The Renegade

Chapter 12

Damaged.

Ila is damaged. Her brain doesn't work, it can't untangle her memories like it should. She's been destroyed by a mixture of trauma and drugs, and even though she knows who Luk is, her mind is destroyed. My eyes jump to Luk, and I half expect him to attack Hayl and slam against the wall for her calloused words, but he doesn't.

He's paralyzed, staring at the brain scan. I see his muscles constrict and he pulls Ila tighter towards him. "She's not damaged," he whispers.

"I didn't mean--" Hayl says, trying to retract her words, but Luk stops her.

"Don't. Just...what does it mean? Tell me what it means." He waves his hand at the black and white video of Ila's brain, playing repeatedly.

"It means that parts of her brain we expected to come back into use thanks to the autoimmune therapy and antidote didn't." Greer answers, gesturing to the areas of her brain that seem to have shrunk. "Her brain is damaged which has apparently affected her memory."

"She's experienced a lot of trauma," Hayl adds as the video shows the left side of her brain shutting down when Luk asks her about her mother. "Which is further interfering with brain function and memory recall."

"But you can fix this, right?" Luk says. "Right? You'll fix her."

His voice aches with a desperation nothing but Ila's complete recovery can cure. Ila is broken, and so Luk is too. Hayl glances at Mother Greer and then at me, and her dark eyes and furrowed brows tell me everything I need to know.

"She might not get better, Luk. Her brain is damaged from the...the chemicals and the trauma. Maybe she'll get better, maybe she won't. I don't think there's nothing we can do."
Luk trembles in rage, and I wonder if this is the final straw that will make him unleash all of his anger on Hayl and Greer. "You..." he starts, but Greer cuts him off with a spin off her heel.

"Not to seem calloused, but your daughter's damaged brain is the least of our concerns," she says, straightening her white lab coat. Her eyes skirt Luk's and go to the door of the lab room that has become our prison in the last few hours. "There are hundreds of children in need of the antidote, and they are my priority right now. Hayl, are you coming with me to administer the cure? It is, after all, your invention."

Something passes between us at Greer's words resonate. Hayl created both the serum and the cure, and now she's joining with the Domans to save her children. I trust Hayl, but her loyalties are confused and even I suspect her a little when I see the hunger for knowledge in her eyes. Yes, she created the serum because Mizpah threatened to kill me, but maybe there was a part of her that wanted to know if she could do it, if she could create a chemical that could erase memories.

"You did this," Luk says, his voice deadly and low. I almost wish he was yelling and throwing his body against the glass door again--instead, his tone is tight and withheld as he glares at Hayl, the muscles in his arms clenching as he holds Ila closer.

"Luk, I--" Hayl says, her jaw trembling.

"No!" he yells, the pent up rage now fully expressed. He sets Ila on the gurney and steps toward her, pointing a trembling finger in Hayl's face. "You did this to her. You--you traumatized and tortured her. This is your fault."

Elz reaches for Ila, who starts to cry at the bitter contortion of Luk's face, his mouth screwed into an ugly scowl, but Luk looms toward her. "Don't touch my daughter."

Elz recoils, backing away from Luk with her eyes wide and glassy. "I-I'm sorry."

"Luk--"I say, stepping up to take his arm, but he wrenches it from my grasp. I almost fall over as the jolt throws me backward and I lose my balance on my crutches, righting myself before I topple to the floor.