Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

Now, I'm being carried by two people who I once trusted through a raging storm, toward a lab where I'll surely be killed again.

Or at least my brain will be. Perhaps they won't stop my heart. They'll probably keep me alive. I can't imagine how hard it was to keep my vitals going after my brain was thoroughly gone. They'll want to make quick work this time, cutting through the mycelia until every part of me— this me—is gone.

"God, she's heavy," Everly complains to Michael as we approach one of the maintenance sheds, grunting as she carries me. "She was so light when we first brought her back. Remember? I thought for sure she would have noticed something was wrong with the way her muscles had atrophied. Guess she was a lazy bitch back home."

"Everly," Michael warns her, breathing hard. "Now you're just being a cunt."

"Can't help it," she says. "Didn't take long for her stomach to stretch back to normal size. She got her appetite back, and now look at her."

"Well, you know Andrew's cooking," Michael comments. "Last week, when he made that foie gras pie, I thought I was in heaven. Could have eaten a dozen of them."

"Ugh, yes," she says, huffing away. "But the calories in that were absurd. I mean, fine for you men, but if you want a fit wife, Andrew has to be making concoctions out of carrot sticks. Hey, maybe he can do a cauliflower foie gras. Why not?"

"You ask him." Michael groans as we enter the shed. "That sounds ridiculous." While holding on to me, he swipes a key card, and a hidden door swings open.

Oh fuck. This is the entrance to the tunnels, isn't it? The ones that run to the labs? Which means no one will see me go into the lab. I was hoping that maybe Lauren or Munawar or someone would see me being taken.

But it's still the middle of the night.

I'll probably be dead before the sun rises.

Then I'll be awake again.

Someone else.

With no memories except for stepping off that seaplane and wondering where Amani had gone.

And Wes…

Fuck.

If he's brought back here and he has to see me go through that all over again, with no idea of who he is and who he is to me…

My heart breaks open at the thought.

I can't imagine what he's had to go through this last month. Or the months before that. Or the years before that.

The man has been put through the wringer, accidently killing his ex-girlfriend and then seeing her brought back to life in a myriad of failed attempts until the one that finally sticks.

I want to scream.

But the puzzle pieces rearrange and slide back into place again.

Because it had to have been an accident. Wes never would have killed me. I know he loved me so; I knew back then.

But he pushed you , I think. He shoved you. Laid his hands against you.

Did he though? Wes had mentioned that there were cameras on the boat. Could I get ahold of that footage to see? Wouldn't Everly and Michael have seen that footage? Why did she try to make it seem like it was believable that Wes would have done that?

She's gaslighting you again , I think to myself. She's manipulating you even still.

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

Everly and Michael carry me down a narrow hallway, not unlike the one in the lab building. I do what I can to scream, to move, but while my mind works, my body doesn't. I'm just a brain with no attachment to my body. Which is ironic because in a few hours, I'm going to be a body with no brain.

The thought is worse than death.

It's erasure.

Everything that I am, everything that is right now, will cease to exist. Some other me, severed from the one that I've known here, will continue, and the same thing will happen again.

And again.

And again.

They carry me down a narrow hallway. There are no lights here except for one midway down the tunnel. It flickers. The walls are dirt. I would have expected something more clinical-looking, but maybe this is their next renovation.

Finally, they bring me through the door and into that narrow stairwell.

We go into the operating room.

I try to look around, but I can't see much without moving my head. I'm placed on one of the three tables in the middle. I think I make out Clayton in the corner, but I can't be sure if it's a body or not.

Now, I'm staring up at the blinding overhead lights.

"Don't worry, Syd," Everly says, looming over me with a Colgate smile. "You'll be as good as new when you're done. All this pain you're experiencing now? It won't exist anymore. None of this will exist. Isn't that wonderful?"

But I don't want to erase it. I don't want to erase any of it.

"Should we strap her down?" Michael asks, putting on his surgical mask.

Everly disappears, and I hear a tap running. "If you want. David gave her a lot in that tea, didn't you?"

"She won't be moving," comes David's voice, and I realize he's in the room with them.

I feel myself sinking further into the table.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to get out of this.

I don't know how to free myself.

"We should put her under," Michael says, the surprising voice of reason.

"We can't," Everly says. "It's too dangerous with what she's already consumed. We'll have to operate on her as it is."

No. God, someone, help me.

"Just because she's sedated doesn't mean she can't feel pain," Michael says gruffly.

"Well, look at you, dear husband. Finally having a calling of conscience. Has this been a dark night of the soul for you?"

"It's just a little inhumane."

"You could have grown a set of morals a long time ago, but you didn't. It's too late for you now. Pass me the razors. I feel like we don't have the time to do this properly."

"If you shave her hair, she'll know. It's why Sydney never caught on. There were no scars or marks."

"Well, there is that one mark at the back of her head, but I'm sure she thought it was a mole or pimple. That's the wonderful thing about the back of the head. If you have hair, you have no idea what's going on back there."

I think about the faint bump at the back. I always did think it was a mole of sorts, though it was sort of scabby. Is that where they had gone in?

"Razors, please," Everly says testily. "It will be small. She'll barely notice. Then we can start drilling."

Oh my god. Oh my god.

I hear the razors being turned on.

I yell at myself to move.

I yell at the mycelia in my brain to do something, to override the sedation.

But there is nothing.

Just a barely functioning brain.

No genius. No plan.

Then I hear the door to the lab open.

Everly gasps.

"Wes," Michael says stiffly. "Did Roderick bring you?"

My heart leaps inside my chest.

Wes! He's here. He's alive.

Relief flutters through me like butterflies, giving me strength.

"I saw Roderick when he attempted to commandeer my vessel," I hear Wes say from the end of the room. I wish I had enough strength to turn my head, to lay my eyes on him. "He was easy to subdue."

"Stay where you are," David says. I hear the slide of metal, and I imagine he's picking up a gun or a weapon of some sort. I almost laugh at the thought, but then I see Michael move out of view, presumably taking it from him.

"What are you going to do, Michael?" Wes says. "Shoot me? Shoot me like you did to Clayton?"

"As if you care," Everly snaps. "You're the one who wanted to send him home. All so your little sweetheart could feel better. Pathetic."

"Yes, I wanted to send him home," Wes says adamantly. "But I didn't want him dead. I didn't want him to end up as the next experiment. You promised me this would stop after Sydney."

"Then it's a good thing you're not in charge of the program," Michael says. "All analysis, no progress."

"No death. Clear conscience. Can't lose," Wes states.

"That's funny," Everly says, "because Sydney here is under the impression that you tried to kill her."

"You know I didn't," he says quietly. "You saw the footage. I still have the footage."

Thank god. Thank god!

"So easy to doctor these days," she muses as she peers over me, her eyes glinting beneath her goggles. "I'm sorry your last moments had to be like this, Syd. You find out your ex-lover killed you right before you have your memories erased. To make matters worse, your ex-lover gets killed too. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he has to stick around and watch you begin again with no memory of who he is."

"I'll find her again, no matter what life she restarts," Wes growls, and my heart skips hard against my chest as if it's trying to return to him.

Everly makes a face over me. "But it would be so sad. To see you keep dying like that? Oh well."

"So you're going to shoot me. Kill me. Is that it?" Wes says loudly. There's a tone in his voice that makes my nerves dance. It's the voice he uses when he's about to make someone feel like an idiot. Only people in academia know what that is.

"We don't have to," Everly says to him. "I'm sure Michael wants to, but part of me just wants to put you through hell all over again. Just for fun."

"And what does that mean?" he asks.

"It means you staying the fuck where you are while we operate on Sydney." She jerks her chin at Michael, her expression grim.

"Would you at least explain what it is you're doing?" Wes asks. Again, it's the tone. He's acting like he's in front of a class. Like he's teaching. "Are you killing her?"

"We're not killing her," Everly says tersely. "We're just rewiring her brain. The less she knows about what happens at Madrona, the better."

"And Clayton?" Wes asks. "Where is he?"

"He's in the other lab recovering," Everly says through grinding teeth, her impatience coming through.

"Did you kill him?"

Michael snorts. "Define kill."

"I saw you shoot him."

"Because he escaped from the lab."

Everly sighs, despondent. "Wes, seriously. Either help with the surgery or get the fuck out of here. You're distracting me."

"So you're using the mycelia to rewrite Sydney's brain. Then what? The students will know she's not the same. She won't remember them."

"Well, maybe we can put her back to a couple of days ago," Everly muses. "Then she'll still know them, and she won't remember the last few weeks. Anyway, your students are a bunch of idiots. Honestly, they could all use some rewiring."

I don't know if it's my super mycelia hearing, but I swear I hear Munawar in the distance yelling, "Idiots!?"

And from the way Everly and Michael snap to attention, I think they hear it too.

"What was that?" I hear David ask.

"What was that?" Wes repeats. "Oh. That? Sorry, I should have disclosed this. You see, once I woke up on the boat, I took Mithrandir back to the dock. Then instead of coming right here, I grabbed my phone, my iPad, and came straight to the main lodge, where I proceeded to wake up every single student and got a hold of Janet and Gabriel."

Hope rises inside me, tries to bloom.

"I gave one of them an iPad just in case we were separated. Enabled Bluetooth. I kept my phone on me. I led them down here. Made sure the phone was recording before I put it in my pocket. So while you've been blabbing away, they've been hearing everything you've been saying. They're all in the stairwell right now. They insisted on being witnesses, just in case you did something else stupid."

I can hear him grin as he adds, "You can't kill them all."

And that's when somehow, I find the strength to turn my head.

I look toward the door and see Wes standing there, his nose bloodied and bruised where I kicked him in the face, but he's smiling at me. His eyes hold mine, telling me I'm going to be okay.

Telling me to trust him.

I manage to nod.

I trust you.

Then everything turns black.