Noises around me . . . things shifting, voices, multiple voices, as if people were calmly discussing something, clinking metal. White lights when my lids slid apart, indistinct shapes, moving in and out of my line of view, apparati overhead. Then my skin picked up on sensations; some cool, liquid material surrounded my hands and fingers, my entire body, but not my face. My lips--around a tube, a breathing tube. When my eyes adjusted, when my senses cleared, I saw above me an expansive space, all white, though I could see exposed metal beams above me, almost as if this were some sort of warehouse. But rolling my eyes side to side revealed the walls of this place were rounded glass. Sunlight was pouring through the panes. People in hygienic lab gear moved around me, messing with gadgets and wires and lights and hoses. And me? I seemed to be lying flat on my back in a shallow pool of what felt like and was clear as water. It covered all of me except my head. Upon trying to lift a hand or move a toe or even speak, I found I could not. I could slightly turn my head, though, and what I saw through the clear sides of my shallow pool was another next to me, and that one contained Lucas.

I had no idea what was happening, only that it didn't seem promising. Panic built, but there was absolutely nothing I could do; it seemed even my heartbeat was being regulated and was incapable of speeding up. The only place to embrace the hysteria was in my brain.

"She's waking. Lessen the sedative. His as well. They need to be at rest, not immobilized. Doc's orders."

I recognized the voice, though I couldn't see the menacing figure I knew it belonged to. The vampirish man--the tattooed man--they'd shot him in the leg last I'd seen him--

"Gareth," that was Sabine's voice, authoritative, "you'll be responsible for the memory wipe right before the procedure. Enrique and I don't want any of them left when we submerse. It's close timing--the sedative will wear off right after the wipe."

"All in order," the man conceded.

I wished desperately I could see them, could see anything or anyone besides the generic people in lab gear. And then, suddenly, my wish was granted, and Sabine stood over me, hair slicked back, dressed in an uncomfortable-looking garment that resembled a stiff white paper bag. She smiled down at me in a patronizing manner, leaned over and spoke to me. "I know you can hear me, Layla, and I think it only right you have full knowledge of what's going on, her, as you're an integral part of it. We're going to conquer nature itself, today." Her eyes positively glowed with excitement, and she became almost affectionate in tone. "We are the masters, today, Enrique and I . . . and you. Your purpose--your glorious purpose--is to help us defeat mankind's until now invincible enemy: death itself. We've conditioned your bodies and minds to perfection, Layla, our darkness. Lucas, our light. You will never age--you'll always be. You're eternal! You are a vessel, and today Enrique will enter you, and I will enter Lucas, and we will become you, eternal. You aren't human, you see, so you can't think that we created you as in end in itself. What would be the purpose of creating immortality if it were impossible for humans to possess? Enrique and I are aging, but now at last we have a means to defeat the inevitable." She took her bony fingers and stroked my forehead.

I listened in horror but could do nothing and say nothing. My eyes must've shown her my thoughts, though.

"I know this is incomprehensible to you, but you need not be afraid. You won't remain. Whatever you believe is you will be gone before Enrique's awareness is uploaded into you. I would prefer your vessel myself, but it's best we claim our own partially genetic material. The transfer is safer that way; our DNA is more compatible.

"And what a gift you're giving to the world, Layla. In theory, we will be able to replicate this entire process. Enrique and I will have the rest of eternity to perfect it. And then--who knows what power we'll wield? We, who have the ability to forever alter the course of humanity? Who can provide vessels that never age, that are resistant to the struggles of life, that never suffer through illness or childbirth? Your sterility alone will aid in population control. Oh--the benefits are endless."

She was getting worked up, and how I wanted to raise my hands, to tear at her smiling face, to scream at her, to get up out of the pool and slaughter every person in that room and rip Lucas out of his bonds and find Henry and get out . . . just get out . . .

Sabine's elation morphed into a somewhat concerned expression. She called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off me, "Gareth--Gareth! Enrique!"

The two men appeared suddenly in my range of sight, questioning expressions on them. Enrique was dressed in a similar white-paper-bag sort of getup as Sabine.

A hint of the frazzled Miss Pinsky-Waters showed itself on Sabine's features. "Her--her eyes . . . I thought I saw . . ."

The three of them scrutinized me, got so close to my eyes I could see myself reflected in their own. I was breathing heavily, beginning to feel my hands and feet again, but I calmed myself as they looked.

"Nevermind." Sabine waved a hand. "I think I just got a little excited. I've been explaining everything to her, Enrique. She'll be ready for you."

Enrique gave me that kindly grin again which, in the current circumstances, was entirely horrifying. That man being inside my head? My body? I--I couldn't--it was just disgusting. They might have made me, but I'd fight as much as I was able to keep them away from me.

"Let's begin," Sabine said, perhaps a little rattled. "Gareth?"

The sharp-toothed man looked down at me. His greasy dark hair was pulled back, and he wore clean looking lab gear, but he was still the horrible person I remembered from the beach house, from my memory of him in that cabin in the woods. "Time for the needle, love," he said in the least loving tone imaginable.

The needle? Enrique and Sabine disappeared from my view, and another man appeared wearing thick goggles. In his hand, he held what resembled a syringe, but the needle at the end of it was long and thin, almost like a thread. I remembered that needle . . . and my breathing sped up. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn't; my throat constricted, and I had a breathing tube in my mouth. There was nothing I could do. It would go into my temple, though, I knew, and then they'd try to erase everything . . . Henry, and Lucas, and Oliphant and the Circuit and they themselves . . . I'd be an entirely blank slate . . . they wanted to erase me! How'd Henry gotten through it? He'd said he'd thought of me . . . could I do the same? Think of him? Would it work? I'd try. I had to try!

Before I could think more of anything the goggled man was inserting that terrible thing into the side of my head. I had no clue if they'd given me any sort of anesthetic, but I certainly felt the sting of it slide through my skin, into what I could only guess was through my skull and into my actual brain. A cool sensation filled my head, as if some cold liquid were pumping into it, and everything began to blur. I thought I saw Gareth hovering over me, saying something to me about letting myself go, or moving beyond . .

And Sabine's voice sounded loud and clear in the background. She seemed to be announcing something to whoever was assembled there. "You're here today to make history, each of you! We're going to rewrite the very trajectory of life!" And then her words' edges were lost. I could tell she was still speaking, but everything began to fold itself together. A terrible pulling, stretching filled my skull, as if my very fabric were being reworked. This was it--this was the memory wipe--this was what I'd been through ten times and lost Henry . . . Henry! I had to think of Henry. Henry's tall, calm stature, his glassy starlit eyes, his strength even in what they perceived as weakness, his persistence in the face of trauma, his touch and his kiss—oh God, the memory of that kiss!—everything we'd been through together, the parts that I could remember: the first time we'd met at the glowing water tank in Oliphant, the forget-me-nots, the moment I'd felt the electricity of his touch, Jason hurting him in that alleyway, his face as he held the weapon aimed at me in that cabin, finding him in that torture chamber at the beach house, his distance all those months pretending he didn't know me, the way he'd saved me from Peale, how he'd held me close and whispered in my ear at the carnival, and the nearness of him in the mirror maze, his face when I'd hurt him on that swan boat, and him pulling me off the ground and holding me in his arms when we'd been attacked at the mansion. And a strange thing began to happen. In the midst of all the terrible and terrifying movements at work in my skull, all the images and memories of Henry playing on repeat through the chaos, unfamiliar images started to surface: a stadium of some kind, a sporting event outdoors, Henry next to me, cheering about something; a dilapidated building rooftop, sleet pouring down, Henry holding my hand as we stepped onto the ledge, looked down at a city asparkle with lights and dark ice; a Thai food restaurant, a woman walking in with a gun aimed at me, Henry jumping up from the table, taking my hand and rushing through the kitchen and out the back door with me; a knock at my window as I lay in the absolutely normal bed of a normal looking house, Henry down on the ground, throwing pebbles at the glass in the most cliché gesture of affection imaginable; an eerie damp cave, lit only by phosphorescent waters, Henry like a ghost across an underground river from me; the two of us on a canoe, enjoying the sunshine, floating on a warm insect-buzzing lake . . . and more. From the recesses of my very being, memories spread their tendrils from seeds long buried. I wasn't losing my memory as they worked their evil; I was gaining it.

The sheer amount and force of the information bombarding my head threw my vision into sudden clarity, my body into spasms. I became aware of the pain of the needle in my temple and its sudden withdrawal.

And then Gareth's voice, as if from underwater, "It isn't taking; the bloody thing won't stay in! Twelve! Get over here."

The men stood over me, worked at the needle, but I was regaining my movement. I was able to raise my fingers.

Gareth swore; the doctor swore as well. "Forget her for the moment," the former ordered, showing his teeth in a grimace. "Get the boy, then we'll come back to her."

"But the timing--"

"Blow the timing. I've got to figure this out, haven't I?"

The doctor moved away, presumably toward Lucas. My hearing and vision were entirely focused, now, and I realized that I didn't hear Enrique or Sabine. I heard only shufflings of various people, whirrings and pumpings and beepings and all sorts of the sounds of machines humming along doing their jobs. I knew I was regaining my ability to move, but I couldn't play my hand too fast--Gareth was moving around me, doing things, testing tubes and whatever else, and my eyes followed him everywhere, but I had to wait until I could really do some damage to him before I moved, and I knew that every second longer I waited, Lucas's mind was at risk.

Just as I met a balance between thinking I might have enough strength and being unwilling to wait longer to help Lucas, shots rang out, shattering the orderly, buzzing atmosphere. Gareth looked up from me, was swiftly out of my range of vision, and as I lay there, I heard more shots. Someone was firing multiple rounds. People were screaming. I had no idea what was going on, only that I was grateful for the pandemonium, as whatever was taking place couldn't bode worse for me than my current situation. As the gunfire echoed off the walls and ceiling and the scrambling and frantic cries were engulfed in it all, I acted. I wiggled my fingers, lifted my wrists, bent my elbows. I shifted my toes, pointed them, raised my heels out of the water. And my knees! I bent them upward, used my hips, my stomach, to pull my body up and out of the water. I almost sank back down, but then I placed my palms flat down and balanced my raised body. I was sitting, and the first thing I did was lift a shaking hand to my mouth and rip the breathing tube out of it.

Now I saw the room in its entirety. It was vast and circular, with glass all around except for a huge open doorway that led out somewhere. Machines filled the area. Lucas and I were lying in two pools of shallow water right in the middle of the room, and behind us--which I hadn't been able to see--were two giant upright tanks, also filled with liquid and connected to our pools with all sorts of wires and tubes and pipes. Submerged in the tank behind me was Enrique, and in the tank behind Lucas was Sabine. They appeared to be unconscious, or, at least, their eyes were closed. The left sides of their heads were connected to some sort of black, two-inch-in-diameter plugs, the wires of which led out and down to the pools where Lucas and I lay. Thankfully, the other end of the plugs hadn't been connected to us, yet.

The room seemed to be still only around us; the rest of it had descended into chaos. Bodies were everywhere, covering the ground, bleeding their red onto the white floors. Those few people still running were those with the big guns, who were shooting upward, it seemed. I followed the trajectory of their bullets with my eyes--the ceiling of the room was high, like that of a warehouse, and a catwalk extended all the way around it. On that catwalk were two people, a black girl and a white boy. They were almost naked except for what appeared to white shorts and, in the case of the girl, a strip of material around her breast. Each of them had a huge gun, and each was making liberal use of it.

Hope flooded through me. I lifted my legs over the side of my pool and climbed out of it, slipping but maintaining my balance on the slick floor. The doctor who'd been working on me was nowhere in sight, but I saw the back of Gareth leaning over Lucas's pool. I approached him surreptitiously, anarchy whirling around us. Gareth glanced once or twice to the left or right but never behind, and when I reached him, I grabbed the sharpest tool off the nearest tray and jammed it into his neck.

Screaming what quickly turned into a splutter, he fell forward, but I didn't want him to bleed into Lucas's water, so I pulled him back and let him fall to the floor, where he struggled to get his last breaths.

Lucas was waking, I saw. His eyes were open, and the light in them shone brightly when he saw me. He even smiled. He, too, was dressed in little more than the white shorts, and I suddenly realized my own scant clothing resembled the other girl's, as well. None of that mattered. I reached into Lucas's pool and pulled out his breathing tube, then helped him sit up. By the time the room around us had settled, the gunfire had ceased, Lucas was standing next to me, shaking, holding on to my shoulders, but fast regaining his strength.

The room was a sea of bodies. When I surveyed the devastation, not a single one was moving. A quick glance up showed the catwalk was empty, though. I gasped. Where had they gone?

The door. The wide entranceway, which was entirely open. Through it walked two figures who, in their fearlessness and with their enormous guns strode half-naked and barefoot into the room like superheroes in slow-motion. They were entirely beautiful and dangerous and ferocious and I wanted to be them--and then I realized we were them, Lucas and I.

"Henry!" my voice echoed in the bizarrely quiet room. I moved as quickly as I could toward him, but Lucas couldn't stand on his own yet, so I had to bring him with me. Lucas apologized, but I assured him there was no need. Henry threw aside his weapon as we neared him, rushed toward us, but all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, more gunfire--one single shot. I was so startled that I felt myself fall to the ground, thinking I'd been the one to take the bullet, and yet I felt no pain.

In confusion, I looked around to try to figure out what had happened, but then I realized I'd fallen not because of my own injury but because Lucas had crumpled and taken me down with him. Breathless, completely shocked, I held his head in my lap and saw that blood was pouring from a hole in his neck.

"Wh-what's happening? How--?" I looked up to Henry, who had fallen to his knees to try to help me; he was as bewildered as I was. But then I caught Amirah's expression, smug and unamazed, and I knew she'd shot him. I spun back to him. "No, Lucas. No! You'll be all right--" I rushed to contain his blood with my hand, but there was no way I could hold it in. "We don't die easy," I said between sobs. "You said so yourself!"

His breaths were short and rapid, his eyes were locked with my own. "N-not eas-sy--"

My heart was set to burst. "Please don't die--please!"

"N-Nadia--I--I--" was all he could manage before the beautiful glow left his clear eyes. I knew it was real, this time. I sobbed his name, held him pressed close to me, caressed his forehead and face, and kissed his thousand-light-reflecting eyes closed for the last time.