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I was the bad guy.

The horror is a blade to my throat.

I’m the villain here.

The mug drops out of my hand, tea splashing on me.

“That wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. I could never…”

“You’d be surprised what humans are capable of when certain parameters are removed, when the rules no longer apply,” Michael says. “It’s part of what makes this field so fascinating.”

I try to move but I slump back into the couch, my limbs growing heavier by the second as I realize what has happened.

The tea.

“You…you drugged me,” I say, dread taking hold.

“Well, we had to, Syd,” Everly says wryly. “We don’t want you fighting back like last time.” She looks up at David. “Call Carvalho and get the OR prepped.”

“I’ll go myself,” David says. “You sure you both can handle her?”

Everly looks back at me and smiles. “Of course. Don’t worry, Syd. Soon, you won’t remember any of this. We’ll rewire you and start again. Do you know how many times we’ve had to stop and start your brain?” She laughs. “No, of course you don’t. That’s the whole point. How many times your mind has died and been brought back, well, I stopped counting. But don’t worry, your body is keeping count.”

Michael smiles at me. “You’re used to it.”

Then David leaves the cabin.

Everything blurs.

And Michael and Everly step closer.

CHAPTER 30

The couch seemsto swallow me whole. I open my mouth to speak, to scream, but I can’t utter a word.

What the fuck was in that tea?

My mind feels sharp, at least as sharp as it can be, considering I’m not one hundred percent right in the brain, but I can’t think of a way out of this. I don’t even understand what’s going on.

I don’t want to understand.

All I wanted was the truth, but now I want the truth to stay buried.

Everly sighs and sits down on the couch next to me. “I know you have questions. You said you saw the photos, and they jogged your memory. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Wes held on to that box. He’s a sentimental one, that boy. Oh, I told him not to. I told him there was a chance that one day you could find it, and then what? How would we explain it?”

“You see, Sydney,” Michael says, sitting on the coffee table. “We had no idea what you would be like this time around. How smart would you be? Would you be the same person? Wouldthe mycelia have changed your personality, the core of who you are?”

“We know it got rid of your ADHD,” Everly says. “At least most of it. That’s why Wes asked you to go off your meds. They would have done you no good, and we had to be sure you were operating unaltered. When the mycelia created new pathways, it started from scratch. We wanted to study you in a live environment; we didn’t want you to remember anything from your days here. We wanted to see if you could, in fact, be the same person again. Nature versus nurture.”

She pauses and gives her head a shake. “I have to say, the person you are is much more pleasant. Still a firecracker but with a lot more morals. Your ambition has waned. I don’t know if it’s because you fell for Wes earlier than the first time around and that he’s been a good influence on you. But I suppose we’ll never know.”

“The problem is,” Michael adds, “when we got rid of your ADHD, we got rid of a lot of things that made you brilliant. That were also a hindrance, yes. But you didn’t have that focus anymore. That drive or ambition. It wasn’t the same. The Sydney you were before was able to give everything up for the chance to feel worthy and you,thisyou? You didn’t have it in you.”

“You’re just not smart enough,” Everly says simply. “Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re still really smart, Syd. But you’re not a genius. You had a genius in you, waiting to be untapped at the right moment, but now…the well has run dry. Frankly, I do blame Wes. You didn’t fall for him so fast the first time around. You took your time to find each other. And before you fell in love with him, you found your role here at the foundation. You and I? We became friends. Really good friends.”

She sighs, staring down at her hands and shaking her head. “The first time around, you blew me away with your thoughts.Your ideas. And I thought, yes, this is exactly who we need on our team. You were the answer to our prayers. When Wes staggered into our cabin that night…” She looks away, gnawing on her lower lip. “I thought my world was over. He said you were dead. I looked at you, at the blood coming out of your head, and I knew. I knew you were gone.”

A shaking breath escapes her lips, tears spilling down her cheeks that she angrily wipes away. “But there was hope, you know? I thought, why not do to Syd as Syd would do unto others? So we did. And it worked. It fucking worked, Sydney. You’re here right now, proof of that.”