clone… just a clone. As if she wasn’t human,” she said, suddenly distressed. She had been trying to pinpoint exactly what the most uncomfortable thing about the experience was and it was that her child was only three and those scientists were already reducing her child to less than human. She’d been treated like a piece of meat before and she didn’t want that to be her daughter’s entire life.

Tay had placed her hand over Taylor’s, a comforting look on her face. Taylor had barely even realized she was beginning to shake in anger but she had. “Haylen and you will be safe here. What’s in the briefcase,” she asked, eyeing the documents that the blonde mother had brought over. Taylor handed the briefcase over to Tay wordlessly and Tay pulled out a document. The word “Dyad” caught her eye. “Give me your phone.”

Taylor followed the command, mostly out of fear from how Tay had said it. She jumped up in shock when Tay tossed the phone down the garbage disposal, turning it on. “What the shitting hell, Jardine,” she exclaimed, even though she knew there could be a tracking device on the phone. She was just mad Tay didn’t ask her how she wanted her phone disposed of. “We could’ve left it at my mother’s house! Now he’s going to know something is off!”

The brunette sighed, picking up Haylen. “We gotta get out of here. Leave your car, we’ll take mine,” Tay said, heading out to her car. Taylor shook her head, moving out to her car preparing to take the car seat out before Tay stopped her. “Are you mental? They’ll expect you to do that! I’ve got a contact. They’ll have a car seat. Don’t worry about it.”

Taylor paused, before shaking her head. “Alright, Jardine. I’m trusting you here,” she said, grabbing the bags and getting into the car.