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.
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.”