First, I see light.
Bright, orange, flaring behind my eyelids. Sounds begin to emerge shortly thereafter but the reveal is slow, muddy. I hear my own breath, then faint beeping. A metal shhh, a rush of air, the sound of laughter. Footsteps, footsteps, a voice that says—
Ella
Just as I’m about to open my eyes a flood of heat flushes through my body, burns through bone. It’s violent, pervasive. It presses hard against my throat, choking me.
Suddenly, I’m numb. Ella, the voice says. Ella
Listen
“Any minute now.”
Anderson’s familiar voice breaks through the haze of my mind. My fingers twitch against cotton sheets. I feel the insubstantial weight of a thin
blanket covering the lower half of my body. The pinch and sting of needles. A roar of pain. I realize, then, that I cannot move my left hand.
Someone clears their throat.
“This is twice now that the sedative hasn’t worked the way it should,” someone says. The voice is unfamiliar. Angry. “With Evie gone this whole place is going to hell.”
“Evie made substantial changes to Ella’s body,” Anderson says, and I wonder who he’s talking about. “It’s possible that something in her new physical makeup prevents the sedative from clearing as quickly as it should.”
A humorless laugh. “Your friendship with Max has gotten you many things over the last couple of decades, but a medical degree is not one of them.”
“It’s only a theory. I think it might be po—”
“I don’t care to know your theories,” the man says, cutting him off. “What I want to know is why on earth you thought it would be a good idea to injure our key subject, when maintaining her physical and mental stability is crucial to—”
“Ibrahim, be reasonable,” Anderson interjects. “After what happened last time, I just wanted to be sure that everything was working as it should. I was only testing her lo—”
“We all know about your fetish for torture, Paris, but the novelty of your singularly sick mind has worn off. We’re out of time.”
“We are not out of time,” Anderson says, sounding remarkably calm. “This is only a minor setback; Max was able to fix it right away.”
“A minor setback?” Ibrahim thunders. “The girl lost consciousness. We’re still at high risk for regression. The subject is supposed to be in stasis. I allowed you free rein of the girl, once again, because I honestly didn’t think you would be this stupid. Because I don’t have time to babysit you. Because Tatiana, Santiago, and Azi and I all have our hands full trying to do both your job and Evie’s in addition to our own. In addition to everything else.”
“I was doing my own job just fine,” Anderson says, his voice like acid. “No one asked you to step in.”
“You’re forgetting that you lost your job and your continent the moment Evie’s daughter shot you in the head and claimed your leavings for herself.
You let a teenage girl take your life, your livelihood, your children, and your soldiers from right under your nose.”
“You know as well as I do that she’s not an ordinary teenage girl,” Anderson says. “She’s Evie’s daughter. You know what she’s capable of—” “But she didn’t!” Ibrahim cries. “Half the reason the girl was meant to live a life of isolation was so that she’d never know the full extent of her powers. She was meant only to metamorphose quietly, undetected, while we waited for the right moment to establish ourselves as a movement. She was only entrusted to your care because of your decades-long friendship with Max—and because you were a scheming, conniving upstart who was
willing to take whatever job you could get in order to move up.”
“That’s funny,” Anderson says, unamused. “You used to like me for being a scheming, conniving upstart who was willing to take whatever job I could get.”
“I liked you,” Ibrahim says, seething, “when you got the job done. But in the last year, you’ve been nothing but deadweight. We’ve given you ample opportunity to correct your mistakes, but you can’t seem to get things right. You’re lucky Max was able to fix her hand so quickly, but we still know nothing of her mental state. And I swear to you, Paris, if there are unanticipated, irreversible consequences for your actions I will challenge you before the committee.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You might’ve gotten away with this nonsense while Evie was still alive, but the rest of us know that the only reason you even made it this far was because of Evie’s indulgence of Max, who continues to vouch for you for reasons unfathomable to the rest of us.”
“For reasons unfathomable to the rest of us?” Anderson laughs. “You mean you can’t remember why you’ve kept me around all these years? Let me help refresh your memory. As I recall, you liked me best when I was the only one willing to do the abject, immoral, and unsavory jobs that helped get this movement off the ground.” A pause. “You’ve kept me around all these years, Ibrahim, because in exchange, I’ve kept the blood off your hands. Or have you forgotten? You once called me your savior.”
“I don’t care if I once called you a prophet.” Something shatters. Metal and glass slamming hard into something else. “We can’t continue to pay for your careless mistakes. We are at war right now, and at the moment we’re barely holding on to our lead. If you can’t understand the possible
ramifications of even a minor setback at this critical hour, you don’t deserve to stand among us.”
A sudden crash. A door, slamming shut.
Anderson sighs, long and slow. Somehow I can tell, even from the sound of his exhalation, that he’s not angry.
I’m surprised.
He just seems tired.
By degrees, the fingers of heat uncurl from around my throat. After a few more seconds of silence, my eyes flutter open.
I stare up at the ceiling, my eyes adjusting to the intense burst of white light. I feel slightly immobilized, but I seem to be okay.
“Juliette?”
Anderson’s voice is soft. Far more gentle than I’d expected. I blink at the ceiling and then, with some effort, manage to move my neck. I lock eyes with him.
He looks unlike himself. Unshaven. Uncertain. “Yes, sir,” I say, but my voice is rough. Unused. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel stiff, sir.”
He hits a button and my bed moves, readjusting me so that I’m sitting relatively upright. Blood rushes from my head to my extremities and I’m left slightly dizzy. I blink, slowly, trying to recalibrate. Anderson turns off the machines attached to my body, and I watch, fascinated.
And then he straightens.
He turns his back to me, faces a small, high window. It’s too far up for me to see the view. He raises his arms and runs his hands through his hair with a sigh.
“I need a drink,” he says to the wall.
Anderson nods to himself and walks out the adjoining door. At first, I’m surprised to be left alone, but when I hear muffled sounds of movement and the familiar trill of glasses, clinking, I’m no longer surprised.
I’m confused.
I realize then that I have no idea where I am. Now that the needles have been removed from my body, I can more easily move, and as I swivel around to take in the space, it dawns on me that I am not in a medical wing, as I first suspected. This looks more like someone’s bedroom.
Or maybe even a hotel room.
Everything is extremely white. Sterile. I’m in a big white bed with white sheets and a white comforter. Even the bed frame is made of a white, blond wood. Next to the various carts and now-dead monitors, there’s a single nightstand decorated with a single, simple lamp. There’s a slim door standing ajar, and through a slant of light I think I spy what serves as a closet, though it appears to be empty. Adjacent to the door is a suitcase, closed but unzipped. There’s a screen mounted on the wall directly opposite me, and underneath it, a bureau. One of the drawers isn’t completely closed, and it piques my interest.
It occurs to me then that I am not wearing any clothes. I’m wearing a hospital gown, but no real clothes. My eyes scan the room for my military uniform and I come up short.
There’s nothing here.
I remember then, in a moment of clarity, that I must’ve bled all over my clothes. I remember kneeling on the floor. I remember the growing puddle of my own blood in which I collapsed.
I glance down at my injured hand. I only injured my index finger, but my entire left hand is bound in gauze. The pain has reduced to a dull throb. I take that as a good sign.
Gingerly, I begin to remove the bandages.
Just then, Anderson reappears. His suit jacket is gone. His tie, gone. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, the black curl of ink more clearly visible, and his hair is disheveled. He seems more relaxed.
He remains in the doorway and takes a long drink from a glass half-full of amber liquid.
When he makes eye contact with me, I say:
“Sir, I was wondering where I am. I was also wondering where my clothes are.”
Anderson takes another sip. He closes his eyes as he swallows, leans back against the doorframe. Sighs.
“You’re in my room,” he says, his eyes still closed. “This compound is vast, and the medical wings—of which there are many—are, for the most part, situated on the opposite end of the facility, about a mile away. After Max attended to your needs, I had him deposit you here so that I’d be able to keep a close eye on you through the night. As to your clothes, I have no idea.” He takes another sip. “I think Max had them incinerated. I’m sure someone will bring you replacements soon.”
“Thank you, sir.” Anderson says nothing. I say nothing more.
With his eyes closed, I feel safer to stare at him. I take advantage of the rare opportunity to peer closer at his tattoo, but I still can’t make sense of it. Mostly, I stare at his face, which I’ve never seen like this: Soft. Relaxed. Almost smiling. Even so, I can tell that something is troubling him.
“What?” he says without looking at me. “What is it now?” “I was wondering, sir, if you’re okay.”
His eyes open. He tilts his head to look at me, but his gaze is inscrutable.
Slowly, he turns.
He throws back the last of his drink, rests the glass on the nightstand, and sits down in a nearby armchair. “I had you cut off your own finger last night, do you remember?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And today you’re asking me if I’m okay.” “Yes, sir. You seem upset, sir.”
He leans back in the chair, looking thoughtful. Suddenly, he shakes his head. “You know, I realize now that I’ve been too hard on you. I’ve put you through too much. Tested your loyalty perhaps too much. But you and I have a long history, Juliette. And it’s not easy for me to forgive. I certainly don’t forget.”
I say nothing.
“You have no idea how much I hated you,” he says, speaking more to the wall than to me. “How much I still hate you, sometimes. But now, finally
—”
He sits up, looks me in the eye.
“Now you’re perfect.” He laughs, but there’s no heart in it. “Now you’re absolutely perfect and I have to just give you away. Toss your body to science.” He turns toward the wall again. “What a shame.”
Fear creeps up, through my chest. I ignore it.
Anderson stands, grabs the empty glass off the nightstand, and disappears for a minute to refill it. When he returns, he stares at me from the doorway. I stare back. We remain like that for a while before he says, suddenly—
“You know, when I was very young, I wanted to be a baker.” Surprise shoots through me, widens my eyes.
“I know,” he says, taking another swallow of the amber liquid. He almost laughs. “Not what you’d expect. But I’ve always had a fondness for cake. Few people realize this, but baking requires infinite precision and patience. It is an exacting, cruel science. I would’ve been an excellent baker.” And then: “I’m not really sure why I’m telling you this. I suppose it’s been a long time since I’ve felt I could speak openly with anyone.”
“You can tell me anything, sir.”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I’m beginning to believe that.”
We’re both silent then, but I can’t stop staring at him, my mind suddenly overrun with unanswerable questions.
Another twenty seconds of this and he finally breaks the silence.
“All right, what is it?” His voice is dry. Self-mocking. “What is it you’re
dying to know?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say. “I was just wondering— Why didn’t you try? To be a baker?”
Anderson shrugs, spins the glass around in his hands. “When I got a bit older, my mother used to force bleach down my throat. Ammonia. Whatever she could find under the sink. It was never enough to kill me,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Just enough to torture me for all of eternity.” He throws back the rest of the drink. “You might say that I lost my appetite.”
I can’t mask my horror quickly enough. Anderson laughs at me, laughs at the look on my face.
“She never even had a good reason for doing it,” he says, turning away. “She just hated me.”
“Sir,” I say, “Sir, I—”
Max barges into the room. I flinch. “What the hell did you do?”
“There are so many possible answers to that question,” Anderson says, glancing back. “Please be more specific. By the way, what did you do with her clothes?”
“I’m talking about Kent,” Max says angrily. “What did you do?”
Anderson looks suddenly uncertain. He glances from Max to me then back again. “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere.”
But Max looks beyond reason. His eyes are so wild I can’t tell if he’s angry or terrified. “Please tell me the tapes were tampered with. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you didn’t perform the procedure on yourself.”
Anderson looks at once relieved and irritated. “Calm yourself,” he says. “I watched Evie do this kind of thing countless times—and the last time, on me. The boy had already been drained. The vial was ready, just sitting there on the counter, and you were so busy with”—he glances at me—“anyway, I had a while to wait, and I figured I’d make myself useful while I stood around.”
“I can’t believe— Of course you don’t see the problem,” Max says, grabbing a fistful of his own hair. He’s shaking his head. “You never see the problem.”
“That seems an unfair accusation.”
“Paris, there’s a reason why most Unnaturals only have one ability.” He’s beginning to pace now. “The occurrence of two supernatural gifts in the same person is exceedingly rare.”
“What about Ibrahim’s girl?” he says. “Wasn’t that your work? Evie’s?” “No,” Max says forcefully. “That was a random, natural error. We were
just as surprised by the discovery as anyone else.”
Anderson goes suddenly solid with tension. “What, exactly, is the problem?”
“It’s not—”
A sudden blare of sirens and the words die in Max’s throat. “Not again,” he whispers. “God, not again.”
Anderson spares me a single glance before he disappears into his room, and this time, he reappears fully assembled. Not a hair out of place. He checks the cartridge of a handgun before he tucks it away, in a hidden holster.
“Juliette,” he says sharply. “Yes, sir?”
“I am ordering you to remain here. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you are not to leave this room. You are to do nothing unless I command you otherwise. Do you understand? “
“Yes, sir.”
“Max, get her something to wear,” Anderson barks. “And then keep her hidden. Guard her with your life.”
