A conversation. With her. Words. Was I supposed to speak?

            My brain was scrambled and unable to string together coherent thoughts.

            Still on my knees, trying not to heave, I stared with wide eyes at this aged woman, unsure where to even begin. An explanation. She should start there, maybe. Or offer some solidity to my vague, grainy memories.

            "Sit down, Ellie," she suggested, gesturing to the couch. Some man at the door started toward me, but August vaulted off the couch and beat him to it. I resisted at first but soon relented, allowing him to pull me up and over to the seat. My eyes refused to look anywhere else but at the woman. My spine stiffened, ramrod straight, infinitely uncomfortable, and the worst sick feeling permeated through me.

            "You look well, Ellie," she continued, walking forward. "Besides the stab wound, of course, which I must apologize for. I did not configure any Bounty Hunters crashing the party."

            She did not configure . . .

            Set-up.

            Anger boiled my blood.

            It was all a freaking set-up.

            "The event was your idea?" I croaked, disbelief marring my words, and probably my face, too. "You-you planned for me to show up?"

            The woman gazed toward me with indifferent eyes, unfeeling, perfectly neutral in every way. And it was horrible. Empathy was a crucial ingredient in this situation, and she seemed to possess none.

            "You are here; we have you. That is all that matters."

            "That's not all that matters. I was stabbed. I could have died. You set me up, and I don't evenknowwho you are."

            "Elizabeth Green," she voiced, hands clasped tightly behind her back. "Call me Liz."

            Call me Liz. Like we were friends; old buddies. Like we were close.

            My entire body began caving in on itself again, like it tended to do when under massive amounts of abrupt stress. My abdomen clenched, eliciting fiery pain from the wound site. My jaw and knees and elbows locked. My fists shook violently. Everything switched to total lockdown; pure survival mode.

            Liz failed to understand what was happening to me, but August had a better idea.

            "Don't talk to her for a minute," he said to Liz, while his large hand covered my own and he got to work trying to pry it open. "Talk to me."

            She seemed confused and uncomfortable with this, but nodded anyway. Must have been on a short timetable. "Very well. I was ordered to collect Ellie in light of recent, pressing events. She is to be given full clearance."

            August managed to unfurl my fist, slipping his fingers through the cracks between mine, and I held on with a bone-cracking grip. "I receive full clearance in any situation that involves my participation. I know every little detail and can read any case file that arises. In other situations its complete allowance of whatever techniques I need to use to ascertain appropriate information. What kind of full clearance are you talking about, here?"

            My heartbeat slowed, body gradually relaxing. I squeezed August's hand in silent thanks, but didn't let go. "The truth," Liz replied. "The untainted, uncorrupted truth."

            Silence wedged between us, sparing time for her words to digest. I wished I could be a bit more anticipatory at the thought, but I'd heard so many different versions of "the truth" before that I was convinced there didn't seem to be such a thing. "Okay."

            She frowned. "You don't believe me."

            "Trust isn't a strong suit of mine."

            The clack of her heels resonated against the walls and drummed in my head. She stopped a few feet away, all seriousness. "You recognize me. I see it in your face. Think harder, Ellie. How do you know me?"

            I tried, shoving boxed-up memories and nightmares away, trudging through muck and dust, fighting to remember. But she was never anything more than scrappy pieces of transient recognition.

            "I can't," I resigned. "Sorry."

            Liz nodded, face unbetraying of her emotions. "You were very young when the government assigned me to you. 'Watch her', they said. 'She is yours from now on indefinitely.' I remember the day I took you to Oak. I loathed your surrogate parents, but they were the only option."

            My blood chilled.

            "Fit in as much as you can, Ellie. Everything will change, and you'll be the cause of that change. Just wait and see. Wait and see."

            She knew. She was there, she was always there, and she always knew.

            "You're the one that dropped me off in Oak," I whispered. "The one who gave me away and signed the checks my parents got in the mail."

            Liz nodded. "For starters, yes."

            "You gave me away."

            "All necessary. You were a vital creation, and you needed to be tested and observed."

            This . . . this was ridiculous. The conversation sounded like it should be about specimens in a lab, not a living, breathing human being.

            "I used to work closely with your father," she resumed. "Of course, that partnership has long since been severed. He has flown off the reservation, Ellie, and that is why you've been called in. Our research is far from complete, but we are out of time. Whatever you can do, whether documented or not, it must be done."

            I balked at her words, a response nonexistent within me, and she took note of this paralysis. Liz's gaze slid toward August, thin lips pinched together as she did so. He held tighter to my hand, and I did the same, and we anchored each other by our only ally in the room.

            "You are together," she noted, voice sounding jerky. "In love?"

            We just stared at her.

            "Right. Well, if you must know . . . if you must know . . ." but she didn't follow that up with anything, instead running a hand over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. Finally she said, "If you must know, you two falling in love was the one deviation from our plans, and it ruined everything."

            Plans? My body threatened to lock up again, but I ignored the defensive response. What plans? And how dare she have the nerve to say we ruined everything? When all we were trying to do was live and be happy?

            The drug was out of my system. I had full reign of my abilities. And I wanted to use them. Full-throttle. On her.

            But August's hand in mine reminded me to restrain; to hold onto my humanity.

            "We were just living our life," I bit back. "You can't control that."

            And then she laughed. She actually laughed, shoulders shaking, lips curved in a mocking smile. Each snicker grated at my nerves. How dare she? How dare she?

            I tensed to stand, but August moved his hand to my wrist, holding me down, reeling me back into him. I turned my burning eyes on him, but he rebuked with his own seething stare, and I submitted. I knew his wordless demands as if he spoke them. Now's not the time to go ape-shit, Ellie. Chill.

            Right.

            Liz sobered and pinned her abysmal stare on us once more.

            "Hold her down," she advised August, ominously. "Don't let that thing at me when I tell her."

            Now's not the time to go ape-shit. Chill.

            "She's a human being, and you'll refer to her that way," August growled.

            Liz released a short burst of dry laughter. "Honey, she's as far from human as that potted plant over there. And you'd do well to remember that, when we're done here."

            Forget it. You can totally kill her when this is over. How long has it been, anyway? Too long.

             "I don't beat around the bush," Liz began. "Ellie, you have been introduced to countless environments, told countless lies, and we have recorded your reactions to each. The truth-the real truth-is what I am prepared to share with you."

            I nearly lashed out at her. What truth? Who was she to decide the "real" truth? I'd been told the truth, supposedly, over and over and over again. And each time a later incident contradicted that truth. But who was to say when the truth stopped and the lies began, or vice versa? Nobody, because that line was so thin and so blurred it was impossible.

            Tia claimed to love me, to want what was best for me, over the entirety of the three months we spent together.

            After her death I found out she was a traitor.

            Angel claimed our mother was a knocked-up bombshell with no intelligence to speak of, and she turned out to be a genius and a scientist.

            My mother claimed she would love me, raise me, help me, and all she did was kill me slowly.

            So how could this woman stand before me now and claim to know the truth?

             There was no such thing as truth.

            "It is as simple as this," she said, and even considering everything, I still found myself holding my breath. "As simple as the fact that you never lived your own life."

            Like that statement wasn't at all cryptic and vague.

            "What are you talking about?" I ventured to ask. "That doesn't make any sense."

            "Doesn't it?" she turned her head again and glanced out the window. "I'm going to tell you something, Ellie. And I want you to know it is the absolute, irrevocable truth. And now that we have nothing to lose, I am free to say this."

            I reached for August's hand again, staring at Liz with eyes as wide as saucers, fear filling me up inside.

            And then she said, "You did not kill your hometown."

            Just like that. Just those words.

            You did not kill your hometown.

            My hand slackened in August's grip. My face must have been priceless, for all the muddled confusion swirling around my brain. Liz didn't move, didn't waver, didn't flinch.

            You did not kill your hometown.

            "Liar," I croaked, because there was no other logical explanation. "You're lying."

            Her jaw ticked. "I told you, Ellie, that I would tell you the absolute, untainted truth. This is it. I am not lying."

            Even as she spoke I was shaking my head. "No . . . no. You can't-that's not-no."

            She frowned, clearly bemused. "I'm sorry, I thought you might be elated to find out you didn't murder ten thousand people."

            I should have been. That was the rational response, right? But for that to be true . . . for her words to be the truth, then that would mean . . .

            That would mean everything else was a lie.

            Everything else.

            There were so many lies and truths and half-truths clogging my brain, warring for space and attention, it felt like my head was going to explode. There was no room to believe anything anymore.

            "Here's what they ordered me to do," Liz began again. "There was a girl. Ellie Armstrong. Created in a lab, something about the breakthrough for a new approach to the human weapon. But she needed to be tested, prodded, researched. Put her in a normal environment, they said. So they could watch her grow and react and respond. So I did. I found a couple in a nothing town called Oak, a couple with the last name of Armstrong, and with a hefty check, they agreed to take you in, consequences and repercussions included."

            My stomach rolled. I was going to be sick.

            "If it helps, Oak was doomed from the very beginning."

            I doubled over, horrible cramps ravaging my body. My stomach pulsed with pain and nausea.

            "Stop," August demanded, witnessing the effects of her words. "Stop it."

            But Liz didn't stop. She burned her gaze harder through me, seeming to enjoy watching me squirm. "She needed to be provoked. She needed drive."

            Stop it. Stop it, please.

            Liz chuckled, shaking her head. "It was so easy killing your parents. And your neighbors. And countless others. And Lana . . . bless that Prophet scum. She played her part perfectly. You fully and entirely believed yourself responsible for every death in your town, when it wasn't even your fault. Your power is great, Ellie, but not that great. Not that far-reaching. Admittedly, I'm a bit surprised you believed such a thing feasible in the first place."

            My fists clenched. "I can kill people with my mind. That's not feasible in and of itself."

            "True." She smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of her skirt. "Even so, phase one was finished. A success. She had drive, she had purpose, and there was nothing to do but watch. Our eyes and ears were in place. The next few years of your life were planned. Everything was perfect."

            My hand slipped from August's. His eyes switched to me, wordlessly telling me to keep it together, to not lose it, but I ignored him.

            I ignored everything but the rancorous blood rushing through my head, roaring in my ears.

            She set you up.

            She slaughtered your town.

            She ruined your life.

            I stared at Liz, right into those black pits for eyes, and I realized she was right. Her baseline was right, because I wasn't human. I wasn't. I gazed into her void eyes and recognized an identical vacancy within myself. My tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, and I swallowed hard, imagining the red gush of her blood. The snowy pallor of corpse skin, stretched taught over decaying bones. And I wanted to stop, but the feelings refused to stop. And a large part of me didn't want them to, anyway.

            One.

            Liz sank to her knees, eyes bugging out of her skull.

            Two.

            I rose to my feet, slowly, noiselessly, creeping like a shadow along a wall. August might have said something, but it was inconsequential. The guard at the door flurried into motion, but he didn't make it very far.

            Three.

            Suddenly I was there-right there-looming over Liz, overwhelmed by sharp pain and fury and anguish, and it was irrefutable hurt ripping me from the inside out.

            "I am not some pawn in your game," I growled, fist clenching. Liz jerked, lips parting, face paling. "I am not yours to manipulate."

            She should die. That was the only coherent thought ringing in my head. This woman deserved to die for her transgressions, and I was about to grant that request. But then a hand grabbed my arm, jerking me around. Warm palms cupped my cheeks. I frowned, irritated at the hindrance. Who would have the audacity to-

            "Don't," August said, words fuzzy and blurring together. "Don't do it, Ellie. You're not what they say you are. You aren't a killer."

            Yes you are.

            "Ellie, please. Look at me. Listen to me. You aren't a killer."

            Yes.

            "You aren't a killer."

            My hold on Liz dissipated. She collapsed to the ground, breathing hard, and I lowered my eyes to the ground, brimming with shame and guilt and humiliation.

            "August was . . . our contingency plan," Liz gasped between breaths, catching our attention. She spat the words at me like poison. "You . . . should know that. He was always meant . . . to kill you."

            At that I whirled toward her. "Shut up."

            She didn't. "You've . . . been watched . . . you're entire life. Oak, Tia, Jim, Esme . . . Roy Gibbons, back at the training camp."

            August visibly flinched beside me, clearly affected by that little detail.

            "And even your little boyfriend."

            Silence.

            August . . .

            Even August.

            I didn't know what the heck to think anymore.

            "No," I whispered, heart fracturing, switching my gaze to him. "No."

            If he had only said something, said anything, whether it was a lie or not, I would have accepted it. But all he did was stand there and frown and fold in on himself, and I couldn't take it anymore.

            With tears pricking my eyes, I turned and fled the room, speeding passed the recovering guard, darting down the hall and into a random room. It looked similar to the one I woke up in. Heck, it could have been mine for all I knew. I paced the floors for a few moments, furious and distraught, close to ripping my hair out.

            Everybody was watching you.

            Everybody was reporting back.

            Even August.

            I screamed. It was inevitable, and I couldn't hold it in. The frustration was devastating. In ten minutes my entire life was rendered obsolete. My complete existence was nothing. There was never a moment lived of my own volition. Every second, every minute, every hour, was planned, executed, observed.

            How can you even be surprised anymore?

            Because . . .

            Because August.

            Because the other half of your soul betrayed you.

            Because the only thing keeping you human was the sliver of hope at a life after this mess, and now that hope was gone, and so was the incentive.

            The door crashed open, giving way to a frantic and wired August. Tears gushed from my eyes. I'd learned plenty about pain since I started this adventure with August back in New Haven. There was physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain. And then there was this untraceable kind of pain, rare but lethal, that sank into you from all sides like needles, infinitely long, hitting bone and nerves and muscle and never stopping. And your entire body felt lifeless and limp. And all you wanted to do was crumble.

            "How could you?" I croaked. "Augie . . ."my voice cracked. He approached me, but I backtracked, and that simple reaction appeared to hurt him more than a bullet.

            "Let me explain," he begged, eyes open and pleading. "Please, baby."

            "Don't call me that! You don't get to call me that!" I wrapped my arms around myself, hoping every tear I shed was a knife inside his gut.

            August didn't move, and his jaw tightened. His entire body pulled tight, clenching together.   

            "The truth," I said. "Or whatever that even means anymore."

            A long exhalation escaped his lips. He rubbed his cheeks roughly, fingers scraping over his stubble. "They contacted me a few times," he finally admitted. "Once in New Haven, once after we separated after Schenectady, a couple times in Denver."

            My chest flared. "Why didn't