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“You seek comfort in others.” Garin lowered her head to cough, then looked up again. “Always remember—you have only yourself.”
Meed heard footsteps from far down the corridor. Maybe the camera glitch hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. Garin waved her hand.
“Go,” she said. “Disappear. I’ll make sure my prints are on everything.” A wet rattle rose from her throat. “There’s nothing they can do to me now.”
As Meed handed the file back to the matron, a small card fell to the floor. She picked it up. It was a torn sheet with two words printed in pen. Meed stared at the paper and then looked up at Garin. The matron nodded.
“That’s your name,” she said. “Your true name. That is who you really are.”
CHAPTER 21
AFTER MEED WAS safely away, Garin slipped out of the building through a secret exit, one not even security knew about. She found the well-worn path that led west, away from the school. She had made this same walk many times before over the past five decades—as a student, as a teacher, as a supervisor. But never at 3 a.m. And never alone. She kept her scarf wrapped around her face to muffle the sound of her coughs. Behind her was the glow of lights on the school walls. Ahead, there was only darkness.
The path wound through fir trees until it reached the edge of the lake, flat and frozen. Snowy mountain peaks rose in the distance. Lyudmila took a few tentative steps onto the ice and extended her arms out to her sides for balance, like a tightrope walker. She was so slight that, from a distance, she might have been mistaken for a young girl. But nobody was looking. In a few minutes, she reached the large hole in the ice, its surface lightly crusted over.
Lyudmila looked up at the stars one last time, then closed her eyes. A Rachmaninoff concerto swirled in her head. Her fingers twitched as if touching piano keys. She took one final step forward and dropped through the hole. The dark water closed over her. Compared to the cancer, the brutal cold was a lesser pain—and a much kinder death.
CHAPTER 22
Chicago
MEED CALLED IT a titanium posture brace. I called it a torture device. It went around my waist and pressed into my back like a plate of armor. But I can’t deny that it worked. It kept my core firm and tight while I did another dead lift.
“Watch your form,” Meed called out from her chair. “Don’t get sloppy.”
My max was now up to 300 pounds, which I realized would be like lifting my office desk. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. But I never could have imagined I’d be at nine percent body fat either. Or that I could blow through the Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test like it was nothing.
Thanks to Meed’s bizarre retinal focus drills, my eyesight was sharp and clear. For the first time since I got my learner’s permit, I wouldn’t need corrective lenses to drive. Not that Meed ever let me anywhere near a vehicle. Or even a street. I’d been trapped in the loft for four months straight. I did one last lift and dropped the barbell on the mat like a load of cement.
As I shifted to free weights, I decided to quiz Meed again. I’d given up on getting anything meaningful out of her, but we’d made a little game out of personal trivia. I grabbed a twenty-pounder in each hand and squeezed in my questions between reps.
“Ever been to Disneyland?” I asked.
“Twice,” she said. “Hated it both times.”
“Favorite color?”
“Black.”
“Best pizza in Chicago?”
“Dante’s.”
“Where were you born?”
“Wrong question.”
Typical conversation. Three steps forward, one total roadblock.
“Stand up straight,” said Meed. I looked over. She was aiming a handheld laser at me.
“Iamstanding up straight,” I said, tapping the brace. “How could I not?”
“Good news,” she said, checking the readout. “You’re now officially six foot two.”
Amazing. That was up a quarter-inch in the last month. Plus another three inches around my chest. Another two inches around each biceps. And two incheslessaround my waist. My gym shorts were actually starting to bag a bit. And for the first time in my life, I had something approaching a six-pack. I was being turned into somebody else—somebody I didn’t even recognize—and I still didn’t know why. I was bigger, stronger, smarter. But for what?
I put the weights back in the rack and wiped my face with a towel. When I looked up again, Meed was tapping a syringe. She definitely had a needle fetish.
