I rush forward and press my palm over her mouth, muffling the sound. I lean in close, my lips brushing her ear.
“It’s me, Kiki,” I whisper. “It’s Z.”
She freezes. Slowly, her hand lifts and presses against my cheek. Her touch trembles. She stares at me, searching my face.
“Z,” she gasps. “No.” Her head shakes weakly. “You’re him.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “You’re Ezra Zane.”
The name cuts deeper than it should.
I know it. I grew up with it. With the shadow of a father who tried to erase it from my existence.
“No,” I whisper. “Just Zayne.” My voice softens. “Just Z. The one you used to bring toy cars and stuffed bunnies.”
Her hand flies to her mouth. A sob escapes her as tears fall faster now.
“What did they do to you?” she cries.
I shake my head and lower my hand to her shoulder, grounding her.
“Kiki, why are you here?”
“That’s what they do,” she sniffles. “When everything goes to shit, they call us crazy. Or they get rid of us.” Her voice drops. “So we keep our mouths shut.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what they all do.”
I stand and take her hand, wrapping my fingers gently around hers.
“Do you know how to leave this place?”
She pulls her hands back and rests them stiffly on her thighs. “I leave this place only through the morgue,” she says. “They won’t allow anything else.”
“Don’t you want your Z to help you the way you helped me?”
She looks up at me and smiles. “I want you to burn this place to the ground.”
She lifts her palms toward me. Burn scars stretch across the skin, pale and uneven.
“I failed,” she says. “But I know you won’t.”
I press my palm against hers. “If it weren’t for you, I would never have seen the sun or the moon.” My grip tightens slightly. “It’s my turn to repay that favor.”
I gather her frail body into my arms and lift her. She clings to me as I carry her out of the room. My shoe remains wedged in the door behind us.
I move quickly through the corridors, heading for the morgue. There is a service exit there, the one they use for bodies, the one that leads directly to the transport vehicles, and the door is always unlocked.
“How did you find me?” she asks softly, her arms wrapped around my neck.
“I saw a picture in the files,” I say. “I recognized you.”
I lied.
Then I ask, “Was Detective Rourke visiting you?”
“Yes,” she answers. “He wanted to know everything about the X-Files.” She exhales slowly. “He knows about the experiments. He wanted the truth. He wanted to bring it all down.”
I chuckle. “What a noble man,” I say.
“He told me he hid all the files in his cottage near the Ozarks,” she says. “He said once I went there with him, he would release everything to the newspapers.” Her voice trembles, but there is hope in it. “They would pay for all the years I was locked in here.”
