Control

CHAPTER 19

THREE THINGS.

A sharpness at the side of my head.

Pain burrowing into my left hip.

And the relentless push and pull of air forcing its way into my body and out, without my consent.

It’s all without my consent.

I don’t want it. Any of it.

A groan lumbers out of my mouth. It’s the only vocalization I can manage.

“Take it easy, Zelia. The drug is wearing off. You’ll be okay in a little while.” A cool, soft hand touches my head, and my pain lessens a tiny fraction. Marka. In her voice, there is concern and sadness. And yes, I’m sure of it—disappointment.

“Off,” I mumble, and one of my hundred-pound arms lifts to yank away the necklace. Someone stops my hand, settles it back into place.

“Not yet. You’re not ready.”

“What happened?” My tongue is thick and clumsy, and speaking hurts my throat. The cool hand is replaced by a warmer one that touches my neck, then my left palm. It finally rests on my forearm. It feels nice. I wish I had a blanket like this hand, so I could wrap myself within it to hide from what I’m starting to remember.

“We followed you. Cy said he couldn’t find you, and Wilbert can’t keep a secret for crap, so we took the other char.” It’s Hex, but his voice comes from where my feet are, so his hand isn’t the warm one touching me.

“Dyl . . . ?” I ask. I can’t manage the rest—how is she? Is she safe?

Cy answers this time. “They took her back. We—weren’t fast enough.”

I finally open my eyes. Vera and Hex sit near my feet. Hex has a black eye and a fat purple lip, and Vera is clutching Hex’s two right arms. Cy is at my side. It’s his hand on my arm. He doesn’t move an inch, as if he has no plans to take it away.

“I tried to take Dyl with me, but she wouldn’t go. Then Caliga said to leave her, so why did they take her back? I don’t understand.” My voice is all squeaky, and my throat burns with fire. Tears squeeze out and slip down my temples. “I didn’t want you guys involved.” I see Hex’s bruised face and start crying full force, covering my face in shame. “I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.”

It’s quiet for a long time. The sorrys don’t even begin to describe how awful I feel. I’m an utter failure.

“Zelia, the other Aureus members were there for one reason. They wanted you.” Marka speaks carefully, afraid I’ll miss a syllable. “Do you know why?”

I shake my head, but the movement hurts me. “No. Dyl’s DNA is the one with all these extra sequences. I’ve tested almost all of them, but they’re all coming back as trash DNA.” I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, but it’s Cy’s that bother me the most.

“We need to do a comparison with a sample from you,” he says. “Something’s not right.”

And that’s when I get it. My entire reality shifts so abruptly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earth stopped rotating and I flew off into space. Because everything I know about my life is wrong.

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?”

All I hear in my head is he French-kissed you all the way home before I finally shake my head to speak.

“I’m okay. Better.” I point to my hip. “This still hurts, but I’ll survive.”

“Yeah. I’m not surprised. It’s like they knew somehow you’d have people there with you. I guess that was their backup plan.”

“Plan for what?”

“They probably figured out that Dyl doesn’t carry a trait and wanted to verify it was your sample they had. If they even wanted to bother. For all we know, your special gift is just your Ondine’s curse. That’s not exactly marketable.”

“Well—” I take a step forward. “If I can just prove I’m ordinary as white bread—”

“You mean, white bread that can’t breathe normally,” Cy adds.

“Right. Well, then we have a chance to show them that they should just ditch Dyl, get her off their hands.”

“Okay.” Cy pushes up his sleeves, and he winces when they pass over several large pink splotches on his uninked forearms.

“Those are from Micah?” I reach out to touch his wrist, without thinking, and Cy allows it. Faintly, I see handprints where the pink is. The skin is shiny and raw.

“It’ll all be gone in a few hours,” he says. I let my hand fall, already missing the warmth of his skin on my fingertips.

“It still hurts, though?”

Cy nods. “How about you?”

I lift my wrist where Micah had grabbed me. It’s a little sore and pink, but not nearly as bad as what Cy went through. He pulls my wrist closer so he can examine it. His fingers slide over my arm, and I shiver, but he doesn’t let go.

“It’s my fault you went through that.” I force myself to meet his eyes. I can’t skulk away from my apologies. Not now. Cy takes a step closer to me and lets his hand slip up to my shoulder, leaning his head close to mine.

“If you’re really sorry, then don’t run away from . . . us again.” His breath is warm and swirls through my hair. I swear he almost said don’t run away from me.

“Okay.”

He lingers long enough to take a breath, then steps away and clears his throat. “C’mon. Sequencing time.”

“Right.” I clear my Cy-induced haze and nod. Think, Zelia. Focus on Dyl. Focus. “All of Dyl’s extra sequences so far code for junky stuff on the ends of chromosomes. Nothing I really need, I guess.”

Cy points to a sequence that glows green on the screen. “What about that one?” It’s a viable sequence. Finally. A real, useful gene that I’m missing, that might somehow make me different, in a special way.

“Here.” I punch in a command to compare it to our very old, very outdated gene library. I bite my lip. If it’s an ordinary, basic protein that’s been known for years, we’ll find it. If it’s a newly discovered one, we’re screwed. So I’m totally shocked when we find a match.

“Telomerase,” Cy announces the match.

“Telomerase? But I need that,” I say, confused. “It’s protective. It keeps our DNA from getting too short and degrading, every time a cell divides.”

“Didn’t people use to think that was the key to immortality? The fountain of youth?” He’s talking to the screen now, not me. “They tried to infuse more telomerase into people’s cells, so the cells would divide forever and never age. They’d have no Hayflack limit, no shelf life, so to speak. But people got cancer, so they tossed it.”

“But I don’t have telomerase. So I should be aging super-fast.”

“And you’re not.” He slips his hand around my wrist to pull me in closer. He looks at me from head to toe, spends an inordinate amount of time on my face. His head tilts sideways, as if looking at me askew will gift him with answers. I think I’m about to fail some sort of test, so I hold my breath until he clues me in.

“How tall is Dyl?”

“Um. Maybe five-four-ish?”

“And she’s, like, normal, I assume, in the usual female sort of ways?”

“No. She’s more than normal. She’s perfect. She’s got more body at her age than I did back then. Uh, you know, this is really not helping my self-esteem here—”

“Bear with me. You’re brilliant”—I blush—“and you certainly act your age. But . . . don’t you think it’s odd that you’re hardly taller than her?”

“Fine, so I’m a runt. I don’t need to hear that I’m underdeveloped everywhere, okay?”

Cy stares directly at my breasts and half covers his mouth. “Uh, your body is developed just fine, in my opinion.”

Now I’m really embarrassed. A little thrilled, but mostly embarrassed. Cy tries to rub away the warmth on his own face, then scratches his head.

“Have you ever . . . gotten your . . . you know.”

I flush hotly. “Please tell me you’re not going to ask about my ovaries.”

“I am.”

I pull away, covering my eyes as if afflicted with a sudden headache.

“I’m going to take that as a no.”

It’s so awful. Like I’m less of a girl or woman than everyone else in the world.

“Did it ever occur to you,” he starts, and grabs my wrist again so I can’t bolt, “that you’re just the ultimate late bloomer?”

It never occurred to me. I figured all the blooming that could possibly happen already did, and I was stuck with this awful, flawed body.

“I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong.” He crosses his arm.

“What?”

“You’re so much more extraordinary than you give yourself credit for. And I’m not just talking about your mind. Your body too.”

“You mean my ugly, runty body,” I quip.

“Why do you think you’re ugly?” Cy asks.

I’m all set to snap back with a bitter comment, when I see his face. He’s dead serious. Oohhhh-kay. I am speechless.

“In any case, how are we going to prove the theory?” He squints at me.

My eyes unfocus as I think. No telomerase. No junky DNA. Why? Why would I not have . . .

I snap my fingers. “C’mon. I need a new sample.”

“For what?”

“We’re going back to the beginning. We need a bird’s-eye view of the overall structure of all my DNA, the chromosomes, instead of looking at them in pieces the way we’ve been doing it.”

“A karyotype, huh? That’s kind of crude.” Cy stands up and comes with me to a cupboard, where I get a swab for another DNA sample. “Brilliant, but crude.”

“Yep. We’ve been staring at the pores on tree leaves. It’s time to look at the forest. Because if my theory is right, we’ve been looking for this trait the wrong way all along.”