I know from the tension in Mason’s body.
And Cameron knows, too. His body, leaning limply against the door frame. The gun hanging loosely from his slack fingers.
I press my hands against the glass—I want to go to them.
Mason keeps talking to fill the silence. “Do you know who that is? That name before Ava?”
Casey looks at Cameron and says, “She received a huge inheritance when her entire family was killed. Then a year later, she went on a two-day killing spree before being gunned down by the cops. She snapped.”
“That she did,” says Mason. “Afterward the police discovered that she was the one who killed her family. I think, more than anything, Ava was afraid she might do the same. Couldn’t concentrate on what we were saying. Couldn’t think of what we were offering. We gave her time, but she couldn’t get past it. The fear of who she might be, that was worse than the fear of us revealing that information. And so she ran. As if you can run from yourself …”
I back away from the door, my limbs trembling, my breath shaking. This cannot be what we’ve traded everything for. This cannot be what we’re left with. There’s no meaning in this. There’s nothing for us here.
I look at what’s surrounding me. The servers that tower over me, the machines humming through the room, the power lights flashing with life. The information Ivory used for her research is in here somewhere; Mason said as much. In here is the proof. But in here is also the thing that binds us in this life to the last. In here is the thing that June died from, that Ava died from. This room is a prison. It’s a prison full of information that some would twist to contain us.
But the information is stored on machines. Wires and cables and electrical circuits. I know what to do with them. I know what to do with all this information.
I studied this. How to make things. A phone. A stun gun. A fire.
It does not take me long. I strip wires with my teeth, and I pry circuit boards from their computer units with my fingernails. I know exactly what to do.
There’s yelling in the other room—it’s high and nonsensical, and I try to shut out the pain in Casey’s voice, but I can’t. It seeps into me, the contagiousness of grief, as my fingers fumble with the exposed wires.
I smell the smoke before I can see it.
Like something changing. Something happening.
Something dying.
Something coming to life.
It sparks and singes the tips of my fingers, and I drop the wires. The smoke curls in dark clouds, crawling upward—the promise of destruction.
But then the smoke becomes something more, something I cannot escape, multiplying and giving life to itself, sucking the oxygen from the room—how insidious smoke is when set free. How dangerous it becomes in a closed room.
I did not imagine how suffocating smoke could be, but here, in this room, it burns my lungs before it destroys the machines. I suck in air, but it’s poison. I try to breathe, but the room is full of a grayness that burns my eyes, and so I close them. I lean against the nearest server, sinking to the ground, the sound of sparks igniting behind me.
He can get me out. I know he can. I know he will.
I close my eyes, and I imagine instead.
I imagine Cameron, uninjured, smiling before me in the open doorway. And Casey, finding her sister. My father, being released from prison. And my mother, pulling me from the water.
I listen for the sound of his voice through the door. But the noises have changed. The sound of grief has turned to panic, to rage. There’s another voice out there now.
I feel a sudden burst of clearer air in my lungs. The door is open in front of me, and Cameron pushes through the thick smoke. I see his pale face, and his arms pulling me up, as the sparks and smoke become something more. Becoming flames, becoming fire.
I barely make it out of the room before Dominic has me by the arm. Casey is frozen in the hallway. Mason is frozen beside her, his face unreadable. And Dominic stands among us all. Cameron was right—Dom didn’t come unarmed—he moves the gun quickly from one to the next as smoke fills up the space around us, the fire alarm blaring, the sprinklers overhead, the lights flashing at the exits.
“What did you do?” he shouts over the alarm. “What did you do?”
“It’s gone!” I shout back, but my voice comes out raspy. I cough, but my lungs feel too tight. And the heat on my back, the smoke growing thicker. “We have to go.”
“No,” he says. “Fix this!” He grabs the fire extinguisher with his free hand and thrusts it at Casey. “Fix it now!”
Mason is screaming for help, but I don’t know what he’s looking for: help for his lab, help from the man with the gun, or help from us. Which is the most dangerous. Cameron is beside me with an empty gun, but he’s in no position to be fighting. It’s a miracle he’s still standing.
“The police are coming! The firefighters will be here! Campus security. We can’t be here!” I say, shaking free of Dominic.
I grab Casey’s arm and head down the hall. Dominic fires a shot at the ceiling to stop us. “You don’t get to do this,” he says. “You don’t get to decide this.”
Except I already did. “There’s nothing here anymore. I destroyed it. It’s gone.”
Dominic stares into the smoke and then strides back to me, taking me by the arm again. “For them, and not for me, Alina?” he asks, like I have betrayed him. And maybe I have. I don’t like the look on Cameron’s face. The empty gun in his hand. What he might use it for.
Go, I mouth to him. I turn to Casey. Please. Go. But they do not.
Mason grabs the fire extinguisher, trying to salvage what’s left of his lab. Dominic watches, stunned, angry, all the things I’d be in his place. But there’s a gun in his hand and a price on our heads, and he is a man with nothing left to lose.
“Liam and June were wrong,” I say. “And June was trying to set it right after Liam’s death. The study was a lie. We’re not bound to be the people we once were. We can take a different path.”
He fixes his eyes on me, the gun tight in his fist.
“Did you hear me?” I ask, because I have to yell over the alarm and my voice is barely working. “We’re not the people we were!” But his face twists, his fingers tighten.
“I don’t believe that,” he says. “And neither do you.” He doesn’t want to believe it, because if he does, he’s staked his life on something that no longer exists.
“I can’t help you,” I say. “There’s nothing left here. Let me go. Please. We’re running out of time.”
He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t raise the gun, and I guess that’s as good a sign as any. I yank my arm from Dominic, and he lets me go. I wonder if there’s still a chance for him. If he believes in redemption. In this life, for this life. I believe it. I believe it’s not too late, for any of us.
The fire trucks are coming. The authorities are coming. Everyone is coming. “Dominic,” I say, because I do owe him something—or maybe June does, but I am the only one here. “Run.”
“They were willing to die for it, once before,” he says.
“Not for this,” I say. “Not for data or money or power. Dominic. Run.”
He runs, but he runs in the wrong direction. Into the room with Mason, trying to save the information.
I feel a twinge of regret for this man—who believed we had a love and a purpose that transcended one lifetime. Maybe it’s possible. Maybe it happens. But we’re more than just the history of our soul. More than DNA. More than our past lives. We’re the choices we’ve made in this life. Every one of them, giving us purpose.
We run down the hall, Casey leading the way, and I hear Mason and Dominic shouting behind us, for water, for blankets, for anything as the lab goes up in flames. But I hope it’s too late. I hope it’s destroyed. I hope there’s nothing left.