Me & Her

Her

They're standing in the doorway, like locusts in a field. All dressed in funeral black. Faces grim and grimy.

Each of them seems to possess an oily sheen, as if they have crawled out of the Nigeria Delta Basin. Men, women. And Karen Hill. Mrs. Karen Hill. Who lied and pretended and squirmed her way into my heart. Down through my trachea. Seeped into my blood cells. A sickness. She is the monster inside our head. We had been wrong. So, wrong. All this time. I was wrong. My cheeks crinkle. We are both to blame. More me than her. If I hadn't thought I could be more than just a darkening voice, none of this would have happened.

I can hear her. Hear Alice. Screaming at me. Telling me I am not the one to blame. Telling me that she is. Showering me with declarations of her naivety. But if anyone has been naïve, it's me.

In an instant, I shut her out. Shut her away. She pulls back, as if prying a sheen of molten gold from a skyscraper. I startle. She has never looked so desperate to me. So strong.

I square our shoulders, listening to Alice's desperate cries. Dr. Light holds Noah back, tapered to the far wall of the room. Watched by a dozen crack-shot mannequins with guns. Their eyes like bullets as they kept their expressions trained on me. On us. On my friends.

Emma shifts a little. Moves to stand by our side. I shake my head, motioning for her to move away. She doesn't. I glare, but my eyes are trenches. Cut deep. In my eyes, bodies lie. Fallen soldiers. Fallen memories. An image of my mother. Bleeding out. A wound to her left shoulder where they shot her the afternoon I tried to terminate our deal. Shot her in the parking lot of the main facility, in the US. Shot in the burning state of South Dakota.

Positioning my body – now toned and jagged – in front of Emma, I smile at Mrs. Hill.

"Karen, my dear. I was hoping to see you again. I owe you a few months of gaslighting and emotional trauma if I remember rightly". Hoping the veneer won't crack, my fingers make invisible crosses behind my back. Hoping the guns will step back, eyes wide, at my smile. At my calm demeanour. But Karen's answering expression tells me she knows better than that. After all, for better or for worse, a part of her will always be my mother. The woman I'd hugged, laughed with. The woman who'd taken me shopping with plush lips kissing my cheek. Telling me she was proud. In a few months, she'd clawed her way under my skin. And now she is clawing her way out. Ripping my flesh inch by inch.

Staring at her now, I wish I had a gun. Wish I'd stolen one. Wish I hadn't leaned into the touch of the woman who dropped me off at school, who made me fresh pancakes drowned in syrup. Toast. That should have been my first clue. If she had truly been my mother, she would have known how much I hate toast.

"This doesn't have to get ugly," says Karen Hill. She gestures to the guns at her hip. One – a tranquiliser. The other sporting real bullets.

"Really?" I raise my eyebrows. "Then why are you here?" Karen chuckles. Her voice is the growl of lioness.

"It's a shame. You're rather amusing. I'm going to miss that". All she needs is a villainous laugh and a black cape and she would be all set. She lifts out a gun. My fists clench. Nails bit into my palms, drawing blood. It isn't the tranquiliser. I glance at Dr. Light; he is silent.

Squaring my shoulders, I face the gun.

"Leave them out of this. They are my friends," I said. Scowling at how small my voice sounded.

"Friends? They're not your friends. They're Alice's friends. You are a mistake".

"And yet I'm the one you want. Killing me won't help your cause. I am your property, right? You need me". Karen shakes her head, waving the gun a little towards Noah. I stiffen.

"I'm not going to kill you. Please. Think better of me".

"A bit of a tall order," I mutter. Karen glares and brings the gun towards me. Lowers it to my centre. My eyebrows raise.

"You're going to put me in a coma again. Repair the bullet wound and take what you want while I'm unconscious".

"It's always better to work with a live subject, but we realised that keeping you in a coma works better for us. We made a mistake waking you up. Steele thought we could start again. Re-train your mind. Make you one of us. I told him we didn't to. We could collect samples without your input. Hair. DNA. Brain waves. That's all you are."

"It isn't and you're wrong," I say. But Karen isn't hearing me. She's starting at her finger on the trigger and frowning. Frowning because her hand is shaking.

"You can't do this," hisses Emma, but I turn around to silence her.

"It's okay". I'm lying. I just don't know who I'm lying to anymore. Instead, I face Mrs. Hill.

"You cannot have children, can you?" I ask her. She blinks, reeling back as if I've struck her.

"You and your husband must be desperate. That was why you took this assignment. I always thought you didn't have a heart. Otherwise you could never have done this to me. But you do. You have a heart and you wanted a child. I'm sorry that I couldn't be your daughter. I think, in another world, I would have loved a mother like you". But I have a mother now, and she's waiting for me. I bite my lip. Is she? Why hasn't she found us? Where is she? And will she want me, after knowing what I've done?

The gun shakes in Karen's hand and I fight the smile which rises. I've already won. I have been in the lead all this time and now I'm finally winning. I'm about to cross the finish line of my own race.

The gun wavers again. I know she won't shoot me. And if she does, I will not die. Incapacitated, sure. In pain: definitely. But I will not die. And I will not stop. Not until I find my real Mother, whatever she might think of me. I owe that much to Alice.

'And I owe that much to you,' she echoes back. 'Now give me back control'. Inwardly, I stand strong. Square my shoulders. I'm not giving anything up. This is my body too.

Karen Hill looks us in the eyes. Then she glances away. Raises the gun once again. The weapon has stopped shaking.

I count the fibres of saliva in my throat.

"Fine then," I chuckle. Raise my arms and spread my ribcage for the woman who pretended to love me for months on end.

"Shoot me". Emma starts to speak again, but I cock my head. Silence her in an instant. This isn't her fight. And this isn't her game. I need to lose on my own. Karen steadies herself. Readies her trigger finger. Happy go lucky. I wonder, do I make her cringe? Was it so hard for her to play Mother all that time? Or is this the hard part? Stamping my feet on the carpet, I let out a scream.

"Come on, you coward! Shoot me! Shout your daughter! Shoot me! Shoot me!" I scream until my throat is raw.

At my side, Noah is gulping back tears. The Doc' can't look at me. Or her. Another coward. Coward. Coward.

My legs shake and suddenly I cannot stare at anything but the gun and the trigger and the woman who lied. My knees threaten to buckle but I keep breathing. Keep standing. Coward. Cowards. All of us. All of us, except Emma, who takes the crook of my elbow. Whispers that everything will be alright. Whispers for me to bring back Alice.

"She is much stronger than you think. Let her protect you. Like you protected her," she says. I let my lungs fall. Deflate. Twin balloons being crushed by a steamroller. Emma is right. All this time, I was a mask. A circus performer in a big-top tent on the edge of a river. I couldn't let myself be swept away. Now, I need to let go. I need her. I need Alice.

"Listen to her," I beg. I beg of Karen Hill, of the woman who lied and lied and lied. My heart curls up and shrieks every time I think of her. The woman who lied. The woman I so foolishly believed.

With a shallow breath, I let go.