Laure’s words played through my head while I finished my shift in the infirmary, handing out trays to handlers without seeing them. Paying no attention to where Pagano led me.
I’d had my own memory erased, and I’d paid Laure for the service with a cookie.
Then, in trying to uncover that fact, I’d subconsciously replayed my own actions by bribing Laure’s friend Sandrine with the very same reward. Which told me that Laure was right. The information was still in here. How else could I have been so sure that Sandrine would be willing to bargain for a cookie?
Yet the biggest of my questions had gone unanswered. Why would I ask Laure to bury my memories?
Ithadto be related to my pregnancy. But what was the point of shielding myself from a traumatic conception, when the pregnancy itself remained as evidence that something had happened?
“Delilah.” Pagano’s voice startled me back into awareness, and I realized I’d stopped pushing the cart. “One more tray. Let’s go.”
I checked the list hanging from the cart and saw an unfamiliar name, next to a room I didn’t recognize.
Dr. Hill. Lab.
Frowning, I looked up at Pagano. “Where’s the lab?”
“In the basement. But it’s only open as needed. I don’t think you’ve been down there.” He led me into the elevator, then pressed the L button. Which I’d never noticed. Was the basement lab, like the secret hallway, hidden from casual observation?
The elevator descended, and when the doors opened, a wave of nausea washed over me. Pagano stepped out into a tiled foyer in front of a long glass wall, beyond which was a room furnished more like an infirmary wing than a research lab.
My handler was wrong. I’d been there before.
I didn’t recognize the row of padded exam tables or the countertop stretching across the opposite wall. I didn’t recognize the trays of sterile equipment or the curtains hanging from tracks mounted on the ceiling, separating one table from the next. But I recognized the astringent scent and the cold air. The echo of Pagano’s boots on the tile made my stomach churn.
“Delilah. Come on,” he said, and when I didn’t move, he pulled the cart into the foyer, then hauled me out of the elevator by one arm.
“Finally!” An unfamiliar man looked up from the form he’d been scribbling on and pulled one of the frameless glass doors open. “You’re late,” he said as I pushed the lunch cart into the lab. I was supposed to hand him the last tray. But I couldn’t move.
Why had I been in there before? Had I buried the memory for a reason, or was my time in the basement lab just collateral damage from my two-month system wipe?
“Delilah. Wake up,” Pagano said, and I lifted the tray without feeling its weight. Without smelling the food.
The man in the lab coat rolled his eyes and snatched his lunch from me.
“Sorry, Dr. Hill. She’s been acting pretty weird lately.”
I studied the doctor’s face, but it didn’t set off any mental or psychological alarms. He was not the source of my discomfort in the lab.
“Delilah?” The voice was soft and it cracked on the last syllable of my name, but I would have recognized it anywhere.
I turned to find Lenore staring at me from one of the padded tables, holding back the curtain between us with one arm. The siren’s eyes were glazed, and her voice carried more pain than I could fathom, but no compulsion whatsoever.
“Lenore!” I jogged across the floor toward her, and when the doctor tried to grab me, Pagano blocked his reach.
“It’s not safe to touch her with bare hands.”
“What happened?” I pushed back the curtain to see that Lenore was covered by a white hospital sheet. “Are you okay?” If she was sick, why wasn’t she upstairs on the main infirmary floor?
“Get her out of here,” Dr. Hill said, but I hardly heard him.
“They took it.” Lenore’s words were slurred; she’d been sedated. “I don’t know whether I wanted it, but now that it’s gone...” Tears slid down her cheeks and left wet spots on the paper-covered pillow beneath her head.
They took it.Magnolia’s face flashed behind my eyes, but it was Simra’s voice I heard, explaining what happened to captives who got pregnant.
“Oh, Lenore.” I brushed hair back from her face and blinked away tears of my own. This basement lab, only open as needed, was where Tabitha sent them to have the problem removed.
So, why had I been there, if not to end my pregnancy?
