I grit my teeth. “My name is Xandra.” That time, when the shock comes, I don’t give the bastard the satisfaction of crying out. Even if I do almost bite the tip of my tongue off when I spasm in response to it.
“We are very good at what we do at the NRI, Hallie.” Hallie. He keeps calling me Hallie. “Identical twins do not share an identical DNA make-up. There are genetic mutations that go beneath the skin. We also took your fingerprints from the urine sample jar you provided Elissa. Yours belong to Hallie Holden.”
I don’t know how they got my prints, but I don’t care.
“She’s dead.”
“Your sister might be dead. Alexandra is dead. You are Hallie.”
“Fuck you!”
He presses the button.
I howl.
For the next ten minutes, he insists that I can’t be Xandra. He goes between asking questions that I answer with the truth—thathe doesn’t shock me for—and then he askes me my name. Every time I answer “Xandra”, the pain is almost impossible to stand.
And then I break.
“What is your name?”
I’m crying now. I don’t even remember when that started. My nose bled, too; I wiped it with the sleeve of Rory’s jacket. My head aches. I want to die.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
However, I answer him. I tell him what he wants to hear because, after the trauma he put me through, I don’t even know who I am anymore.
“I’m Hallie. Me. My sister Xandra is dead. I’m alive. I’m Hallie.” I swallow a sob. “I’m Hallie.”
The Doctor leans over and peers at his damned machine.
“And the polygraph says that that is the truth.”
Maybe the Doctor isn’t as big a heartless bastard as I thought. He opens the door, gesturing for one of the agents that is waiting just outside of it. He comes back with a glass of water and a box of tissues for me. While jotting down notes on his clipboard, he lets me sit and get a hold of myself. I wipe my eyes, blow my nose, and hope like hell that this is another one of my nightmares that I just haven’t woken up from yet.
When it becomes obvious that it isn’t, I shut down. I go as emotionless as the Doctor. I don’t want him to have the satisfaction that he broke me down to nothing, and I just sit there until he finishes what he’s doing and tells Hallie that she can go.
ThatIcan go.
The last thing he says is that he looks forward to our next session, and I decide then and there to survive this just so I can get the opportunity to snatch the scalpel from his pocket and slit his fucking throat.
As I walk out the door, I ask myself: How can I be Hallie? Hallie was the sweet one. The gentle one. She would never have murderous thoughts… unless the Turning and her beloved sister’s death broke her even more than the Doctor did.
I’ll kill him. Sure, lurkers are invulnerable. What about the monster that the Doctor is?
I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.
Another pair of agents, nearly indistinguishable from the others, returns me to the cell. I plod inside, with one of them following right on my heel.
He points at Chase. “You. Come with me. The Doctor will see you now.”
My soul cries out. In that moment, looking at him, seeing his blue eyes and his sandy-brown hair and that crooked smile… maybe I am Hallie because I love him so much that I ache with it. I want to run to him. To grab him. To hold him close, to cleave him to me, to keep that goon from getting anywhere near him.
My fingers fly up to my face, my bottom lip wavering as I whisper, “No,” under my breath. I don’t want Chase going anywhere near that bastard. What the Doctor did to me… I can’t let him hurt Chase.
I can’t let him experiment on him or try to reverse the antidote.
