Once we were out in the patio, Layla headed for the large table where we'd had dinner and grabbed a shawl off her mother's chair. I was surprised when she held it out to me, her eyebrows raised in a look of offering.

"I'm okay, thanks."

"Take it. You're shivering."

She was right, I was. I hadn't realized it until she said something. But the early morning air wasn't cold. If anything, it was refreshing. I must have still been weak from the surgery. I wrapped the shawl around me, and it smelled like Elaheh's musty perfume mixed with other spices from the kitchen.

"We can sit over here," she said, gesturing to the cushion-covered wooden benches on the front porch. "No one will be up for a while."

"Thank you," I said, not sure why Layla was suddenly being polite. But then it hit me: she clearly didn't like me, but I was brought here to save Brady. And that was obviously something she was desperate to do.

"They should have told you," she began once were sitting.

"Hmm?"

She nodded to my head, to the place where my peripheral vision kept catching hints of the glowing red light that would now be with me forever. "I said as much, but my mother still thinks I'm a kid. She always knows best."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"I'm nineteen."

"I know."

She brought her knees up under her, and her hands began braiding the fringe that dangled from one of the throw pillows. It was funny—somehow it reminded me of Brady. He was constantly fidgeting with his hands. A remnant from when he used to smoke.

"Layla—"

Her eyes darted up to me when I said her name, but then immediately reverted to the pillow. I saw suddenly how hard she was trying to be brave. She was a slight girl with skinny, long fingers a shade darker than mine. I could see the outline of bones in her knees as she bent them under her, giving the impression of a bird with a broken wing.

I cleared my throat and started again. "Layla, I would do anything to save Brady. I really would."

She nodded, but she wouldn't look at me.

"He's saved me before—"

"I know everything about you," she said now in a crisp, certain voice. She finally looked at me with a newfound confidence. "You don't have to tell me. Brady tells me everything—everything. We don't have secrets. We wouldn't have them even if it weren't for..." she gestured vaguely towards her temple.

"Well, no offense, but how can you know that? How long have you had that thing anyway?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but then something strange happened. Her red indicator light pulsed ever so slightly with a stronger signal. Then it returned to normal. Her eyes darted left and then right, almost like...like she was trying to think of something true she could say without revealing anything. "That is something you don't need to know," she finally managed.

I felt a deep and urgent breath force its way into my lungs. She was trapped, I realized. Trapped by that horrible thing in her head, monitoring her every speech. Her every thought. It was a prison.

A prison that I was now in with her.

"I'm so sorry, Layla. But I don't know how to fix these things. I really don't. I haven't invented them yet. I wouldn't even know—"

"It's in your brain, you idiot!"

I sat back in shock. The words had burst out of her. She must have surprised herself as well because her head turned forcefully away, like she was wrestling her thoughts back down into her throat. Then she made a choking sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

She shook her head, and I could see now that she was laughing. But it was a bitter, sad laughter. A laughter of despair, verging on tears. "You don't even know how it works," she said, still shaking her head.

"Okay," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "Explain it to me then."

But she scrunched her face up, shaking the emotion away. "It's in your brain. The seed of the idea—in your brain. Why do you think they put in the ICD?"

"To make me tell the truth?" I guessed. Although they must have known that if the truth would have saved Brady, I would have offered it freely. They didn't need to force it out of me.

"The truth?" She laughed again. "You don't need to tell them anything now. They're already downloading you. They'll be done soon. And then they won't need you anymore."

My face must have revealed my horror at what she was telling me. Downloading me? Like a computer? "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you were brought here to save Brady. And we'll know soon enough if it worked." Her face had turned rigid again, her eyes trained on the throw pillow.

"I know you don't like me, Layla. And, yes, I did hurt Brady—"

"You were the second girl to do it. He's the most wonderful person I've ever met. And you both treated him like garbage."

I cleared my throat. It was still hard to hear that, even if it was the truth. And yet I felt like I needed to explain. "Okay, well, if you know everything about me—about Brady and me—then you know that I didn't mean to hurt him. The truth is, I didn't remember dating him. I had gone through a door in order to...to fix something, and when I got back to my side..."

"I know this part. You saved your brother. Then you went through the door again so he'd remember you. I told you, Brady and I have no secrets."

"Then you must understand," I pleaded. "I didn't hurt him on purpose. He's my friend. But you know how it is when you go through the doors. Sometimes things change and you weren't expecting it."

Her eyes started doing that thing again—scanning from side to side like she was looking for an escape route. But she only shook her head.

"Layla," I said tentatively, finally beginning to realize something. "Layla, you've been through the doors, right? I mean, you must have, or you wouldn't be here."

But her eyes just kept scanning.

It didn't make any sense. She must have gone through at least one door at some point. Unless...unless...

"Dear god, were you born here?"

She blinked several times, unable to deny it. Her red indicator was pulsing again.

"This is the only world you know," I said as I realized it. "Your mother kept you hidden here." That would explain why I had never known Elaheh even had a daughter.

"It's safe here," she said, dismissing my great revelation as something that should have been obvious.

"But you were alone."

Her eyes darted to the front gate for a moment, then back to the pillow. But she had already given herself away with that gesture. I looked to the gate, too, thinking of the children I had met when I arrived.

"Of course," I said. "That's why she brought the other families."

"Playmates," she conceded.

"But they were all younger than you," I continued. "You needed someone your own age. Someone you could love." My brain bolted ahead to the next thought, and it was like someone had turned on a light in a dark room. "And so she brought you Brady."

"Well, look at you," she sighed. "Put it all together, didn't you? Maybe you're a genius after all."

I stood up, my mind racing. I could feel the device in my brain whirring, like it was processing all this new information for me. Like I was nothing more than a walking computer.

"No wonder they named children after you," Layla said, the bitterness back in her tone. "The savior of us all."

Her eyes had fallen to the table, and she was clearly done speaking to me.

The sliding glass door to the house swooshed open then, and Layla and I both snapped to attention. It was Elaheh, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She offered me the most pitiful of smiles. "Your aunt would like to see you now."

I straightened my head, trying to hold on to a shred of dignity, I suppose. And then I pushed my way past her, back into the warm, orange-scented air of the house.

****

Layla speaking some harsh truths here. Thoughts?