“We shoulda brought a goddamn shovel,” he said to his roommate.
Among the truly strange things about destiny . . . fate . . . God’s will . . . whatever you wanted to call it, was the location where major shifts in a person’s life happened. Sometimes, the place made sense. Like a hospital, where someone was born or died. Or a stage, where you graduated from high school, from college, from grad school. Maybe an altar, where a person got married.
But other times?
As Jo glanced around at the break room, with its vending and soda machines, its self-serve buffet spread, its bowls of fruit and boxes of cereal, she knew she would never, ever forget anything about it. Not the round tables and the chairs. Not this cluster of sofas where she was sitting. Not the linoleum floor or the fluorescent lights in the ceiling or the TV that was up there in the corner, an episode of The Simpsons playing mutely.
It was one of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes.
At least that seemed apt considering what she had just learned about herself.
And well, she wouldn’t forget anything here assuming they let her keep these memories.
She refocused on Syn. He had been silent most of the time. “So we’re enemies if I don’t turn.”
Considering the fact that she had just learned she might not be human at all, she figured she’d start with some of the more basic realignments. Her brain simply wasn’t able to cope with the bigger ones.
Dracula, who? Dracula, what?
“Answer me,” she prompted him. When he didn’t respond, she feared everything he was keeping to himself.
“He can’t.” Manny, as he’d asked to be called, shook his head. “The enemies question depends on a lot of things.”
After she’d interrupted their argument, cooler heads had prevailed, and the three of them had ended up in this land of consumables. She was glad for the change in location. They were both big guys and those exam rooms were claustrophobic to begin with. Plus, hello, she couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.
Not that she was hungry.
“Like how successful my memory loss is over time, right?” When Manny shrugged, Jo burst up from her chair. “And because no one knows whether or not I’ll go through it, I’m being treated as though I’m just a regular human. That’s why my memories were taken from me.”
“That’s right. Half-breeds are wild cards. There’s no telling what side of the divide you’ll end up on.”
“Except you’re in this world. And you’re still human.”
“I’m a special case. And there have been a few others.”
“But it’s not a run-of-the-mill kind of deal, right?”
“No, it’s not. Separate is better, generally speaking. For both species.”
She looked over at Syn again. “And that’s why you didn’t tell me what you are. Because if I don’t change, I can’t know you.”
After a moment, he nodded. And she couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted to say more and couldn’t because they weren’t alone. Or if it was a case of him wiping his hands of the whole damn thing.
Walking over to the vending machine, Jo stared at the Hershey bars lined up in their corkscrewed chute. “So all the cravings I’ve been having. The restlessness. The fatigue. It’s all part of this . . . change?”
“Yes.” Manny turned around on his sofa so they could continue to make eye contact. Syn, on the other hand, stayed where he was, staring down at the floor in between his boots. “It’s the prodromals. It’s an indication that the hormones are waking up. But it’s not a true predictor of what happens next. Sometimes they just regress back into dormancy.”
“Is that why you’re not a . . .” Sooner or later, considering all things, she was going to have to get that V-word out of her mouth. “Is that why you didn’t change?”
“I’ve never experienced what you’re going through. But again, everyone like us is different.”
Jo thought about that thick file in her father’s desk. It seemed bizarre that for all the sheets of paper in there, the real truth had remained hidden. The important truth.
God . . . she couldn’t seem to make her head work. Everything was a mess under her skull, half-formed questions about her birth mother and father, her health, her future, like paintballs flying around and staining everything into a mess.
But there was one thing that superseded all of the rest.
Jo stared at Syn. And then she heard herself say, “I want a minute alone.”
Manny cleared his throat. “Syn, will you give us a—”
“Not with you.” She went back and sat down where she’d been. “With him.”
Syn expected the dismissal to open the door to another argument with the surgeon. Hell, he’d just learned firsthand exactly how good Manny was at the high-volume, point-counterpoint shit. Turned out the guy was a hot-blooded sonofabitch, and under different circumstances, a male might have respected that.
But not tonight.
And never when it came to Jo.
There was some conversation at that point, and then Manny was peeling off from the sitting area and striding for the break room’s exit.
Before he stepped out, he said over his shoulder, “Come find me if he passes out from blood loss. I’ve still got to stitch him up.”
Then they were alone. Because it was hard to meet Jo in the eye, Syn watched the door ease shut as if its repositioning against the jamb held the secrets to the universe. Or maybe it was more that he was hoping the slab of wood could coach him on what to say.
Only one thing was coming to him at the moment.
“I’m sorry,” Syn murmured into the silence.
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s so apt in this situation.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m also not good with . . . a lot of things.”
Jo was sitting across from him, but he felt as though they were separated by the ocean. She looked exhausted and jumpy at the same time, her heel bouncing on the floor, one of her hands fiddling with the sleeve of her coat. Her red hair was tangled, part of the length tucked inside her lapels, and her face was pale, way too pale.
Her eyes were what killed him, though. They were wide and white-rimmed, frightened as if she were being stalked by a madman with a knife—and though he had not brought her genetic destiny unto her, he sure as hell had delivered a number of other bad news packages.
And she didn’t know the half of it.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
Syn jacked forward, and had to stop himself from taking the movement even further. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it? I’m not so sure . . . I never knew who my birth mother or father was, and I thought that was bad.” She laughed in a short, tense rush. “Turns out not knowing what species I am is so much worse. I almost can’t comprehend . . . anything.”
“You’re the same person you’ve always been.”
“No, I’m not.” She put out her hands and turned them over. “Because I didn’t know what I was in the first place.”
“Nothing has to change.”
“Then why is it called ‘the change.’”