I heave myself to a sitting position, despite my dizziness. “Oh my god. Dyl doesn’t have extra abnormal sequences. It’s the comparison DNA—the control sample—that’s what’s special. It’s missing pieces of DNA.” I’m hardly able to get the truth out. Of course. All this time, the answer has existed in what I haven’t been able to see.
Cy takes a step back, confused. “But all those control samples are guaranteed normal, from our stock. We’ve used them countless times. I don’t understand.”
“I never used the control samples from the fridge, like you told me to.” I close my eyes. “I used me.”
MY VITAL SIGNS GO HAYWIRE AFTER THAT. Marka ushers everyone out of the room and draws up a syringe full of medicine. “It’ll wash out the other sedative and let you get some normal sleep.”
I’m thankful when she pushes the medicine against a transdermal microinjector and the cool tingle of drug spreads into my arm. As I drift off, Marka leans in close to me, her face a mix of worry and frustration.
“You must be furious with me,” I say in a small voice.
Her eyes are red. “I’m so mad, I can hardly see straight.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my eyelids growing weighty.
“Sorry hardly cuts it. I could have lost four kids today.” The tightness around her mouth softens. “But I understand why you did it.” I nod. She squeezes my hand with a perfect ratio of strength and gentleness. “When you put yourself in harm’s way, you are defying everything your father hoped for. Remember that. Above all else, he wanted you safe.”
I know. I broke the last and only promise I made him.
In the dark dreams that soon overtake me, I make my apologies to Marka. But I don’t apologize to my father. I know I put myself at risk for Dyl. For that, I am not sorry at all.
Hours later, I wake up. The pain in my hip and head are less, but annoyingly there. A reminder. Someone must have carried me back to my room, because I’m curled up in my bed.
Vera is on my floor, staring at her crotch.
Well, she’s doing yoga, but in essence, that’s what’s going on. She blinks at me with her upside-down eyes.
“Hey, hey, sleepy head. Go wash up, and we’ll get you some chow.”
She’s being so kind. As if my new reality wasn’t disorienting enough. It takes forever to shower. Every part of my body is stiff and sore, not to mention the fat new bruise I have on the back of my head and the sore spot on my left side. After I pull on my clothes, I lift up the edge of my shirt to study a purple mark on my left hip, the size of my pinkie nail. It’s a perfect circle, too perfect to be a random bruise. I walk back into my bedroom to show it to Vera.
“What the heck is this?”
“They biopsied your bone marrow. Looks like they got a good, juicy sample too.”
I touch it gingerly, and the dullness roars to a sharp pain. “Ow. It kills.”
“They weren’t trying to be gentle.”
“Why didn’t they just take me and ditch my sister?”
Vera sinks to the floor, flips onto her stomach, and grabs her ankles over her head to make a human donut. A green frosted one, of course.
“They tried, but we got there, and security came too.”
“Security?”
“My junkyard jocks. You know, the ones that buy my organic testosterone? Nothing like a bunch of ’roided up beefheads on your side. Aureus never paid attention to our friends there, but I’m sure they will now.” She takes a huge breath and goes into a frog posture on her hands.
I curl up on the couch, afraid of getting too close to her muscled limbs. “Vera. I’m really sorry. I was being so selfish, putting you guys through that.” She doesn’t say anything. I’m sure she’s pissed, but I might as well just get it out. “I know you don’t like me.”
At this, Vera straightens up and gives me a hard stare. She stays like that for way too long, and I feel like I’m being punished just for bringing it up. Finally, she pushes her jaw askew, as if she’s decided something.
“You’re right. I didn’t like you.”
My heart beats loudly as I wait for more of the truth. She turns away to sit in a lotus position, facing the window.
“I hated what you have. What you had.” Her nose starts sounding suspiciously stuffy as she lowers her voice. “My parents threw me into a gutter when I was a day old. That’s how much they loved me. Even with your dad dead and all, I couldn’t be sorry for you. You had a parent who wanted you.”
I kneel by her side, and she doesn’t move away. “But Vera, Marka wants you.” I wisely neglect to mention Wilbert, Hex, or the inter-Carus cat fights. “She loves you. That’s got to mean something, right?” I force my hand out awkwardly to lay it on her shoulder. She’s still and stunning as an extinct oak tree. Beautiful and unreal. “I’m a pretty crappy sister sometimes, but you’re welcome to it. To me. You know, if you want someone to nag you and screw your life up. I’m fabulously good at that.”
Vera hoots through a few sniffles. She turns around, wiping her eyes and smiling uncertainly. Her hazel eyes stay sad. “I’m glad we got you back.” She snickers and swipes at her nose. “Anyway, it was fun as snot to whack that wench Caliga.”
“Knocked her out of the park, I’d say.” We both laugh then. One of many little bad feelings inside me just dissolved, leaving a tiny island of sweetness. Vera stands up and offers a hand to pull me off the floor.
“Come on. Your CPR partner is waiting for you in the lab.”
“CPR what?”
“Oh, you know. After you passed out, Cy knocked us out of the way to give you mouth-to-mouth. He freaking French-kissed you all the way home, in the name of saving your life. What a goddamned romantic. I had no idea he had it in him.”
Oh. My. God. Vera’s facing the window, thank goodness, because I am eggplant purple, probably the same color as when I’d stopped breathing.
“We found your necklace in your pocket when we got home.” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “You know, I think he purposely didn’t check your pocket just so he could practice some tonsil-hockey—”
“Okay, Vera! I get it!”
Vera whistles at me, all recovered from her cry fest, I guess. “Look atcha. Your feet okay? Because all the blood in your body is right there in your cheeks, girl.”
I cover my face. “Can we change the subject?”
“Hell no. This is way too much fun.”
“Vera!”
IF I COULD CONTROL THE COLOR OF my cheeks, it would be a good day. The second I walk into the lab, I see Cy. And then, I know.
It is not going to be a good day.
Cy sits at his desk with his feet up, staring at endless strings of DNA code on his screens. My name is at the bottom of each of them, so I know they’re mine. It’s a strange feeling seeing your genetic self up on display. Everything I am, the nose I share with my dad, my propensity to climb to rooftops when possible, the absence of neat-freak genes between me and Dyl—they’re all up there. I wonder if my soul is there for him to peruse too.
“Hey,” I say softly.
At my greeting, he drops his feet and shoots away from the desk, startled.
“Hey. Hi.” After a second or two of messing with his hair, he gains composure. He’s got on a loose shirt down to his wrists, but a small tattoo of a gryphon peeks above his shirt collar.
Already I can tell he’s changed. I’ve changed. After what’s happened, there’s a new rawness between us. It’s swept away the anger that used to boil over when we ventured too close into each other’s orbits. It’s a little frightening, this new place, and I can sense that Cy feels it too.
Cy clears his throat. “How are you feeling?”