Orfyn

 

 

“They’re going to unmerge me,” Lake tells me.

I know it’s the only way to make sure Sophie doesn’t do any more damage. Lake will only get worse, and Sophie might take over her body. I’ve been repeating to myself all the reasons why she needs to go through with it, and now that it’s really going to happen, I want to beg her not to.

We’re only beginning.

I pull my eyes away from the rose garden Lake saved and look up. The sky is a dense wall of gray nothingness. “How did you get them to agree to it?”

“Actually, you gave me the idea. I …” She looks down at her hands. “I threatened to kill Sophie.” Her voice is a whisper. “I didn’t know what else to do.” She starts scratching lines in the wooden bench with her fingernail, and a tear slides down her cheek.

“You had no choice, Lake.”

She shrugs. “I’m just relieved I never had to try.”

I should be proud that I was the one who came up with the solution, but it’s why she’ll be leaving The Flem. “Does Stryker know?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know how to tell him.”

“He’ll understand.”

“I hope so.” She doesn’t look convinced.

I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind Lake’s ear, something I’ve always wanted to do. Her hair feels like silk. “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re acting more like yourself today.”

“They’re giving me a dream-suppressing drug. I suspect as a period … No, that’s not right. A precaution against my harming Sophie. They told me I could only stay on it for a short period before I start experiencing continuous hallucinations, which is why I need to unmerge as soon as possible.” She looks at me with a burning intensity. “I’m so angry at Sophie. Sometimes I think I could actually do it, which only makes me angrier because she’s turned me into that person.”

“I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”

Lake wraps her arms around herself. “How did it come to this? I wanted to save people, and I ended up threatening to kill someone.”

“You did what you had to do to save yourself.”

She shakes her head as if to push out an unwelcome thought. “Was I that bad?”

How do you tell the girl you love the truth? “What do you remember?”

“The last few days were so strange. I’d be doing something like eating breakfast, and the next thing I knew, I’d find myself in the rose garden with no memory of how I got there. But in my mind, it all made perfect sense, and I created these elaborate justifications for why I kept losing time.”

A part of me has been hoping it really was only exhaustion, but I’m pretty sure Sophie was breaking into her awake-life and trying to take over.

Lake places her hand on mine. “I promised I’d start coughing … I mean, confiding in you, so I need to tell you what Sophie wants to do.”

Lake describes Sophie’s plan to sterilize billions of people. In the rare times when Sister Mo watched the news, I’d hear her quoting Philippians: What shall it profit a man, should he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? What kind of person would Lake turn into if she spent the rest of her life with Sophie in her head?

“You have to unmerge,” I say, finally accepting the truth.

Lake leans her head against mine. “I know. But if I do, I’ll never see you again.”

“When I get out of here, I’ll come find you.”

“I won’t remember who you are.”

I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her closer. “You’ll fall for me all over again.”

She grins. “You are irresistible.”

“And persistent.”

“Some would call it stalkerish.”

“Hey, whatever works.”

“It works,” Lake whispers as her lips touch mine.

As we get lost in each other, I vow to find Lake and remind her about art and clouds and medieval curses all over again.