Adaptation (25 page)

“You really think so?” Reese said skeptically.

“Maybe it’s time for you guys to tell me what really happened to you during your accident,” Julian said.

“We can’t talk about it,” David said. “We signed nondisclosure agreements.”

“My mom said they might not hold water in court because we’re minors.”

“So tell me,” Julian insisted. “Tell me what happened to you.”

She eyed the rearview mirror; the headlights were still behind them but had not come any closer. “What do you think, David?”

“It’s a risk,” he said.

“Dude, we got tailed to some secret military warehouse in the middle of nowhere, and we’re probably still being followed by men in black,” Julian said. “Not to mention the fact that Reese’s
whole house—and maybe yours too—was bugged. I think we’ve moved beyond
risk
.”

David let out his breath in a short laugh. “You’ve got a point.”

“I think we should tell him,” Reese said.

“Do you think it’ll help?”

“We’re not getting anywhere on our own.” As she drove down the dark road, keeping an eye on the car behind them, she told Julian the whole story.

It was past four
AM
by the time they arrived back in San Francisco. After they dropped Julian off at his house in the Mission, Reese drove back to Noe Valley. The streets were deserted, and Reese saw no sign of the car that had trailed them in Marin. She had lost sight of it on the freeway, and she wondered whether it had really been following them at all.

“Why would they chase us away from that warehouse and then let us go?” she asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe they just didn’t want us to see what was there,” David said.

She made a frustrated sound. “We couldn’t see anything anyway. It was all covered up.”

“We saw that semitruck,” he pointed out. “Maybe we could have seen something more if they hadn’t shown up.”

“I guess we’ll see what Julian’s cameras picked up.” They took the last few blocks in silence. It wasn’t until she had pulled into the garage and turned off the car that she noticed David watching her with a strange expression on his face, as if he were trying to make a decision. “What is it?” she asked. She remembered
what he had said right before they picked up Julian. “What were you going to tell me earlier?” The dome light cast David’s eyes into shadow, but she saw the way his jaw tightened before he spoke.

“I have to tell you something,” he said again, “and you might think it’s a little crazy.”

“After what happened tonight, you really believe I’m going to think it’s crazy?”

He smiled slightly. “Maybe I’m the one who thinks it’s crazy.”

“What is it?” A note of fear crept into her voice.

He gazed out the windshield at the dark garage. “Sometimes I hear conversations in my head, and I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

She was taken aback. “You’re hearing things?”

“I don’t know. I don’t
think
I’m making this stuff up, but… the only people who hear voices are crazy, aren’t they?”

“What are the voices saying?”

He shook his head. “That’s just it. It doesn’t make any sense—they’re not saying anything important. It’s like I’m surfing through TV channels or something, and I randomly hear snatches of dialogue.” He looked at her. “You think I’m going insane, don’t you?”

“I don’t think that.” She looked down at her hands, where those scrapes had healed so quickly. She thought about her headaches and the bathroom at the club and that moment with her mom. “I’ve been feeling a little crazy myself.”

“What do you mean?”

Her stomach tightened nervously. “Sometimes this thing happens to me where I—I feel like I can sense someone else’s body
from the inside.” Her fingers curled into fists. “It’s like I’m inside their body or something. It happened with my mom last night.”

“Like… possession?”

“Like a horror-movie kind of possession? I don’t think so. It was like I was feeling everything she was feeling, but I couldn’t control her or anything.”

“When does it happen?”

“Sometimes when I’m touching someone else, but sometimes… not.” She thought it had happened that night when David came over and examined her hands in the living room. But she didn’t think it had ever happened with Amber. It made no logical sense, and it frustrated her. “Maybe it’s just as random as you hearing voices.”

He shifted in the seat next to her. “Has anything else weird been happening to you?”

“Well, I keep having this dream.” She told him about the yellow room.

“What do you think it means?”

“I think it’s a memory of what happened after the accident.”

“You were in a yellow room?”

“Yes. But it’s not a room with four walls and a door. It’s like a bubble. It’s like—” She hesitated. “This sounds ridiculous, but if you could imagine being in an incubator, except one made of some kind of living material, that’s what I think it felt like.”

David stared at her. She could sense the sudden increase in tension between them as clearly as if he had reached out and touched her. “The walls,” he said in a low voice. “Are they bleeding?”

Her mouth went dry. “Yes. You remember it too.”

The dome light went off, plunging them into darkness. The streetlamp outside the garage barely penetrated the blackness. Reese almost leaped out of her skin when David’s hand brushed hers. “Reese,” he said.

“Wh-what?” The air in the car seemed to move as if it were a pile of metal filings, all pointing at her.

His jacket rustled as he shifted in the passenger seat. “We’re different. Since the accident. You and me.” His words hung in the charged air. His fingers laced through hers.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Is it happening to you now?” he asked.

His pulse was strong in her hand, echoing the pace of her own. And then, as if that third eye had blinked open in her again, she could see him from the inside out.

It terrified her. With her mom, there had been nothing to be afraid of. She trusted her mom; she loved her. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to
know
David like that. It was much too intimate. All her defensive walls snapped up, pushing back against him. Cold sweat broke out on her skin, and she pulled her hand away.

In a dizzying rush, she was just herself again: backed up against the car door, her body trembling. “No. I don’t know,” she said. “It’s getting really late. I should go upstairs.” She pushed the door open awkwardly. The dome light came on again, and David was a shadow turned toward her.

“All right,” he said.

She couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or confused. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She climbed out of the car on rubbery legs, and as she was
about to shut the door she saw a lump on the backseat. Startled, she ducked back into the car; it was Julian’s jacket. She pulled it out and inspected the rest of the car, making sure nothing else had been left behind for her mother to discover. David was waiting outside in the chilly night. She entered the code on the number pad to close the door, wrapping her arms around herself against the misty air.

“We have to talk about this,” David said.

She clutched Julian’s jacket to her chest. “I know.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” she said again, backing away.

“Bye.”

“Bye.” She turned stiffly and climbed the steps to the front door.

Reese couldn’t sleep. David’s words rang in her.
memory
We’re different.
She knew it was true. She ran a hand along the side of her body, tracing the phantom scar that had once slashed across her ribs to her belly button. They had cut her open, and when they sewed her back together, something fundamental had changed.

She didn’t know how to deal with it or even how to understand it. The more she thought about it, trying to puzzle out why or how her strange new ability worked, the more frustrated she became.

Restless, she flipped onto her side and pillowed her head on her arm. Julian’s jacket was flung over the back of her desk chair. The early morning light was seeping through the blinds. She could just make out the red and yellow paint on the wall, now completely dry. She sat up, remembering the last part of the
project. She threw off the blanket and picked up the roll of plastic wrap, turning on the overhead light. She found scissors and clear tape and began to stretch the plastic over the center of the wall in the shape of a rough star.

When she was finished, she stepped back to look at the entire wall, with the glistening plastic center layered over bittersweet root, morning sunrise, and downy gold. She remembered watching the birth of a calf, once, in biology class. The furry head, damp and frighteningly large, emerging from the cow’s birth canal. The ears and neck and shoulders slipping out of the wet, glistening caul.

Reese could almost remember how it felt: like an amphibian heaving itself out of the primordial goo of the sea, crawling onto the shore. Damp, new, exhilarating.

Rebirth
, Amber had said.

It was just before seven o’clock in the morning. Her body hummed with alertness. She couldn’t go back to sleep now. She decided to go to Amber’s house and surprise her and then take Julian’s jacket back to him. She wrote a note for her mom so she wouldn’t worry when she woke up to find an empty house, then grabbed her keys and left.

Outside, the fog hadn’t burned off yet. The mist still curled over Twin Peaks, and the radio tower was obscured by damp white clouds. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled Julian’s jean jacket over her hoodie for added warmth.

Along the way she remembered that Amber had said her mother was in town for a few days, and Reese realized she hadn’t asked about the logistics of that. Was Amber’s mom staying in the flat with her? She should probably call her when she got
there, instead of just ringing the doorbell. She wished she had a key, so she could sneak upstairs into Amber’s room and kiss her awake. The thought of it pulled deliciously at her belly, and she turned onto Amber’s street with her phone in her hand, ready to dial.

As she glanced in the direction of Amber’s house, she saw someone emerging from the building’s front door. It was an older woman dressed in a gray skirt suit, her dark hair cut in a bob.

It was Dr. Brand.

Reese halted.
What is she doing here?

But the jolt of recognizing Dr. Brand was nothing compared to what Reese felt when she saw Amber come out of the house and hand the woman a manila envelope.

Reese instinctively ducked behind the hedge that bordered the steep front steps of the house next door, her heart slamming against her chest. All her anticipation for seeing Amber vanished, smothered by the shock of discovering that Amber somehow knew Dr. Brand. Reese twisted around so that she could look in the direction of Amber’s house, but the foliage was too dense. She stiffened as she heard footsteps heading toward her, and then Dr. Brand spoke.

“That’s all? You only saw the painted wall, right? There was no other evidence of the adaptation chamber anywhere?”

“No, that was all,” Amber said. “I think she’s starting to remember, but I don’t think she really knows what it means yet.”

Their voices grew closer, and Reese was afraid that they would walk right past her and see her crouched on the steps, but at the last minute they stopped. A car alarm beeped, and someone opened a car door.

“When are you coming back?” Amber asked.

“I’m not sure,” Dr. Brand answered. “I’ll take this photo with me and consult with the others. I didn’t think she would remember so quickly.”

“What do you want me to do in the meantime?” Amber asked.

There was a pause, and Reese held her breath. She realized that Amber was only a few feet away, and if she walked any farther to the right she might see her.

“You’ve done an excellent job so far,” Dr. Brand said. “I think you should just continue with your assignment. Let me know if anything else comes up.”

“All right,” Amber said. “Have a safe flight.”

The door closed, and a moment later the engine turned on and the car drove away. Reese waited until she heard Amber’s footsteps return to the house. After the front door opened and closed, Reese pushed herself up and walked blindly down the hill toward the park. She didn’t look back.