My throat tightens. “Was that boy Zayne?”
She nods. “Boy Z,” he called him. “He had built a lab in the basement of the institute two years prior. Two cells.” Her voice drops. “Only one was ever used. It was set up like a nursery.”
I swallow hard.
“The doctor made it clear that the child belonged to him now,” she continues. “He decided to raise him here, away from his wife and his own child. Yes, he had a wife. And a son.” She repeats it, as if forcing the truth to stay real. “Nurse Maria and I were assigned to care for the boy. He chose us because, at the time, the stress of the asylum had cost us both several miscarriages. He knew we would take good care of the baby.”
Her fingers tremble against mine. “He knew we were vulnerable.”
I squeeze her hand, leaning closer, my chest tight with a feeling I cannot name.
She taps my hand to ground herself, then continues. “We raised him. We taught him how to speak, how to read, and how to be human.” Her voice breaks. “Because the doctor never saw him as a child.”
She looks at me then.
“He saw him as an experiment.”
“But why did he do that?” I ask, my eyes burning. “He was just a boy.”
“At the time, he told us he was trying to find a cure for DID,” she says, a bitter chuckle slipping out. “But we knew that was far from the truth as the boy grew.”
I draw in a slow breath, my gaze fixed on her.
She reaches into the file and pulls out a photograph. A young boy stares back from the faded image. She holds it up and says, “Eleven months before he brought the boy to the institute, he was treating a patient named Ezra Zane. He was taking cells. Experimenting. Trying to separate his mind, reduce it to a state of zero. Wipe his memory and create a new person.”
I tilt my head, blinking at her. “Ezra Zane? As in Ozark Butcher Ezra Zane?” I ask, my heart beginning to pound.
She smiles faintly, her fingers tightening around mine until her nails dig into my skin. She doesn’t look away when she says it.
“The cells he took were used to impregnate his own wife. She gave birth to Ezra Zane all over again.” Her voice drops. “He believed that if he started from the beginning, he could cure him of his sick mind.”
My pulse roars in my ears. I shake my head, but she only nods, still holding my hand.
This felt like a movie.
“He subjected the boy to every form of torture disguised as therapy,” she continues. “Over and over, he forced his mindback to zero. But instead of being cured, the boy stopped fearing anything. He absorbed everything the doctor did to him.”
Her grip tightens. “Ezra Zane died in 1981.” She swallows. “But he also lived again. And as the boy grew, he became the very thing the doctor feared most.”
My throat goes dry. “How did he escape?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
She cracks. Tears flood her eyes as her hand flies to her mouth, her palm pressing against trembling lips. “I tried to burn it all to the ground,” she sobs. “I couldn’t let him continue. He brought in two more criminally insane patients. He was going to do it again. He even impregnated a nurse who worked with us.” Her shoulders shake. “I couldn’t allow it.”
She looks at me, broken. “The boy escaped. No one else did.”
I bite my lip, my nerves screaming. “Did anyone else know?”
She shakes her head. “No one believed me.”
Tears still cling to her lashes.
I try to connect the pieces. To make sense of it. But nothing comes together. I remain frozen where I stand, staring at her as the weight of the truth settles into my chest.
“Zayne is a good boy,” she says, shaking her head. “But a bad seed.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “And a bad seed will always end in rot.”
“Did Ezra Zane have a split personality?” I ask, watching her closely.
She shakes her head. “No. He was a psychopath.” Her voice is flat. “He hurt women because his own mother abused him. He hunted women who looked exactly like her.”
