The doctor shook his head. “A created memory. We found that regenerated subjects are more settled if they remember a childhood…even a fake one. And it decreases memory spill from their…previous existence.”
Jesus. Zayn didn’t know what to think about this Frankenstein lab.
Ria let the doctor go, and he slumped back against the tank. Zayn grabbed her wrist. “Ria, babe, you okay?” He felt the wild drum of her pulse under his thumb.
“Previous existence?” she said the words without a single inflection. One hand moved to rub her ridges.
“Yes,” D’aarn said. “All these subjects. They’re dead. Empty shells I can regenerate. It’s ingenious technology, even if I do say so myself.”
Zayn’s horror increased. How could they do that to people? Desecrate dead bodies, steal their lives?
Ria’s knees buckled, and he caught her, sliding an arm around her waist. He wanted her to lean on him, but her spine stayed stubbornly stiff.
“I was…a dead body.”
“Yes. All assassins start that way. We implant new DNA and cause a rebirth. Regeneration.”
Her gaze was on the tanks. “You bring people back from the dead.”
“No.” D’aarn shook his head vehemently. “The host is most definitely dead. We just use the remains to make an entirely new person. The new generation has no memory of their previous incarnation.”
“Who am I?” Ria said with lethal quietness.
Zayn tightened his hold on her. “Ria?—”
“I need to know.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “We need to know.”
D’aarn cleared his throat. “You are exactly who you are now. You are no longer whoever came before.”
“Who. Am. I.”
The doctor shifted nervously. “I’ll have to check the records.”
Zayn watched the man tap at the computer console. His gut was so tight, and Ria was so still in his arms. Under his palm, he felt her heart bounding.
“I recall your face, actually,” D’aarn said. “You weren’t regenerated that long ago. About two years, I think.”
Oh, God.Zayn saw Ria’s face blanch. “Ria.” He ran a hand down her back in a soothing stroke. “It’s okay.”
Her hand gripped his, like she was using him to hold onto her sanity. “It’s not okay. We both know that.”
“Here you go.” D’aarn touched the screen, sliding until a file appeared. “Subject AG9173.”
Ria and Zayn stared at the photos. One of herself in her Guild robes. One of a woman who looked like her floating in one of the tanks. Her golden hair streaked upward, her skin pale white, and a bullet wound in the center of her forehead.
Zayn looked at the last photo and a noise escaped his chest.
The last photo showed a woman with her blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun, scowling at the camera in her navy Strike Wing uniform.
“Vik,” he whispered.
Ria closed her eyes,her world crashing down around her feet.
She wasn’t who she thought she was.
Her entire life was a lie.
She pushed away from Zayn, trying to draw air into her lungs. She couldn’t look at him.
