“I don’t like the tests,” I said, my eyes growing dark and shaking my head.
“I know,” he said, his tone understanding. “But we need to make sure your heart is working like it should. I’ll make you a deal. If you’re really good and do the test, I’ll make you a horse when we’re done.”
“Promise?” I asked.
“Promise.”
“How about this one instead?” he asked, holding up the green marker.
“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I want the blue one.”
“But I need the blue one,” he said, his tone rising.
“I had it first!” I yelled.
“No you didn’t!”
“Yes, I did!” I screamed, reaching for the blue marker. He gripped it tightly and I tugged, only to fall backward when the cap came off and I lost my balance.
He laughed at me.
“I hate you, West!” I screamed, throwing the cap at him. To my satisfaction, it hit him right in the eye and he immediately started crying.
“Dad!” he wailed.
Dr. Evans Jr. was instantly in the room, the crying West wrapped around his legs.
“Really, Eve?” he chided me. “We don’t throw things. And hate isn’t a kind word.”
“But I hate him,” I growled, scowling at West who glowered right back at me. “He doesn’t share!”
“West?” Dr. Evans questioned, looking down at West.
“She started it!” he shouted, glaring back at me.
“Okay,” Dr. Evans said. “I think that’s enough for one day.”
West stuck his tongue out at me as his father led him out of the room.
I stuck mine right back out at him.
They all stared at me.
There were four of them with Dr. Evans, and they all looked at me.
“She’s perfectly healthy now?” one of them asked. “No complications?”
Dr. Evans shook his head. “Her heart was only developed to eighty percent of what it should have been, her lungs only to sixty. But they both function perfectly now.”
“And the other one?” another man asked.
“Her development is slower,” Dr. Evans said. His voice sounded tired and heavy. “We weren’t sure how TorBane would react with a psychological disorder so this is totally uncharted territory. But she’s coming along. She’s talking, she’s well behaved the majority of the time. She’s slowly learning how to interact.”
“Tell us about the regenerative abilities.”
Dr. Evans eyes met mine and something in them lightened.
“Eve,” he said kindly. “Would you come over here for a moment?”
I got to my feet, my eyes meeting the strangers warily. I crossed the room and gripped Dr. Evans’ jacket tightly in one fist.
“Can you show me that cut you got the other day?” he asked me.
I held up my left hand, exposing my palm.
“The nurse dropped a glass two days ago and it shattered on the floor in Eve two’s bedroom. Eve here tried to help clean it up and cut herself. But as you can see, it’s completely healed.”
This brought a smile to the strangers’ faces. “Perfect,” one woman said.
“I think TorBane and chip X731 are going to be a perfect match, Dr. Evans.”
“No!” I screamed as I leapt across my bed. I grabbed my hair brush and threw it at the man. “Don’t touch me!”
“Come back here, you little…” He chased after me.
I wrapped my tiny hand around the neck of my lamp and hurled it at him next. It caught him in the shoulder and shattered.
A growl ripped from his throat and he tackled me to the ground.
A sharp pain pricked in my neck as he jabbed a needle into my skin.
Everything seemed to slow instantly.
I jabbed my finger into his eye and he reeled backwards into a wall.
“Don’t…” I tried to yell but my throat felt thick. “Don’t touch me.”
“Eve,” a familiar voice said. Dr. Evans. The younger one. “Everything is going to be alright.”
“No”, I shook my head. I tried to press my back further into the corner. My vision blurred and the dark shadows before me blended together.
“She’s never been this aggressive before,” a voice said. It felt like someone was screaming into my ear. Everything was too loud. I pressed my hands over the sides of my head, trying to block it all out.
“She’s afraid,” a lighter voice said.
I couldn’t make out any details anymore as I opened and closed my eyes, trying to clear my vision. My head felt fuzzy and clouded.
There was a pair of warm arms underneath me and I could feel them moving.
My vision was totally black by now and at some point, someone slid my eyelids closed when I couldn’t do it myself.
They changed my clothes and there was a strange buzzing sound.
Soon my head felt lighter and cold.
The next second all I could make out was the scent of steel under me. There were voices in the dark, talking excitedly behind me.
Then there was the sound of a drill.
“What’s wrong with her?”
West sat in front of me, building a tower with foam blocks. But he kept looking up at me.
“She had her surgery,” a woman said. I looked over at her and blinked. She looked at me. There was something about her face that looked off. Her brows were pulled together slightly. A sheen of sweat beaded on her forehead. There was a bit of moisture under her arms.
“Are you scared of her?” West asked, looking at the woman too.
She looked at West, but then her eyes fell quickly to the floor. “Build your tower,” she said.
West stacked another block, then looked up at me again.
“She normally tries to take my stuff,” he said, still looking at me. “Why is she just sitting there?”
“Build your tower,” the woman said again. “Don’t worry about it.”
“The other one is the same way,” West said, turning back to his blocks. He made a fence around his tower. “She didn’t used to fight, but she just sits there now too.”
“Build your tower, West.”
Tests.
Running.
Weight lifting.
Observation.
Always.
“You see that there?”
I could faintly hear them through the glass wall and over the noise the machine around me made.
“Wow,” someone else said. “Is that…?”