Savant

8: The Truth Sucks

I turned around slowly, my fingers tightening on the gun I'd taken from the goon in the stairwell, hoping I was wrong, that it only sounded like him. But I knew I wasn't wrong. I knew what face I would see, because I had already seen-and dismissed-it in the street over which I was now precariously balanced. I'd thought it impossible, but I should have known better: There is no such thing, not in my world and certainly not in Corpus's.

I kept my gun raised and failed to suppress a moan of dismay when I saw him.

"Him" was Dr. Lionel Dillard. The man who'd been in charge back at the facility in New Mexico where Diego, Colin, and I were from.

The man who'd hacked my brain and turned me into a Savant.

"Jenny," he said, and I shuddered to hear my name on the lips of the one man I'd hoped to never see again.

"Dr. Dillard." My voice came out like air from a punctured tire.

I kept my revolver trained on his chest. Would I shoot him? I didn't know, and that scared me. Ten minutes ago I'd have said that no, I wouldn't shoot anybody, even the man who'd played with my brain as if it were a jigsaw puzzle, there for his own amusement. I'd have said that I was better than that. But at that moment, with my life on the line, I didn't feel like myself at all. My heart was like stone, bitter and cold with Colin's betrayal. I no longer knew what I was capable of or how far I'd go. I'd never felt so dangerous, and I'd never felt so scared of my own two hands.

"Ah, Jenna," he said slowly. "Isn't this the part where I'm supposed to tell you there's another way?"

At first I thought he was suggesting another way off the building, but then I realized he thought I meant to jump. Like, really jump-all the way down. As if I'd take such an easy way out and abandon my friends.

"You think I'm gonna jump? Geez, Lionel. For a guy who's spent so much time playing Operation with my brain, it's like you don't know me at all. I'm hurt."

Dr. Dillard turned around. "Jenna, come down. This must end."

"Damn, what a shame. And I was finally starting to have fun. I saw you in the street but I couldn't believe it was actually you. I didn't know you could walk around in the daylight."

He cocked his head. "You don't sound so good, Jenna."

Well. I couldn't argue with that. I sounded like a chain smoker.

"We have your friends," he said. "We won't hurt you, Jenna, we just want to-"

"Let me guess-you got us all tickets to Disneyland? No wait, I got it! You bought us front row seats for the Dillard Horror Picture Show! Now showing: Lionel vivisects Jenna's brain! It's the summer's biggest hit! Or maybe, Lionel, maybe you just want to put me back in that chair so you can shock my brain, ask me more multiplication problems while you run volts of electricity through me?"

"We can work something out."

"There's nothing to work out, Doctor. I- I just want-" Damn it! I was losing control of my voice. Curare is a fast acting paralytic and it was hardening in my muscles like cement. "I want you to leave us alone. I want to know who I am, where I'm from. I want-"

"Your name is Allison Wilcox. Your family is dead. Your house burned down two years ago, and you were the only survivor."

I was caught with my mouth hanging open. For a moment, I couldn't speak, couldn't react, couldn't process... It was like that moment in a horror movie when you know the chick is about to open the door that the masked killer is hiding behind, and you tell her not to open it but it's already too late because her hand is on the doorknob and it's opening and then he's got her. And the sick part is that you know that in a way, she kinda deserved it, because only an idiot would have gone opening doors in dark corners in the first place. She should have known better. It all could have been prevented if she hadn't been so inanely stubborn.