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Despite everything, I sleep. Despite Aislin’s hand thrown across my face. Despite the strangely detailed memories of dropping my pajamas to the floor while Solo is at eye level with my unsexy panties.
The sense memory, the shiver that comes with it, of Solo running careful fingers down my inner thigh.
Despite all of that, I sleep. I dream of a hospital. But not the one here at Spiker. Or the emergency room.
It’s a hospital room far back in my past.
I see my mother. I see my dad.
I dream of my father sometimes, never of my mother.
But in this dream, they’re together, whispering. My mother is holding a syringe. My father nods his approval. They are both crying.
I wake up to a blast of very bad breath from Aislin. She smells of puke. I hope she made it to the bathroom. I stagger up and find the toilet bowl full. Well, better than the bed.
My bandage is flapping loosely. I either have to cut it all the way off, or try to conceal my guilty knowledge until my next scheduled bandage-change.
It hits me then, what should have hit me earlier: They’re all in on it. The doctors, the nurses. They know the injury’s gone.
They’re all in on it. All playing a game, hiding the truth from me.
It’s why my mother was in such a hurry to get me out of the hospital and safely to Spiker. My secret would have been out within a day. And what would have happened to my mother if it had come out that she’d broken the law? Many laws?
It’s dark in the room but the clock shows 8:42 A.M. I would normally be up by now. I’m buzzy from lack of sleep, and my head is full of pictures and words. Aislin’s bloody face. The dream memory of a long-ago hospital room. Solo’s words: You’re a mod. You’re genetically modified. The unreal sensation of my fingertips on the place where terrible damage should be.
Despite this, what I remember most is Solo kneeling on the bathroom floor.
I head for the bathroom. Aislin snores softly.
I grab the scissors Solo used to cut off my leg bandage. Awkwardly, I slit the bandages on my right arm and hand.
I bend my crushed fingers, wave my mangled hand, flex my broken elbow.
It’s as if nothing ever happened.
You’re genetically modified.
Don’t think about it.
I take a hot, hot shower. I can’t believe how good it feels. Standing upright in the stinging spray is a gift. Shampooing my hair with both hands is bliss.
I towel off, change into fresh clothes, actual jeans with two legs. Then I reach—with my right hand, no less—for my sketchbook and pencil.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
I open to the unfinished sketch I’d been working on for Life Drawing.
The pencil feels smooth and certain between my fingers. The whispered resistance of point on paper is music.
I make a few random lines, just to get the rhythm right.
Don’t think about it.
I study my drawing. It still sucks.
It needs something. Energy, spark, soul.
