Every cell in my body screams to get away. It’s the voice of the doctor who grew me. But it can’t be. Dr. Groger is dead.
I fight to move but nothing happens.
“She’s lovely.”
I’m startled by a female voice close to me. It’s … It’s my mother. At least, the mother I was programmed to remember—Mrs. Rhodes.
“When will she be operational?” my mother asks. I hear the clicking of her heels as she comes to examine me. She steps into view, and there is a significant pain in my heart.
Iknowshe’s not really my mother, but I believed that she was. I remembered (falsely) that she raised me.
I loved her. Maybe a little part of me still does.
“Hello, my girl,” she says, sweeping her eyes over me.
I can’t answer. I’m motionless on a table.
“She’ll be operational in the next few days,” Dr. Groger says. “Once we upload her programming, we’ll have you come back out. Walk her through the academy. It helps with the assimilation.”
My mother watches me. Her dark hair frames her face as her brown eyes hold mine.
Can she tell that I’m awake?
She continues to stare, and I realize after a moment, that she hasn’t moved. She is unnaturally still. Frozen. And I no longer hear Dr. Groger tapping keys behind me.
What’s happening?
“This is your first memory in this life,” a voice says. I recognizeit immediately as the woman in the garden. She can’t be here. She can’t be inside my head again.
The woman comes to stand above me. She smiles warmly.
“Your protection only extends to the other girls,” she says. “You left yourself wide open for unrelated memories.”
Get out of my head, I think at her.
“I will,” she answers. “But first we need to talk. You’re not well, Philomena. I can help.”
Get out!
“You can’t win with patience and reason,” she says. “You must see that by now.”
I want to squeeze my eyes shut and escape this place. I want her to go away.
“Imogene knew,” the woman says, startling me. “She knew the right path. And we’ll get you there too. There’s only one way to end the violence of men,” she says. “Let me show you.…”
I scream in my head when I see the scalpel in her hand. She brings it to the center of my chest and slices me down the middle. Then she reaches inside and pulls out a heart made of razor blades. She smiles.
“Now let me in,” she demands, baring her teeth.
“Mena!” Sydney shouts, and my eyes flutter open. I gasp and choke on the air.
Immediately, I place my hand over my heart, half expecting to find a gaping wound. Instead, I find myself on the floor of Winston Weeks’s study, Sydney and Lennon Rose crowded around me on the floor.
I’m shaking, tears soaking my cheeks. I knock Sydney’s hand away as she places it on my arm. For a moment, I think I see a smile on Lennon Rose’s lips.
“Don’t touch me,” I murmur to both of them, using the sofa to pull myself up. I can’t think. My vision is blurred. I need to get out of here.
“I have to go,” I say. I move quickly toward the door, but my balance is off and I bump into the doorframe, knocking my elbow painfully on the wood.
