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“You can always adopt,” the doctor says. He begins describing some new process that involves a donor egg and an implanted embryo. Except in 1939, everything he’s saying will sound like science fiction.

I know Henri would never complain. But it’s one more way I’m returning to him damaged. When I left, I could give him a family and now I can’t. When I left, I was optimistic, hopeful, a little naïve, but now I’ve seen too many things. People have died because of me.

I wonder if he’ll feel the same when he learns.

* * *

That afternoon I’m taken by wheelchair to a gym just down the hall. My therapist’s name is Guy. I force myself to smile as we are introduced, but there’s a piece of me that feels unsettled, something I don’t quite understand.

“You rich Americans are keeping us in business,” he says, nodding behind him at a man using a walker to cross the room. “Rob,” he calls over his shoulder, “come meet our new guest.”

My jaw drops. The American to whom he referred is Rob Chapman, a singer whose poster still probably hangs beside my bed back home. He’s even better looking in real life than I realized, but there it is again—that slightly unsettled feeling—as he hobbles over to us.

I glance over my shoulder, unnerved to be in such a large, open room. No one has threatened me, but I don’t feel safe here.

“You’re the other American, huh?” he asks. “The girl who fell off a building—that’s you—and the guy whose motorcycle hit a brick wall—that’s me. The two of us are giving our countrymen a bad name, but it will make a nice story for our grandchildren.”

I smile, but it’s rusty and uncertain. What I really want to do is roll back to my room and lock the door. “I’m engaged, but feel free to tell your grandchildren.”

“Engaged?” he asks. He gives me his most charming smile. “How engaged exactly?”

I’ve spent so long looking over my shoulder that I can’t seem to stop. He’s flirting but I only perceive a threat, and I want Henri. I want to be home. I swallow. “Very engaged,” I reply. “Excuse me.”

I try to maneuver the chair but I can’t get away. “Hey, hang on there,” says Guy. “We haven’t even worked out yet.”

I can’t breathe. He’s holding my chair and I’m not sure what will happen if I try to walk. Even in captivity, I don’t think I ever felt quite this powerless, which is illogical. But that familiar rage pulses in my chest, and if I had a knife I’d make him very sorry. “Let go of my chair!” I snap. “Let go of the fucking chair!”

His eyes widen and he steps backward, holding both hands up as if surrendering.

I suck in air, feel the pinch of tears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I…just got out of a really bad place.”

Rob gives me a tiny, tense nod. “Is there someone I can call for you?” he asks gently. “Your boyfriend? Who will make you feel safe right now?”

I try to control my breathing. Henri, I think, but he’s not here. “Cecelia,” I whisper. “Or one of her bodyguards.”

In under a minute, Philippe stands in the room, with his stern, impassive, wonderfully familiar face. “I’m here, Mademoiselle Durand,” he says calmly. “No one will get near you without your permission.”

After a moment, I’m collected enough to begin. Guy treats me as if I might shatter at any moment, and I realize he might be right, when suddenly Cecelia rushes through the doors looking frantic.

She comes to where I stand, supporting my weight on parallel bars, and her hand goes to my face. “You never told me how bad it was,” she says. Her eyes fill. “But it must have been quite bad.”

I nod, and tears begin to run down my face. “Yes,” I finally reply. My head falls to her shoulder. “It was.”

She takes me back to my room and sits with me, distressed about what happened in the gym. I’m distressed too, but for other reasons. Something is wrong with me. I’ve got so much fear, and anger, I don’t even know what to do with myself. Yet I suffered so much less than Katrin did...I wonder how she managed.

“You told me Katrin escaped successfully and got home,” I say. That knot in my gut tightens. “But was she…okay?”

Cecelia’s eyes focus on my hand, still in her grip. “She never quite recovered, it seems. She stayed alive for her son, nothing more.”

I hesitate. In the back of my mind, I’ve hoped that perhaps I’m descended from other children Katrin had later on. “She only had the one child?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“Yes,” she says gently. “His name was Alexander.”

Which means Coron is my grandfather, a quarter of my DNA. The man responsible for Henri’s mother’s death. The reason he had to leave Oxford and give up his entire life.

She squeezes my hand. “I know what you’re thinking right now, but don’t,” she says. “Your genetics only tell a small part of your story.”

Except I’m seeing what’s inside me and that rage, that cruelty...it’s not small. I thought, once I escaped captivity, that I could leave that rage behind, but it’s as if Coron and Iris are still inside me somewhere, begging to be set free. I wanted to kill that therapist today. The desire pulsed in my chest, so overwhelming it was all I could feel until the dust settled. I need to know why. I need to know how it could have happened, and why my family has lied about it my entire life.