Read Online The Gender Experiment: (A Thriller) by L.J. Sellers - Free Book Online

office door and blocked Taylor with his arm. “Wait. Let me check in on my own. It’s better if the manager doesn’t even see you.”
    “Good idea.” She handed him her credit card and hurried away.

Chapter 8
    Inside the car, Taylor shivered, more from fear than cold. She was going to die. She felt it in her bones. Her only hope was to get a fake ID, ditch her car, and buy a train ticket to somewhere far away. She desperately wanted to do just that, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t a soldier but she’d been raised by one. And soldiers didn’t run. They didn’t leave anyone behind either. All those intersex people who’d been conceived in the experiment felt like her siblings, her people. What if they were all murdered because she’d been too scared to fight for them? She couldn’t live with herself if she were the only survivor. Even if most weren’t targeted for death, they still deserved to know the circumstances of their birth and the reason for their sexual differences.
    Taylor glanced back at the motel office and saw Jake come out. He was willing to risk himself for this investigation, and it wasn’t even personal for him. She hadn’t figured him out yet. He seemed to have integrity, and she instinctively trusted him. So how had he ended up homeless and desperate enough to take a dead man’s wallet and phone? She watched Jake walk toward a room near the other end of the motel, so she grabbed her satchel and ran across the narrow parking lot. He had the door open by the time she reached it, and she darted inside. Jake bolted the chain lock behind them, and she felt a sense of relief. She was safe—for the moment.
    Jake glanced around. “It’s not bad.”
    They both laughed. The walls were stained with nicotine, the carpet smelled like a wet dog, and the orange-and-beige motif hurt her eyes. “We’ll find another motel tomorrow. It will be good to keep on the move anyway.”
    “Speaking of which, we need to move your car. It’s too obvious from the road.”
    Taylor handed him the key. As he walked out, she had a moment of dread. What if he stole her Jetta and took off? She shook her head and plopped on the bed. No, that didn’t make sense. She pulled her laptop from her satchel and plugged her phone into it. The crappy motel probably didn’t have Wi-Fi, but her cell might pick up a tower. She wanted to check her messages and search for more names on the list. Most of her classmates had switched to tablet computers, but she still loved her lightweight laptop. So much more functional.
    An Instagram message from an acquaintance popped into her phone, asking why she’d missed classes, but Taylor didn’t respond. She didn’t like to lie, and the truth was too complex. She’d never been a big social media user. Her mother hadn’t allowed much of it when she was young, and Taylor hadn’t had enough friends in high school to make the effort worthwhile.
    Her mind shifted to the sleeping arrangement. She couldn’t make him sleep on the floor. Too rude and prude. But she couldn’t risk Jake flopping around in his sleep and making contact with her body. The problem wasn’t just her weird private parts, it was her hyper-sexuality. She didn’t trust herself not to respond if he touched her, even accidentally. And she couldn’t risk him being freaked out by her small penis.
    Pillows and jackets. They would make a barrier in the middle.
    Jake came back in. “Hey, mind if I turn up the heat?”
    “Please do.” She hadn’t noticed how chilly the room was until he mentioned it.
    Jake sat in the worn padded chair. “Let’s figure out a game plan for tomorrow at the clinic. One of us needs to create a distraction while the other accesses a computer and downloads files. I’m pretty good with data, so I should probably be the one to take that risk.”
    “A distraction?”
Oh god.
That meant drawing attention to herself in a big, messy way. “I don’t think I can do that.”
    Jake gave her a charming