“Michael.”
The classroom was gray. Everything was gray at the Institute. There were no windows in the room. There were thirteen students, including two more Michaels—Michael Two and Michael Four. But I was the first Michael. I didn’t need a numbered designation. Our creator, Jericho—that was what he called himself—our creator, had thought it humorous to name us after the lost children of Peter Pan. In the story, Michael, Peter, Lily, and Wendy hadn’t been among the lost. In the Institute they were. Every child here was as lost as he could possibly be.
“Yes, Instructor,” I said promptly. You were always quick and you always performed above average or you wouldn’t be around much longer to fail at both of those things.
“Name the proper technique for avoiding suspicion in scenario twenty-seven.”
Scenario twenty-seven was smiling wide and shaking the hand of the president like a good Boy Scout, essay-writer, or boy who’d saved the lives of a burning preschool full of babies. Whatever story it took to get you within touching distance of a man someone, it didn’t matter who, wanted to die. “After inducing a fatal heart attack or aneurysm, he falls, and I cry and ask for my mother.”
“Mommy. At your age, you ask for your mommy,” the Instructor corrected me.
I nodded. “Yes, Instructor. I ask for my mommy.”
My hands were folded and the desk was cool under my skin. I was eight or close to eight. I didn’t know for sure. I’d say young, but there was no such thing as young at the Institute. I had no idea what an eight-year-old in the outside world would do after killing a head of state, but the Instructors told us what to do, how to emotionally manipulate, how to imitate the real thing—a genuine person. Imitation—it was what the best predators did. The biology Instructor told us that.
It would turn out that nothing they’d taught us had been as effective as they’d thought. Killing they hadn’t had to teach us. Killing had been stamped on our genes. Killing was as easy as breathing.
Being human was a hundred times harder.
“Misha?”
Misha, the Russian nickname for Michael, was my real-life name, no matter how much I sucked at real life today. Actually, Lukas was my birth name, but I didn’t remember it. Since I had lived with the name Michael for all the time I did remember, Lukas was one thing too many when Stefan had shown up. I’d been rescued, dragged into a world that I didn’t know from true experience but only through books, movies, and field trips. I’d been told I had a brother . . . every second there had been something new, something strange, something frightening. And although a monster had given me the name Michael, it was the only familiar thing I’d had then—on the run as I was. I was stubborn and kept it, like a security blanket. Stefan had seen I’d needed it and had gone along. Lukas’s memories were gone. In the time since my brother had found me, I hadn’t gotten a single one of those memories back, so Lukas himself was basically gone. I did my best to make sure Michael was the next best thing.
Stefan had started his pickup truck, ladder and paint loaded in the back, but he hadn’t pulled out of the driveway yet. His hand was on my shoulder, giving me a light shake. I left the Institute and came back to the here and now, almost as emotionally lost as I’d been then. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have seen the news. I shouldn’t have thought you’d be keeping it to yourself . . . I should’ve thought and not thought a lot of things.” I managed to shut up and dive for the glove compartment.
Since Stefan had brought me out of Willy Wonka’s Assassin Factory, as his friend Saul called it, he’d always stocked the cars and trucks we owned with Three Musketeers. He’d said they were my favorite before I’d been snatched and they were my favorite now—a seven-year hole in my memories didn’t make a difference there.
Comfort food was always comfort food. That was one of the first things Stefan taught me and, unlike the teachings of my old instructors, his lessons were always right and true. I held on to the candy bar and felt the chocolate and filler squash under my fingers. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. He was your father. I don’t remember him being my father, but he was yours and I’m sorry.”