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Jade - Chapter 23 - Now

I want your eggs? Did Dr Jenkins really just say that? It sounds like words from a horror movie, yet her perfect face hasn't cracked, and she hasn't moved an inch.

I haven't moved either. It doesn't mean the blood within my veins isn't boiling, that my heart isn't hammering in my chest or my rotund stomach isn't suddenly a kettlebell weight rooting me to the spot. That Dr Jenkins can think about stealing my eggs shows a barbarism I couldn't imagine of a doctor. If in fact she is a real doctor. But to say it aloud. In here. To me. It makes the tips of my ears hot. I open my mouth to shout, but it's Blue's voice I hear.

'Hey now wait a minute!' he snaps.

Dr Jenkins twists round to him. Beside me, Belinda is making a kind of sucking sound that I don't dare take my eyes off Blue to decipher.

'This is research,' Blue says. 'That's all.'

'You saw for yourself, she has hundreds of eggs,' Dr Jenkins hisses.

Blue yanks her to the doorway, where their whispers are eclipsed by cupped palms at their mouths. Looking back, I realise this concept of selection and sacrifice isn't new. At school Mandy and Isaac had a younger brother. Three naturals in one family. That's three times the resentment. And I see it now, fresh upon Dr Jenkins' face as she confers with Blue in the corner. We learnt about this. So why, as the veins pulse along Dr Jenkins' neck when she speaks, does it feel like I'm seeing this desperation for the first time?

Belinda sniffs and raises a lofty elbow to wipe her forearm across her face.

'Excuse me?' I say, arms folded across my chest. Dr Jenkins and Blue turn. 'You want to steal our eggs? You want to rob us of the chance to have a family so that you can have a family? Together?'

Blue's eyes enlarge.

Dr Jenkins scoffs. 'No, I—'

'You're a doctor!' I say, 'So do I have the right to demand some of your brain cells to make up for my gross inability to do calculus?'

Her face creases.

'Yeah,' Belinda adds. 'You're no better than them out there.'

'That's not exactly accurate,' Blue cuts in. 'Pam didn't mean that. What she means is—'

'You already have families. Well you're going to have one anyway,' Dr Jenkins says, pointing to my bump. 'And it wouldn't be something we'd do mid-gestation. I'm just asking. No, I'm begging you to help me.'

Outside there is a roaring din; a round of applause, diluted with feet stamping that vibrates the ground. Blue presses his ear to the door.

'There's a girl out there called Rachel.' Dr Jenkins is gesticulating with her hands again. The snatches of short breaths she takes exemplifies how close to the surface this is for her. It also allows the shouting outside to gain prevalence, though it's too far away to distinguish. 'Rachel has a heart defect. They said she could collapse at any time, which would leave the child motherless. How the Government hate single parent families. That was twenty years ago. She's not so much as had the flu since then.' Dr Jenkins' cheeks redden to the shade of her lipstick.

'But twenty years ago, we didn't need assisted birthing,' I say.

'Wrong. They tried to cover it up until it escalated to these colossal proportions. The Government didn't want panic to set in. They quietly spent millions formulating Fertility and the IVF procedure. It's actually called IVA, but what does anyone care so long as they can have a baby. Everyone knew it was going on, but not to the extent it was relied upon. We were lied to. Used. We are British citizens. We have no lesser rights than you!'