“What did they do to you?” I say, my voice ragged. “How could they do this to you?”
A dull, metallic sound. Twice.
Emmaline is floating closer. She presses her webbed fingers against the barrier between us and I reach up, hastily wiping my eyes before I meet her there. I press my palm to the glass and somehow, impossibly, I feel her take my hand. Soft. Warm. Strong.
And then, with a gasp—
Feeling pulses through me, wave after wave offeeling, emotions as infinite as time. Memories, desires,long-extinguished hopes and dreams. The force of everything sends my head spinning; I slump forward and grit my teeth, steadying myself by pressing my forehead against the barrier between us. Images fill my mind like stilted frames from an old movie.
Emmaline’s life.
She wants me to know. I feel like I’m being pulled into her, like she’s reeling me into her own body, immersing me in her mind. Her memories.
I see her younger, much younger, eight or nine years old. She was spirited, furious. Difficult to control. Her mind was stronger than she could handle and she didn’t know how to feel about her powers. She felt cursed, strangled by them. But unlike me, she was kept at home, here, in this exact laboratory, forced to undergo test after test administered by her own parents. I feel her rage pierce through me.
For the first time, I realize I had the luxury of forgetting.
She didn’t.
Max and Evie—and even Anderson—tried to wipe Emmaline’s memory multiple times, but each time, Emmaline’s body prevailed. Her mind was so strong that she was able to convince her brain to reverse the chemistry meant to dissolve her memories. No matter what Max and Evie tried, Emmaline could never forget them.
Instead, she watched as her own parents turned on her.
Turned her inside out.
Emmaline is telling me everything without saying a word. She can’t speak. She’s lost four of her five senses.
She went blind first.
She lost her sense of smell and sensation a year later, both at the same time. Finally, she lost the ability to speak. Her tongue and teeth disintegrated. Her vocal cords eroded. Her mouth sealed permanently shut.
She can only hear now. But poorly.
I see the scenes change, see her grow a little older, a little more broken. I see the fire go out of her eyes. And then, when she realizes what they have planned for her— The entire reason they wanted her, so desperately—
Violent horror takes my breath away.
I fall, kneecaps knocking the floor. The force of her feelings rips me open. Sobs break my back, shudder through my bones. I feel everything. Her pain, her endless pain.
Her inability to end her own suffering.
She wants this to end.
End, she says, the word sharp and explosive.
With some effort, I manage to lift my head to look at her. “Was it you this whole time?” I whisper. “Did you give me back my memories?”
Yes
“How? Why?”
She shows me.
I feel my spine straighten as the vision moves through me. I see Evie and Max, hear their warped conversations from inside the glass prison. They’ve been trying to make Emmaline stronger over the years, trying to find ways to enhance Emmaline’s telekinetic abilities. They wanted her skills to evolve. They wanted her to be able to perform mind control.
Mind control of the masses.
It backfired.
