My finger twitched.
I clenched my jaw. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and across my scalp.
My hand moved.
The rest of my body remained absolutely still.
“That’s the one. That’s a good one.” Dr. Stanstopolis said, her eyes still glued to the monitor screen, tracking with Dr. Adamson.
They didn’t see me slip my hand free of the rope at my waist. They didn’t see my arm slowly lift. They didn’t see me reach for the switch with the single button.
I had the button in my hand. My thumb rested on top of it.
My final act, my final gift to whatever little human beings Vasterias would have created with my eggs, if they’d gotten the chance. My final gift to the world—to stop Vasterias from spreading the science. My final gift to myself—saying no to them and yes to me.
My final message: I decided, not you.
I pressed on the button and didn’t lift up.
The yellow liquid flowed.
89
SAGE
The chill of the serum poured into my veins.
My body responded instantaneously, my arm seizing up, wanting to reject the fluid.
“She’s waking up. Administer more anesthesia,” Dr. Adamson said, looking up from the screen, glancing over at my body.
Dr. Stanstopolis jumped from her chair and ran to the IV stand.
The fluid flowed through me, my body trembling.
“Hold her steady!” Dr. Adamson ordered. “More anesthesia! Get it into her!”
Dr. Stanstopolis gripped the IV stand. Dismay rolled across her face.
“She injected herself. The serum bag is empty.”
She ran back toward the computer screen, her voice rising.
“She’ll start convulsing. Have you got them?” Her hands took hold of either side of the monitor, her voice growing to near hysteria. “Have you got them?!”
A spasm shot through me; my body jumped once on the table.
Dr. Adamson shouted in horror. “Keep her down! I need to get the needle out!”
My body erupted into movement. I had no ability to stop it. I felt myself writhing on the bed, my back arching, Dr. Stanstopolis attempting to hold me down.
I could not feel my limbs. I only felt the ice. The cold moved through me, so intense it burned.
“Do not lose the samples!” Dr. Stanstopolis cried.
The ice gave way to something more—a stinging, itching sensation that began at the center of my body and radiated outward, until it felt like a thousand insects bit the whole of my skin. I screamed in pain, in terror at what I’d done to myself, on the decision I’d made. The gag in my mouth muffled the noise.
“It’s out!” Dr. Adamson shouted.
“Did you get them? Did you get the eggs?”
“I don’t know! But we’ve got to get out of here before she changes. She’ll tear apart her restraints.”
Dr. Adamson placed something carefully into a briefcase and slammed the lid shut. “Let’s go,” he said.
Dr. Stanstopolis snatched up items, shoving them into bags.
“We have to leave, now!” he cried.
My free arm flailed, scratching at my body, scratching away the pain.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard feet running across the floor, the wheels of a monitor rolling with them.
A door slammed shut, and I knew they’d left me to suffer alone.
90
SAGE
The itching went on forever, inside my body, outside my body, all over every inch of skin and tissue and muscle I had.
I wanted to scratch away my stomach, my heart, my intestines, my bones, my arms, my legs. Did I feel blood on my skin? Had I done it to myself?
I tried to lift my head. My vision tilted and blurred.
And then, it really began.
I would have taken the scratching for a million years not to endure the pain that came next.
I was being pulled in half.
A force outside of me—a giant, horrible machine—clamped onto me and pulled my skin, and my bones, and my cells in opposite directions. Something cranked my limbs apart. I was getting torn into chunks, my arms and legs pulled from my torso, my core ripping into pieces, cracking, splitting, expanding. The strap around my waist snapped. The gag around my mouth and head tore slowly, until it popped apart and dropped away from my face.
The pain was relentless, unending, unyielding.
People at a small country church back home talked about burning in some hell for eternity if you weren’t “right” with God.
I hadn’t believed it … no pure, good, loving God would do such a thing to anyone.
But now, I was already there. I’d made a choice—an idiotic choice—and now I was in an eternal, burning hell on earth.
Somewhere, deep in my subconscious, beyond the torture, I knew only this: my body was morphing.
91
BECKETT
Thirty minutes from the café, I started to get cold.
Really, really cold.
It felt as if the temperature of the wind blowing at my body on my motorcycle had dropped twenty degrees.
Twenty-five minutes from the café, my skin started to itch. Annoying little bug bites on my arms and legs. What was happening?
Fifteen minutes from the café, the itching subsided, and my joints started to ache. A deep, throbbing sensation.
Two minutes from the café, and my muscles ached so much, I was afraid Jack would have to carry me off the bicycle. My joints screamed in pain.
We pulled up to the café, and Jack jerked his bike into a no-parking zone.
He didn’t look back at me before running through the coffee shop door.
I clung to the motorcycle handles, knowing if I let go, I’d fall off my bike, curl into a fetal position on the sidewalk, and start screaming at the top of my lungs.
On the seat in front of me, Ollie whimpered.
Jack emerged seconds later, jaw tight. “She’s not here. Hotel.”
When I didn’t climb off the bike to follow him on foot, he noticed I was off. “What is it?”
“I don’t know!” I contained a scream. I gripped the handles so hard my knuckles turned white. I couldn’t move. “Just go!”
I didn’t need to tell him twice. He ran off down the road, no doubt breaking an Olympic track record. At the end of the block, he sprinted up the hotel steps, and his body disappeared from view.
I wished I could be with him. I wished I could be there to help him find her. I should be there.
And then … it stopped.
The pain subsided, and I was left gasping for breath.
92
SAGE
I was stretched to the ends of the planet—no, to the ends of the universe.
The pain subsided, leaving me behind in its wake.
I panted on the bed.
All that was left of me was an aching lump of tissue.
But …
I could think. I wasn’t brain dead. I knew who I was. I could process that.
Sage Sallisaw.
And … I knew what had happened to me. The serum. Dr. Adamson. Dr. Stanstopolis.
And I knew where I was. The hotel room.
My eyes shot open.
I could see, like normal. I could hear my own body breathing.
I rolled from the bed, ignoring the outcry from all four of my limbs.
I’m me, still me!
I knocked into the bedside lamp, and it crashed to the ground as I staggered toward the bathroom mirror. Oops.
Silverware clattered to the hardwood when my arm swiped the service tray on the breakfast table as I stumbled by. I felt clumsy, but my body had just fought off something so intense, so unbelievable, that I couldn’t be anything but grateful.
I shuffled awkwardly toward the bathroom, the room feeling small, my body feeling heavy, not myself. My steps, this walking, they did not feel normal—not like I remembered.
I pushed through the
narrow bathroom doorway and caught the edge of the countertop to keep myself from teetering over.
I rested my hands on either side of the sink and looked into the mirror.
I screamed at what I saw.
93
JACK
I took the stairwell steps five at a time.
I’d made it through three flights and was almost to the fourth flight of stairs when I heard the scream.
I knew that tormented sound all too well.
I’d heard it many times before: on the island, in the west wing, in the modwrog hall.
I also recognized some small part of the voice. Sage, but not Sage.
A blanket of dread draped over my body. My heart rate plummeted, along with the blood in my head.
My thoughts froze in time, even as my legs increased their movement, and my sprint up the stairs doubled in speed.
It couldn’t be.
Not this.
Not her.
I’d already lost Caesar, my best friend. I couldn’t do death all over again.
Please, God, not her. I beg you.
I had to see it with my eyes. I refused to believe it was true until I saw her with my own eyes.
94
SAGE
This could not be my face.
My face—my old face—had been swallowed up by something unrecognizable. The width of my jawbone matched the size of a giant banana. The skin on my forehead stretched over an unending expanse on bone that led to my skull. My lips … swollen. My skin … pale green, bumpy, blistered. My hair … limp, the luster gone. My toes—which had shoved their way out of the ends of my tennis shoes—proved that the serum had left no part of me untouched.
I wasn’t cognitively damaged; I could see everything about the bathroom, crystal clear.
I’d grown taller. The sinks set lower in proportion to my body. I took up the entire expanse of the mirror, from top to bottom, side to side.
I reached up and felt the skin on my cheek. Leathery, raw.
My hand shook.
I was changed, but my mind was still here. I was coherent but trapped inside this.
What had I done? I would die like this. People would watch me die like this.
I screamed again—an agonized, unnatural cry.
At the same moment, Jack appeared in the doorway.
I spun from the mirror.
Beneath the terror at my changed body, I felt relief at seeing someone I knew.
Someone who would help me make it through this nightmare. Who would endure it with me, help me.
Jack held a gun, his arm relaxed at his side. He’d been expecting to see his dad, no doubt. His gun was out because he knew he had to be ready for a confrontation.
A growl escaped my throat at the thought of Dr. Adamson.
Jack remained motionless in the doorway.
He watched me.
I watched him back, waiting for the shock to subside for him, knowing this had to be hard for him to see.
What was the right thing to say? I had to explain why I did it, that I had to do it. Jack, of all people, would understand that.
He just had to get over the shock …. I’d be patient. I’d wait for that.
He clenched his jaw, looked away, and blinked several times, like he might be pushing away tears. It reminded me of the way I must have looked with Finn, that first time I saw him as a modwrog.
From across the expanse of bathroom between us, I started to reach my hand out toward Jack—to help, to offer support, to do … I don’t know what.
We’d make it through this moment together.
But Jack’s face went hard, all emotion wiped away.
He raised his gun and aimed it at my chest.
95
JACK
I believe that sometimes in life, our entire existence boils down to a single moment, one single decision.
This was that moment for me.
All my past and all my future rested on top of the bullet I aimed at Sage.
Afterward, everything would be wiped out, and my life would collapse around me. In the moment I pulled the trigger and the bullet impacted her heart, I would lose the girl who had saved me from myself. I would have conquered my worst fear and emptied my soul, all at once.
My life would end, too, with hers.
Why hadn’t my finger pulled the trigger yet? I knew that if I didn’t, Vasterias would come back for her, and she’d waste away at the hands of the Corporation. They would test her, get every last bit out of her until she died.
If we hid her somewhere, we would watch her suffer until she died. Like someone in a hospital. Brain dead, on a ventilator, but yet consciously in pain. Just like she’d said.
Do it, Jack.
Do it.
I am Jack Adamson. I do the things that have to be done. This is what I’ve been best at my entire life: doing the thing that no one else has the strength to do. This is what I pride myself on.
And now, here I was … in a moment I didn’t want to face, with the weight of a promise I’d made to the only girl I’d ever loved.
She stared at me.
And I stared back. At the girl who had been my beginning and who would be my end.
96
SAGE
Jack’s aim on me did not falter.
I’d asked for this.
Just yesterday, I told Jack to kill me if I ever went mod.
What had I been thinking? Because right now, I’m staring at Jack’s eyes—so full of shock and pain and determination—and I’m not ready to go yet. I need to say things to him. I have so much to say. Yes, I know I’ll start deteriorating within the next few weeks. I’ll begin to wither away in pain, and maybe at that point, I’ll be begging Jack to do it. But right here, right now? Not without wrapping things up. Not without a resolution. Not without the choice being mine, my own decision, within my own control.
It’s one thing to talk about death. Or to press a button on my own free will. It’s another thing to be staring a bullet straight in the face, with my life in the hands of someone else.
And this modwrog thing was different than I thought it’d be. I was me. I remembered everything. I was who I was before—aside from the body.
Jack just needed to know that. He just needed to hear that, and everything would be okay.
I opened my mouth to tell him.
Jack, it’s me. It’s going to be okay. Put the gun down. I’m not crazy. I won’t hurt you. I recognize you. It’s just my body, it’s all wrong. I … mutated.
I wanted to say all of that. But my lips and tongue didn’t produce words. Instead, my voice let out some blubbering, groaning, wailing noise.
My action solidified something in Jack’s face, strengthening his resolve. He leveled his chin and squared the gun.
No, wait! You don’t understand! I’m trying to talk to you, don’t you see? I’m not lost in here! I’m trying to talk to you!
The terrifying howling noise continued to burst from my mouth with every word I attempted to say. I swung my arm in exasperation, knocking over the ceramic soap pump next to the sink. It toppled to the floor, breaking into pieces. Anger shot through me at my inability to speak, at Jack’s ignorance, his unwillingness to lower the gun.
Can’t you see it’s me!
A door slammed, and footsteps ran across the hotel room.
Jack spoke without turning, without lowering his gun. “Don’t come in here, Beck. You don’t want to see.”
If I’d been angry before, Jack’s comment sent me over the edge into an inconceivable pit of rage.
You don’t want him to see? See what? My ugly face? The horror of my skin? Yeah, Beckett, don’t look at the deformed, hideous human in the bathroom. Don’t bother coming in; I’m about to shoot her anyway.
I growled at Jack.
Go on, then! You’re gonna shoot me? Do it! Do it, you idiot, get it over with!
Somehow, the silver bathroom towels ended up balled in my hands, and the towel rack had ripped
from the wall.
A voice screamed, “Stop! Don’t shoot her!”
I spun from the hole in the wall where the towel rack had been and saw Beckett diving toward me.
Jack would shoot him, instead of me, by accident, I knew it.
I heard the excruciating noise. The sound of gunfire.
For one awful second, I believed a bullet hit Beckett. I waited for the echo of the gunshot to stop, waited to see Beckett drop to the floor in a heap. But Beckett didn’t crumple, and the ringing didn’t stop … and then, I realized the sound of gunfire was only a horrible noise emanating from my throat.
Jack hadn’t shot, and Beckett had placed himself between me and the gun. If Beckett felt threatened by me, it must not have mattered because his back faced me.
“What are you doing?!” Beckett yelled at Jack. “Put the gun down!”
Exactly what I’ve been trying to say! I growled.
“I do what has to be done,” Jack said evenly. “Get out of the way, Beckett.”
“Jack, put the gun down. It’s Sage, not some monster.”
“All modwrogs are monsters.”
“Just because you’ve met a few doesn’t mean she’s like them. You don’t even know! Maybe she can understand us.”
Yes! I can understand you!
“And that’s why she just tore the wall apart in a fit of anger?”
“We don’t know!” Beckett shouted. “She hasn’t attacked us yet!”
Jack clenched his jaw.
“Move out of the way, Beckett.”
“Jack!” Beckett was desperate. “Jack, look at the dog. Look at Ollie. Why isn’t he barking at her? He knows something we don’t.”
It was true, Ollie sat just outside the bathroom, near Jack’s feet, watching me, whining.
Ollie! My heart jumped, and a sharp wail escaped my mouth.
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