The glass shard falls from our grasp, shattering into small diamonds while my blood stain expands.

Usually, I would balk at the pain, at the stinging in my neck. Not anymore. I'm too numb for that.

Memories waves together, but the needle is too sharp.

Touching my head, I see her break the window, see her lifting a shard to our neck. Trembling seems pretty low-key after that.

Across from me Light is frozen, his eyes wider than my disbelief.

He is part of the Janus Foundation. Part of their world when I needed someone so desperately to be part of mine.

Wordlessly, he slips into his mask and sweeps up the glass from the window. The clinking reminds me of grinding bones. He then proceeds to remove the bloodied shard. Throughout, I stay where I am, still as the world around me. Unmoving as the half-reflection in the fractured window.

On the inside, I'm in flames.

'You really would have killed me,' I murmur to her. Alyssa, much quieter than I've ever heard her, takes a long time to answer.

'No. You would have let me'.

Neither of us say anything. The truth is clear.

In that moment, I would have let her. I understand now; she will do whatever it takes.

I suppose I will try to do the same.

"Alice". His voice sends shockwaves through me. Lifted from my trance, I slump forward, avoiding him altogether. I can't even stand to look at him.

"Alice". That voice – it's just as painful to listen.

"You're like me," I breathe faintly. He never said anything. He made me feel as if I was alone. Isolated in a world choked by people who were whole. All that time, pretending. Lying.

I'm no better. I guess we're both liars.

Perhaps he ignores my statement, perhaps he bounds into such frivolous detail I'm swimming in syllables. Either way, I don't seem to notice.

Excuse me for zoning out after my other persona tried to kill me. It happens.

I am a glacier, numb to it all. Or I want to be, but I can't find the will. I'd rather feel. I don't want to be used, but if I can't fight back, what else is there to do? I can try. That is all I can do. At least it's something.

Dr. Light approaches, his body mellowing before me. In the mask, out of the mask. There's no telling how he's going to present himself next.

Bruising forward, his colours seem to dull. His blonde hair droops grey like a disagreeable mop and the green cat's eyes are cast down. He stops momentarily, his hand nearing my cheek. I could pull away, I could. Part of me wants to. Yet there is another part that wants to fall toward him and clasp his hand in mine. That part of me is very fanciful and has read way too many novels.

"Alice". His fingers brush my cheek. The flinch is involuntary, but he still takes a few steps back.

"Alice, I need to clean the cut. Will you let me? Will you let me help?" he asks.

I will let him say my name again. I will let him tell me that I am no longer alone. I will let him look at me like I look at him.

Taking my silence as his rightful cue - as did every other Doctor I met - he heads out of the room, returning barely two minutes later with a first aid kit. I'm so unprepared for his return, my vision blurs. Light stands there, open. A little too late, I want to say, to scream at him. His expression is sparse, free of assumption, of the analysis.

Motioning for me to sit down, he picks up a cotton swab. I guide myself to the couch, miss it entirely, and plant my backside heavily onto the carpet. Searching our mind, Alyssa is deadly quiet, the neurological comments section no longer overflowing. There are no traces of her snide remarks, her jibes. Of course, it is then I realise I miss them. They are inner building blocks; they allow me to build myself a tower. Now I'm little more than a single brick. Or two.

Dr. Light dabs at the cut, keeping at a genteel pace.

"You're lucky you don't need stiches, or the hospital," he remarks to fill the space between us. I want to shout that there is an entire galaxy crammed into the centimetres that separate us, not a small crack. Stupidly, I register how gentle he is. How someone can be so gentle at all.

"The antiseptic will sting," he says, more for his benefit. Oceans roil in-between our eyes. The antiseptic does sting although it is nothing compared to the sensation of a lumbar puncture. The sluice of the sharpest needle. After a week of inspecting my cut, he clears away the supplies before pondering the broken window. We are going to need to think of a pretty believable excuse.

"Baseball?" he suggests. A smile dares to creep onto my lips.

"Baseball," I agree. Here we are again. In our carousel of belief, bewilderment and betrayal. I have not missed it at all.

Beyond the shatter pattern, summer douses the garden in a mixture of yellow, blue, green. This is why I'm here. This is why I'm helping Alyssa. To see a thousand summer scenes like this. A thousand more.

Dr. Light obstructs the golden haze, his finely pressed suit no match for the ball of maple syrup in the sky. He is a figure cut from an old photograph, unsure of where he fits. We remain unmoved. He is a million miles away, on a rocky peninsula, while I'm cooped up in a cell. Out of the blue, he sits. Speaks.

"I am the Gemini Project".

The room unravels.

"What?" It's a physical nightmare to move my mouth.

"Part of it, at least. They led me to believe there were others," he carries on. I let him.

This is his session and now I'm the one listening.

"I felt indebted to them. The Janus Foundation. I was orphaned when I was two. My parents died in a boating accident off the coast of Mexico, so I ended up in care. No one ever fostered me because I was so quiet. I never took the time to make any friends. I suppose I thought no one would like me, so I never gave people the chance to judge. Not quite human enough to be accepted into a loving family. Then they adopted me. The Foundation arrived one morning and adopted me, along with a few other kids. Now, I wonder if they only wanted children no one would miss. For their experiments. They led me to believe what they were doing – are doing – was right. They helped me through school, gave me books, clothes, knowledge. Men and women with guns strapped to their belts took me out for ice-cream. Helped me with my homework. I was raised by scientists and murderers. But they were the only family I had. So, I went to Harvard, got my degree. I never knew much else. About what they were doing. I might have done, once. But the procedures, they left me with gaps in my memory. Headaches. I thought they were trying to cure brain Cancer or Alzheimer's. Then...". He shivers slightly.

"After the procedures, they tested me, like they tested you. Reflexes, how quickly my neurons re-wired themselves or fired. They tested everything. Tested me. So many times. They said the experiment had failed, but that night, when I came home, I experienced this excruciating headache. I felt that my brain was going to explode. The next morning, I woke up at the other end of town, with an assortment of wallets and blood on my shirt. I never knew what happened until I found the messages he left. The other me". He pauses, stares at me with such sincerity my heart wants to fly. Fly far away.

"I should have questioned them sooner. Should have said something. They were malevolent. Once I'd failed, they seemed to have no use for me. Until you woke up," he adds.

"Why?" I gasp. "Why in the world did you keep working for them after everything they've done?"

Light lifts further into my gaze. His fingers fumble along the cuffs of his shirt.

"The same reason I'm agreeing to keep quiet now. You".