“Okay, fine,” I say, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll prove it to you. Is that what it’s going to take?”
Cody doesn’t respond. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares at me from across the room.
I peer at Zen out of the corner of my eye, still resting on Cody’s counter. “I’m going to transesse one minute into the future. You will see me disappear from right here and in exactly one minute, I will reappear.”
Cody’s eyes narrow. I take that as a sign I have his attention.
I flash him a hurried smile that he does not return.
“Okay,” I say again. “Watch carefully.”
I glance at the clock on the wall: 4:52. I close my eyes and prepare my mind, directing all my thoughts to this exact place, only one minute later.
I feel the air start to swish around me, the hum of the molecules of the space vibrating to release me. My body clenches. Pressure builds in my head.
And the last thing I hear before I completely vanish is the hushed sound of Cody’s blue paper mask fluttering to the ground.
When I arrive as planned, the clock reads 4:53 and I see that Cody is still staring openmouthed at the space where I just rematerialized. His blinking patterns have increased in velocity. And a strange gurgling sound is coming from the back of his throat. He sways slightly before finally plunking down into a nearby chair.
I kneel in front of him. “Cody, look at me.”
But he won’t. Or he can’t. His eyes are lost and unfocused, wandering aimlessly. As though he’s trying to follow a million dust particles traveling every which way.
I grab his hand and give it a firm tug. “Cody.”
His gaze snaps toward me and for a brief moment I have his attention. “Now,” I say with finality, “will you please help me?”
37
TRANSPLANT
Cody packs the last of the supplies he’s gathered into the van and slams the door shut. I climb in the back with Zen and sit on the floor next to a box of syringes and test tubes, and hold his head in my lap. He drifts in and out of consciousness as Cody steers the large vehicle with the name GENZONE emblazoned on the side through the streets of Brooklyn. I stare down at Zen’s face, stroking his cheek and his hair, occasionally whispering into his ear, assuring him that everything will be okay.
Of course, I don’t know that.
Of course, it’s possible Cody won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong with him. But for the first time in a while, I feel safe again. I feel like I’m moving toward a solution, instead of away from it. I feel like I can take a deep breath without my chest caving in on me.
I was relieved when Cody suggested we bring Zen back to his house. He immediately ruled out a hospital, claiming it was too dangerous, especially since he didn’t have valid identification and they’d immediately quarantine him in suspicion of having the white fever.
Not to mention the fact that I knew as soon as Kaelen realized I was gone—which was probably about an hour ago—he’d start looking for me again. And that means we have to go back to being extremely careful. No records. No documents. No hospitals.
Apart from this suggestion, Cody hasn’t said much. I think he might still be in shock, processing the information slowly and methodically like any good scientist would.
The drive is short. We arrive in less than ten minutes. Cody’s town house, as he calls it, is lovely and spacious. It has a warm, welcoming feel to it with rich colors and dark woods. But I don’t really pay much attention. I’m too focused on moving Zen from the van to the room Cody refers to as a guest room.
At first Zen attempts to walk, sluggishly putting one foot in front of the other, but his knees give out too many times and I eventually scoop him into my arms and carry him the rest of the way.
My effortless action causes a ripple of suspicion to roll over Cody’s face, but he doesn’t say anything.
I lay Zen down on the bed as Cody gets to work setting up all the equipment he borrowed from the basement warehouse of the building where he works. He inserts an IV into Zen’s arm and hooks him up to a variety of machines to monitor his breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure.
I feel a rush of sickness come on as I’m instantly reminded of my hospital room. After the plane crash they thought I’d survived. When they needlessly injected things into my veins, and attached me to tubes, just like Cody is doing to Zen now.
Except this time, it’s not needless.
This time, it’s vital.
I remember when Zen appeared in my hospital room the first night I was there. He tried to take me out. He tried to transesse with me. That was before we knew about the deactivator in my locket.
Now everything is reversed. Now he’s the one hooked up to the tubes and monitors. He’s the one in that bed. And I’m the one trying to get him out. In whatever way I can.
Zen is restless in this new place. He hasn’t stopped twitching and squirming and whimpering since I laid him down. Like he’s trying to escape his own skin. He shivers with fever and I cover him with a blanket only to have him kick it off a few moments later when the chills morph back into heat flares.
Every time I try to touch his face or smooth his hair or rub his arm, he feebly bats my hand away like he’s swatting at a fly.
“Zen.” I try to talk to him, hoping the sound of my voice will calm him. “Zen, it’s me. Can you hear me? It’s going to be okay. We’re safe here. Remember Cody? My foster brother. We’re at his house. He’s trying to figure out why you’re sick. He’s going to make you better.”
Cody shoots me a stern look, warning me not to make promises we both know he can’t keep. But I ignore it.
“Zen,” I repeat, trying once again to stroke his hand. “Cinnamon.”
But he pulls it violently away, nearly slapping me in the face in the process. His heart monitor ratchets up as his pulse quickens. It’s clear from the torment on his features and the agony in his moans that he’s miserable. That whatever sickness is running through his blood is destroying him a little bit more every minute. But I don’t know what to do for him. I don’t know how to help him.
As he flails restlessly and lets out an agonizing cry that punctures my heart, I look to Cody. “Do something.”
Cody bites his lip and then riffles through one of the boxes until he comes across a small vial of liquid. He draws it up into a needle and inserts it into Zen’s IV. “This should calm him down.”
I watch the drug work almost instantly. Zen’s spasms slow to a stop. His features ease out of their contortions. His breathing seems to settle into a steady rhythm. He falls into a deep sleep that I pray is peaceful and dreamless.
I crumple into a chair next to the bed and scoop up Zen’s hand. This time, he doesn’t fight. I wipe away the few stray tears that squeezed out of my eyes during the commotion.
For the first time in a long time, when I look at his face, I see the old Zen.
The one I used to watch sleep. Who always looked so still and serene. Shielded from all the horrors of the world by the protective bubble he somehow managed to keep firmly locked around himself. No matter how chaotic things got.
It’s something I always admired in him.
Something I always aspired to duplicate, but never seemed able to.
Zen just has that magical quality about him. I saw it in the way he would tell stories to the Pattinsons to ease their fears about the strange girl living in their house. The way he could wrap his arms around me after one of my many nightmares and convince me I was safe. The way he could leave his own home behind, his own friends and family, and never look back.
Seeing him this traumatized, this uncontrolled, this tormented is like seeing the very person that he is ripped apart. His identity stolen. His soul pillaged.
And I’m so completely powerless to stop it. Now it’s my turn to be the strong one, the steady one, the one whose confidence can’t be shaken, and I’m failing. I’m failing.
I’m failing.
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Cody inserts a needle into Zen’s vein and draws blood. “This should get me started,” he says gently, screwing a cap onto the tiny vial and holding it up to the light. “Some of the tests will take a while to run. We may not know anything until tomorrow.”
For twenty minutes I watch Cody flutter around the room. From Zen to his computer and back again. He takes more blood, checks and rechecks his temperature, inputs data into his computer. I try to stay silent, not wanting to distract him. I confine myself to my chair, keeping Zen’s hand clasped tightly in mine.
As badly as I want to be optimistic, as badly as I want to have 100 percent faith in Cody’s ability to do something, I just can’t help thinking the worst.
What if he can’t figure out what’s making Zen sick? What if Diotech is lying and even they don’t know? I can’t lose him again. I’ve already lost him once and I can’t go through it another time.
“So is Violet even your real name?” Cody asks, interrupting my thoughts. I look up to see him peering at me over the top of his computer monitor.
I shake my head.
I remember the first time Cody learned my real name. It was outside the house party where he helped us borrow a car so that we could get away from Diotech after they discovered our location.
That was before they kidnapped Zen and held him hostage. Before I called Cody for help and he met me in the town of Bakersfield with his laptop. Before we met Maxxer and she took us back to her storage unit. Before Cody overheard Maxxer tell me about the transession gene and where I really came from.
And that’s when Maxxer took away Cody’s memories. She erased his entire recollection of that day and replaced it with a memory of being at a friend’s house, playing video games. As far as Cody was concerned, that day never happened. He never learned my real name. He never met Zen or Maxxer. He never knew who I really was.
As far as Cody was concerned, I ran away in the middle of the night and never came back.
Until now.
For some reason, thinking about Maxxer rouses a peculiar emotion somewhere inside me. A quiet fury that stirs and festers. Like a bitterness that has been lying dormant for years only to be awoken now.
The sensation confuses me. What reason would I have for being angry at Maxxer? She helped me. She came to my rescue when I had no one else.
“So what is it, then?” Cody brings me back to the conversation. “Your real name?”
“Seraphina,” I whisper.
“Seraphina,” Cody repeats with a curious ring. It’s almost as though he remembers it somehow. On some level. “It’s pretty,” he says. An echo of nineteen years ago. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t know who you were or couldn’t remember anything when I first met you.”
I cringe inwardly. I know I won’t be able to hold off Cody’s questions for long. If at all. There’s still so much he doesn’t know. Transession is only the beginning. A small sliver of the whole story. He doesn’t know about me, what I am, the memories implanted in my brain, or the ones I asked to be removed. He doesn’t know about the people who created me, who now want me back. Or the young agent who is out there somewhere undoubtedly searching for me.
I owe him an explanation. A real one. A complete one. He deserves that much.
But I also know that the idea of recounting all of that—reliving those agonizing details of my imperfect life as a perfect human being—is too much. I don’t have the energy or the stamina or the stomach to go through it again.
I rise to my feet and rummage through my pockets until I come up with the tiny cube-shaped drive that I stole from Kaelen and the receptors I plucked from his head.
Then I slowly make my way around Zen’s bed toward Cody, who instinctively backs away when he sees me approach.
I hold the three thin disks in my hand. “These are called receptors,” I explain, my voice still weak and fragile. “I’m going to place them on your head. They will give your brain access to everything that’s stored on this drive.”
Cody squints, staring skeptically at the various items in my hand. “Wait. What?”
“It’s a technology that hasn’t been invented yet. They call it re-cognization.” I repeat the exact words Zen used when he first put the receptors on me. The memory of that day slices through me like a knife.
I indicate the small cube. “This hard drive will essentially become an extension of your mind. All you have to do is ask the right questions and the answers will come to you.”
He tenses slightly as I place the first disk behind his left ear, then the second at the base of his neck, and the third behind his right ear. I swipe my thumb across the surface of the drive, causing it to glow green. Cody jolts at the sight of it.
“I don’t understand,” he says, “what exactly is stored on that drive?”
I offer him a tender smile, seeing my own confusion from months ago mirrored in his anxious face. “All of my memories.”
38
PROCESS
Cody’s eyes remain closed for a long time. I observe his reaction carefully, trying to figure out which memory he’s watching at any given time. When he flinches, I wonder if he’s seeing the moment when Mrs. Pattinson called me a witch in front of the entire courtroom. When his face twists with grief, I wonder if he’s witnessing the time Zen first told me who I was and where I really came from. And when his face softens and a faint smile makes its way onto his lips, I wonder if he’s remembering the way Zen always managed to make me feel safe.
I don’t know how much information he receives, in what order he accesses it, or which memories he triggers with his questions. All I know is that everything is on that drive. The last six months of my life.
The truth about who I am. What I can do. Why we escaped.
The wreckage of a plane that I was never on. The family that welcomed me into their home. The boy who found me and helped me remember.
The city that discovered my secret. Called me a witch. Set me on fire.
The artificial memories that are encrypted in my mind. Leading me somewhere. A place Diotech wants to find.
The young man with the aquamarine eyes. Who is like me. Who is out there searching.
The scientist who died in front of my eyes. And the one who impatiently awaits my return.
Kaelen stole it all. Except for the last one. The one that brought me here. To Cody.
That one I keep for myself.
I don’t know which memory finally causes Cody’s expression to turn dark and grim, his eyes to flash open, and his hands to scratch restlessly at the receptors attached to his head, ripping them off and tossing them onto his desk.
I don’t know which of the countless horrid truths finally shoved him over the edge but he abruptly rises to his feet and, without another word to me, stalks out of the room. I listen intently for the front door, praying I won’t hear it open and close. I can’t afford to have Cody leave. Not now. But I also know better than to follow him.
He needs time to process everything. Just as I did when I first learned the truth.
Thankfully, the front door remains closed. Which means Cody is still somewhere in the house. Dealing with the unsettling reality of my life in whatever way he needs to. It’s a lot of information to learn all at once.
I will give him that time.
With a deep breath, I settle back in my chair. The rush of my own fatigue hits me like a stone wall. At first I fight it, refusing to let my eyes close even for a second. But after a while it becomes too much and I give in to the undertow of exhaustion.
I spend the next half hour dozing in and out of sleep in the chair.
When I’m awake my eyes are glued to Zen and the monitors next to his bed. There’s a soft beep that rings out every second, reassuring me that he’s still alive. That he’s still with me.
And yet every single silence that falls between is more tormenting than the last. Waiting for that next beep, that next sign of life, is like waiting for an eternity to pass. It’s like f
alling off a cliff over and over again. Every empty second that goes by without a beep is gravity pulling me to my death.
When I’m asleep I dream of Kaelen. His ocean eyes staring at me. I gaze into them, finding beautiful relief. Finding escape from this monstrous reality that I’m living.
He slowly reaches out to touch my face. I hold my breath, anticipating his touch. The warmth I know it will bring. The serenity that I know will follow.
But I wake before it ever gets there, a thousand tiny needles stabbed into my heart. The shame I feel for wanting him to touch me—even in my dream—smothers me like a thick, itchy blanket that scratches my skin raw.
I’m suddenly irritable and angry.
Angry that I can’t keep him out of my thoughts.
Angry that when I’m asleep, when his face is in my mind, I don’t want to wake.
But I should. I should want to wake.
Zen is real. He’s here. Now. And he needs me.
Kaelen is some kind of mistake. A confusion. An error.
Someone I shouldn’t want to exist. Someone I shouldn’t want to dream about. Someone I shouldn’t want.
“Sera?” Zen’s frail voice interrupts my thoughts and I blink down at him, forcing a carefree smile that makes me feel like a fraud.
“I’m here,” I reply, squeezing his hand.
“Where are we?” His voice is so airy, so light, it feels like it will blow away if I exhale too hard.
“We’re in the year 2032. At Cody’s house. Remember Cody?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. He’s going to make you better.”
“I want to be better.”
I bite my lip to keep from breaking into sobs. “I know. I do, too.”
“Then we can run away again.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Where do you want to go?”
His eyes remain closed, he shifts uncomfortably. “The moon?”
I grin. “That sounds like a good idea. Or maybe Venus?”
“Too hot,” he breathes.
I release a small giggle. “Okay, not Venus.”