Altered

by Jennifer Rush

  “I don’t know what happened to her,” Sam said. “But sometimes I have flashes of a girl.”

  I looked over at him. He’d never told me that.

  “I don’t see a face,” he went on, “but maybe it’s her?”

  If he’d done everything in his power to find this girl five years ago—tattooed himself, scarred himself, gone up against the Branch—what would he do now?

  He’d made me a promise that he would always have my back, but when it came down to choosing between Dani and me, who would he choose? If it meant sacrificing one of us to protect the group, I wasn’t sure which side he’d pick.

  Sura clasped her hands together. “They really cleaned you out, didn’t they? Tell me what you do remember.”

  Nick grunted. “Try fucking none of it.”

  Her gaze swept to Nick. “Well, Nicholas, I can see not much has changed with you. All brass and balls.”

  Cas choked on a laugh, and Nick gave him a hostile look.

  “We woke up in a lab five years ago,” Sam explained. “We have only vague memory flashes of our lives before that.”

  Sura nodded, like that made sense now that she knew the facts. “All right. So let’s start over. Tell me about your escape. I’m vaguely familiar with him”—she pointed at Trev, then turned her attention on me—“but I don’t know this young lady.”

  Sam tensed. I tensed. Everyone tensed. “You don’t recognize her?”

  Sura deepened the V of her brow. “Should I?”

  Trev fidgeted in the doorway. Nick cracked a knuckle. I wasn’t sure what they’d expected, but sixteen years had passed since my mother last saw me. I’d changed a lot in that time. Couldn’t they give her a second before they jumped to conclusions?

  Sura examined me. Dad had told me I had her eyes, but now I wasn’t so sure. Hers were dark green, and mine were hazel. She’d been too far away in the picture I had of her for me to see before that the comparison wasn’t right.

  “This is Anna,” Sam said.

  “Anna,” she repeated, like she was trying out my name, like it felt familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. “Well, Anna, it’s nice to meet you.”

  I stared at her, the greeting saying all there was to say. And the longer I stared at her, the blurrier she became, as my vision clouded with tears.

  “Sura, Anna is your daughter,” Sam said. But even he didn’t sound convinced.

  A ringing noise filled my head as she looked at me, really looked at me, the fine lines around her eyes deepening. “What exactly did they tell you?”

  “You don’t recognize her?”

  She sighed when she turned back to me. “Honey, I’ve never been pregnant.”

  The weight of so many days of fear and uncertainty abruptly overcame me. The ringing grew louder, and a choked sob escaped me. I leapt from the couch. The dog lifted his head, jangling the tags on his collar. I hurried through the kitchen. The dog barked behind me. I burst outside, the wind too cold now as tears streamed down my face.

  “Anna!” Sam’s footfalls pounded the ground behind me as I ran, unsure of where I was going—anywhere was fine, as long as it was far from here. All those years I’d wished I’d known my mother, and now here she was, and I wasn’t her daughter?

  “Anna, stop!”

  Brittle ferns whipped against my knees. A branch snagged my hair. I lost my momentum and Sam caught up, spinning me around.

  “She doesn’t know me!” I screamed, pushing him away, because I didn’t want him to see me fall apart, and because I couldn’t stand still for one second longer.

  “We have to find out why,” he said. “Stop!”

  I buried my face in the crook of his neck. He smelled like Ivory soap and clean, crisp air. He smelled like home.

  I just wanted to go back, even if none of it was real. I missed the predictability of everything. At home I knew what to expect, and Sam would always be there and I would always be Anna with a mother who was dead and a dad who spent every waking minute working.

  That was my life. It might not have been much, or even true, but it was mine.

  We stood there in the middle of the woods as Sam let me cry. He held me tightly, like he was afraid that, given the opportunity, I’d run again. And maybe I would have. Maybe I would have run as far as my legs would have taken me.

  “She’s not my mother,” I said finally, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Speaking the words aloud made them seem truer. Maybe deep down I’d known this was a possibility—ever since I’d found that sticky note, her handwriting there in the present, matching the handwriting in the journal from the past. Maybe I’d known since then.

  My dad might have lied about a lot of things, but lying to me about whether Sura was my mother seemed too devious even for him. So why did he do it? What purpose would it serve?

  “If she isn’t my mother, then who is?”

  A gust of wind shook the trees. “I don’t know,” Sam said. “But I promise you, we’ll find out.”

  25

  GROWING UP, I’D DESPERATELY WANTED to know my mother. It was probably why I drew her so often, as if my pencil would somehow fill in the blanks. And now here she was in front of me, and she wasn’t even mine to know. That hurt worse than anything. I thought I’d been given a second chance, only to have it snatched away.

  Trev handed me a mug of instant coffee. Sura got one to match. Sam sat next to me, so close we touched. He’d already made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “We’ll be out in the garage,” Trev said, “tending to the generator.”

  I caught Sam’s half nod out of the corner of my eye. He’d dismissed Cas and Nick earlier with some discreet gesture I missed. To give me as much privacy as possible.

  When I came back inside, I’d wanted to retreat to my bedroom and curl into a ball and mentally dissect everything I thought I knew about myself. Memories of my father, the things he’d said about my mother. I wanted to flip through her journal, looking for clues that I might have missed before. It was Sam who insisted I sit down with Sura.

  Flames crackled in the fireplace and the chill in my hands dissipated.

  “Why don’t you tell me about Arthur?” Sura said. “About you.”

  “Um…” I licked my lips, brought the coffee mug down to chest height. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Maybe I should start with me?” she offered. “About me and Arthur?”

  “He told me you died when I was one, but obviously that isn’t true.”

  She shook her head and tucked her feet up into the chair. “We divorced thirteen years ago.”

  I frowned. “But that would have made me four at the time. Did he… um… you know…”

  “Have an affair?” she filled in. “Not that I’m aware of, but I guess it’s possible. We were two different people by the time we divorced. Arthur had always been more focused on his career than anything else.”

  So who was my mother? Where the hell did I come from? More questions. Fewer answers. I needed to talk to my dad.

  “Did you ever work for the Branch?” Sam asked.

  “Yes. By accident. I found myself fresh out of college with a journalism degree and no available job openings. Arthur got me into the Branch.”

  I thought of her journal and said, “Oh, I have something of yours.” I picked the book up off the table beside the couch and handed it to her.

  She raised her brows. “Is this the one with all the cookie recipes in back?”

  “Yeah. I’ve tried them all.”

  She flipped through the pages. “Wow. I wondered where this thing had gone. A lot of angst and soul-searching in here, but the recipes are good. Most of them I got from my mother. She knew cuisine like no one else.”

  Hearing her talk about her own mother filled me with despair. “You can have it,” I said, gesturing to the book.

  “Oh, no.” She gave it back. “It’s yours now. I see you added to it. Besides, I’ve since started a new one.”

  Secretly, I wa
s relieved. Maybe the journal no longer had the same meaning it once did, but it still reminded me of home, and I didn’t want to part with it.

  “So, tell me about Arthur. How is he?”

  Sam and I exchanged a glance. Bringing up the fact that he’d shot Dad didn’t seem like a great way to start the conversation. “He’s good. Like you said, he works a lot.” I picked at the corner of the journal. “What did you do in the Branch?”

  “I worked in the med department. Before I left, they were experimenting with mind manipulation. They’d already perfected the memory wipes, clearly.”

  “Is the Branch a wing of the government?” Sam asked. He looked calm, his hands casually clasped in the space between his knees, but his body was tense. And when he readjusted, I noticed that his shirt was tucked in in the back, giving him quick, easy access to the gun there.

  Sura set her mug on the table. “No, but they’re largely funded by it, and there’s a mutual agreement between them. They let the Branch do whatever they want, and whatever they develop, the government gets first dibs.”

  “Like the boys?” The thought made me ill.

  “Yes.” Sura looked right at Sam. “You boys were designed to be soldiers of the highest caliber. But when you start making men stronger and smarter than men should be, it’s hard to control them. I’m assuming that’s why they locked you up. That, and the fact that you stole something from them that pissed Connor off.”

  Sam edged forward. “But what?”

  She shrugged. “I was out of the Branch by then. I don’t know the particulars. And you were never the sharing type.”

  That was true even now.

  “Did I give you any other information?” Sam asked. “A code word? A clue about my tattoo?”

  She shook her head. “I was only supposed to stand by as a safe contact, to fill in some of the blanks if they wiped your memory.”

  A pause, then Sam said, “Were they working on something new when I stole whatever it was I stole? Further alterations? A different drug?”

  “I really don’t know, but”—she untucked her legs—“I did hear they were moving a lot of money around. I had contacts—still do—within the Branch.”

  “People you trust?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  The dog rolled over onto his side and let out a snuffle. The fire crackled in the hearth. Sura twisted toward me, her thick braid swinging off her shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I know it must be hard to trust anyone right now, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

  I offered a smile. “Thanks.”

  “It’s getting late.” Sam stood. “You can stay here, if you want. There’s a bedroom upstairs you can have.”

  “Thank you.” She snapped her fingers and the dog climbed to his feet. “Which room?”

  Sam started to answer, but I beat him to it. “I’ll show you,” I said. He gave me a guarded look. In response, I nodded, as if to say I’ll be fine.

  Upstairs, I led Sura and her dog to the first room on the left, one of three bedrooms on that level. The second one was all mine. The third, the boys shared. They never slept at the same time, anyway, so sleeping arrangements weren’t a problem.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” I asked as I pulled an extra pillow out of the closet.

  “Coby.” Sura went to the windows and gazed out. “The boys treating you okay?”

  I paused halfway between the closet and the bed. “Yeah. I mean, Nick and I don’t get along all the time, but that’s pretty typical.”

  Sura took the pillow I offered her and fluffed it. “Give him time. Maybe he’ll come around.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well, he’s had a hard life, that boy. Been broken as long as I’ve known him. So don’t take it personally.”

  I went back in the closet and rummaged around inside, pulling out two blankets. “What do you mean?”

  Despite the fact that Nick and I didn’t get along, I was intensely curious about him; I wanted to understand him, to figure him out.

  “The whole reason Nick got involved with the Branch,” Sura explained, “was because he left home at the age of sixteen and had nothing to lose. His mother left him with his father when he was two. His father was an alcoholic. He beat Nick every chance he got.”

  The blankets suddenly felt too heavy in my arms. Was that what he’d had flashes about? His abusive father? I sat on the edge of the bed as the horror of Nick’s history settled in. I’d had no idea.

  “Nick is the way he is because he grew up that way,” Sura added, “and no amount of memory wiping could change that.”

  The things he’d said to me in the cemetery made more sense now: I might not remember who I was before all this, but I can bet it wasn’t all sunshine and fucking roses. Maybe a part of him had always known that keeping the memories buried was better than digging them up.

  “What about Sam?”

  Sura came around and took one of the blankets off my hands. “How did he enter? His mother gave him up. The Branch took him in.”

  “They’re allowed to do that?”

  “They get away with a lot worse.”

  I moved so she could make the bed. “If you know about the boys’ lives before the memory wipes, why aren’t you telling them now?”

  The corners of her mouth curved into a wry smile. “I just got here an hour ago. This is Sam we’re talking about. He’s wary of everything. Sam only trusts himself, and anything I said would have to be taken with a grain of salt.”

  I nodded. She was right, of course.

  I helped spread the second blanket over the top of the thinner cotton one. They both smelled like a musty closet, but she’d need them in the early-morning cold.

  “Well, I guess I’ll let you get some rest.”

  She inclined her head as I started for the door. “Anna?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You seem like a strong-minded young woman. You’re very beautiful, too. I would have been proud to call you my daughter.”

  That’s all it took. My vision went hazy, and I had to clamp my jaw to stop my lips from trembling. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I still wanted to hold on to the belief that she was my mother. I didn’t want to let her go.

  “Thank you,” I said and closed the door behind me.

  26

  LATER, IN MY ROOM, I KICKED OFF my shoes and lay back on the bed. After the radiating heat of the fire in the living room, the cold air of the bedroom raised gooseflesh on my arms. I tugged the blanket over my shoulders and took a second to listen to the natural sounds of the house—the creak of floorboards downstairs, the scuffling of dry leaves outside.

  In one day I’d learned so much. My mother was not my mother. Sam had been in love. And I now saw Nick in a whole new light. I was having a hard time finding a place for the new information in my already jumbled head.

  I closed my eyes, thinking I’d spend a minute warming up, but before I knew it I was out. I woke in the middle of the night, the blanket askew, my feet exposed to the cold air. The first thought to come to me was that I needed to sneak down to the lab to see Sam. It took me a moment to get my bearings, to remember that I wasn’t at home and that I didn’t have to go down to the basement to see him.

  I planted my feet on the floor, the old habit ingrained in my body, every nerve, bone, and cell telling me to go. As I descended the stairs, the amber glow of the fire flickered through the banister, casting spindly shadows on the wall. Outside, tree branches scraped and tangled with one another, while the house itself had settled into that eerie nighttime silence when everything stood still.

  I found Sam lying on the couch on his stomach, eyes closed, hands buried beneath a pillow. I realized with a hazy sort of wonder that I’d never seen him asleep before, except when it was induced by gas. If I had, I would have been mesmerized by how ordinary and peaceful he looked. When he was awake, he was anything but ordinary.

  I got within a few feet of the couch an
d stopped, training my eyes on the rise and fall of his shoulders, assuring myself that he was still breathing. Assuring myself that nothing had changed in the hours since I last saw him.

  I’d just started for the chair, thinking I’d warm myself by the fire for a few minutes, when Sam leapt from the couch, pushed me into the wall, and thrust a gun in my face.

  I gasped and said, “Sam. It’s me.”

  “Anna.” He relaxed his hold.

  “I’m sorry,” I managed to say.

  He shook his head. “No, I shouldn’t have—”

  “I snuck up on you. I know better.”

  He set the gun on the table to my right. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He took my face in his hands, and my skin tingled.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  In the muted light, his muddy green eyes seemed bewildered, lost. Like he’d seen a ghost. He took a step back.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  A sigh forced its way past his lips. “The longer I’m outside the lab, the worse I feel.”

  “Is it the memory flashes?” He didn’t answer, which clearly meant yes. I hated myself for asking what I was about to ask, but I couldn’t stop the question from sprinting past my lips: “Are they about Dani?”

  He looked away. “I failed her.”

  An overwhelming sense of possession washed over me until I felt like I’d been crushed. I wanted him to be mine, not someone else’s. What did this girl have that I didn’t? Could she reach across the years and steal Sam back?

  And had he ever been mine to begin with? I hadn’t thought Sam capable of love, at least not in the unreserved way every girl wants, but maybe the old Sam had been. Maybe the old Sam bought roses and wrote sappy poetry and held hands with the girl he loved. He’d only learned about Dani a few hours ago, and already he remembered pieces of her. If he was on his way to reclaiming who he was, it was only a matter of time before I lost him for good.

  I pulled away. He stopped me with a hand on my wrist. “Wait,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking.”