Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a joyful holiday season even if the world is still testing all of us right now. I wish all the good health, peace, and joy for you for 2022! These wishes used to sound cliche but the more we seem to lack them, the more r-e-a-l they feel. And to help with the hope part, here is another chapter. I’m sorry I’m taking forever. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but my health has taken a lot from me and my family so there are some days I can’t write at all. I am very thankful for those of you reading and understanding, even though there is so little left to go in the story. Thank you for all your support, kindness, messages, and of course, your love for this story. It makes me smile even in the darkest of days to have created something that has brought you joy.  Here is Chapter 33 — Power– to charge us up for the new year.  Lots of good wishes and love, Ani

33

Power

Days pass. Even in hell. Even if every hour is no longer a reel of brilliancy, but of pain. One agonizing moment to another, all dragging together into a battle for survival. Each night is more silent than a grave—Aiden no longer sleeps in the cottage or the garden. He stays out in Elysium where he used to watch the reel, the only place in Burford that holds traumatic memories for him. Each day is more distant than America—his touch has vanished with his gaze. He barely eats or speaks. And each dawn is darker than Fallujah even though a light is always on in the cottage. Darker because we don’t wake up together. Darker because his eyes don’t brighten in bliss anymore. And darker because I don’t want to wake up at all.

But I am wide awake, sitting up in my childhood bed, trying to breathe through another dawn. Day sixty-five is here. Ten days since the end. Only thirty left until the last goodbye. Happiness has shifted—it has become the past.

The serrated wound in my chest flares painfully. It grows stronger by the hour, but I don’t grow stronger against it. I simply have found the only thing that keeps me breathing for Aiden. I bury my face in his favorite sweatshirt that I now wear every night. He hasn’t worn it in ten days, but his scent still lingers, lacing with my own. Slowly, my airways start to open and I can inhale. In and out, in and out until my old bedroom stops spinning.

I climb out of bed one stiff leg at a time, shoving aside the stacks of paper with useless protein formulas, and peer out of the open window. The garden is still funeral black except the column of light pouring from our happy bedroom across the hall. “The light is always on above our door,” Aiden wrote in his homecoming war letter. “The curtain is always moving.” But night after night, he doesn’t knock, the cottage doesn’t tremble with his arrival.

I breathe into his sweatshirt again, swaying on the spot. A waft of rose breeze steals inside as if it knows I can’t find air on my own. I squint harder into the darkness even though I can’t see his unmistakable form. But perhaps our lines of sight will meet, the way our eyes used to at this hour. Because I know he is awake like me. Neither of us seems able to sleep without the other around. I watch the golden light glowing from our blissful window, seeing only turquoise until the black sky changes to indigo and I can pretend to wake up. Then I shamble down the stairs to start again even if it’s making no difference. I don’t know how my body moves forward, but I have to keep going. If I stop, Aiden will miss even a moment of calm. If I stop, I have to accept that it’s over. And I can’t do that.

His absence follows me around the cottage like a shadow. In the closed door of our happy bedroom. In the silence of Für Elise. In the skylark that hasn’t sung from the beech tree since the music stopped playing. In the foyer where Aiden’s boots are missing. In the lack of his morning coffee in the air. I start a pot of his favorite Italian roast, my mind wailing the same constant refrain: How can I save him? Why isn’t the protein working? How can I convince him to restart the reel?

Outside, the garden shed that houses the evil seems to call with an icy whisper. My hands shake, but not just from the torture leashed within. I shudder because we have stopped fighting it. How did that monitor transform from my worst dread to my best hope? It took only two words from Doctor Helen: “only chance.” The only chance to bury Marshall so Aiden can survive losing me. Unless I succeed with the protein. But no matter how many hours I spend calculating and testing, no matter the endless combinations I have tried, bravery remains as elusive as the dream of us.

The cast iron pan drops from my hands with a loud clang. I pick it up methodically and start Aiden’s favorite breakfast—dippy eggs with bacon and crispy potatoes. Not that it matters what it is. All I can taste is the acrid bitterness of my mouth without his kiss. But I will force it down for him, and he will swallow it for me. Still, I pour his coffee in my thermos, set a Baci on the side, garnish with an Elisa petal—any detail that triggers my calming effect on him, triggers and holds it through the hours apart. Serotonin and oxytocin formulas drum like a second tic toc in my head, replacing dad’s broken one on my wrist. Fifth time. Not December. Add love.

Over the horizon, the sky starts to lighten. I pack everything in my basket and slip out of the door. The air is sultry outside, lacking the usual early bite. Summer is burning off its final heat with us. Hope the Hybrid is fluttering its single leaf on the threshold. A twilight filter turns the roses blue like the color I am missing. They are still sleeping in their garden beds that Aiden just mulched and enriched. Because like I am trying to fortify him for the end, he is doing the same for me, from the moment he pretends to wake up to the moment he pretends to fall asleep. Clean the gutters, repair the roof, fix the shutters, chop wood, establish a grant to Oxford’s Chemistry Department to secure my research, set up my trust fund, retain lawyers against Edison—everything and anything so I lack for nothing after he leaves. Nothing except my very life.

I sniff his sweatshirt again and stumble down the path to find him, whatever he is taking care of today.

I don’t have to go far. I spot him on the riverbank by the willows, standing out in his white T-shirt and ripped jeans, back to me. He is carrying something massive in his arms I can’t identify from here. I teeter closer, bracing for the nameless agony I know I will see on his face. Even ten days later, I still cannot breathe through it, sweatshirt or no sweatshirt. It’s not something any living thing can get used to.

If he hears me coming, he doesn’t turn around. He heaves the huge mass—a burly stump—to the edge of the bank and picks up an enormous slab of riverbed rock. As I step through the willows both terrified and curious, I realize he is hefting around a mountain of hulking things— boulders, dead tree trunks, logs—hauling them to the river. The powerful bands of muscle in his arms and back ripple with the movement. He doesn’t groan or huff from the effort; he is entirely silent. The garden spade, fork, and wheelbarrow rest some feet away. My chest throbs as I realize he must have been up all night doing this . . . whatever it is.

“Morning,” I croak.

He freezes, boulder in hands, and I guess he is rearranging his features for me. It takes twelve chemical elements before he drops the rock—the ground quakes under my feet—and turns around. Even with the flush of exercise, his beautiful face is hollowed and pale. Or at least what can be seen of it above the thick, dark beard. Every flicker of emotion is suspended in his scorched expression, but despite his iron restraint, the pain is palpable in the air. I can feel it on my fingertips, taste it on my tongue. It has snaked through each pore of him, binding to his DNA until it has transformed him inside out. If he wasn’t embedded in my own cells, if his face wasn’t perfectly carved in my neural pathways, I wouldn’t recognize him.

His eyes meet mine with divided allegiance: half resisting my calm, half giving in for me as he promised.

“Good morning,” he answers. His voice has lost its music like the cottage has lost Für Elise. I have to grip the trunk of a willow not to run to him and take him in my arms.

“Umm, what are you doing?”

He breaks eye contact and picks up another huge slate of limestone. “Reinforcing the riverbank before the rains really start. I don’t want you to have to deal with any flooding come winter.”

“Ah . . .” I don’t tell him that I’d rather drown than live through any storms after he is gone. It would only hurt him more. “Thank you. Of course you’d think of this.”

He stacks the rock on top of the other and attacks a muscular log he must have collected downstream.

“Aiden, love, that looks really heavy. I don’t want you to get hurt. At least wait for Benson and you can do it together.”

“I’ll be fine.” He hoists the log over his shoulder and wedges it between the slabs of concrete. He moves with determination, as though something vital depends on him finishing this.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” I ask, suddenly unable to carry my wicker basket.

“The Corps.”

The place that started it all for him and is ending it all for us. “Why don’t you take a break for a bit? I brought some breakfast. Will you eat with me?”

He wrestles a boulder of granite, rolling it down to the bank. I don’t wait for his answer—I can’t. I drop on the dewy grass before my knees give out and start taking out the food. Perhaps he will actually eat out here, where we first listened to the willows together. That perfect memory of hope shimmers in my vision, filling me with longing. He rips off his work gloves with a sigh and tosses them by his tools. I see him stride toward me from the corner of my eye, but I don’t look up to give him the moment. I focus on spreading out our picnic blanket, setting out the plates, hoping he allows himself some calm as he watches.

“Here.” I pat the blanket when I finish. “Come on, sit with me.”

“Thank you,” he answers, but he doesn’t sit close. He folds on the other side of the blanket, seeming as far as across the ocean. Grief crackles in the space between us like static. The compulsion to touch him becomes acute to the point of pain. And even though I have waited all night to see him, abruptly I feel as though one gaze from him would shatter me. But he is staring at the breakfast spread like it’s going to devour him, not he it. I wrap my arms around my torso so they don’t move on their own. His hands are closed into tight fists on his knees.

“Eat something,” I coax. “It’s not as good as when your mum makes it, but it has happy memories.”

“It’s beautiful, but I’ll eat when you do.”

It takes river-harnessing strength to unravel my fingers and pick up a forkful of crispy potatoes. He mirrors my movements, swallowing hard as if the bacon turns to glass in his throat. We eat slowly, bite after bite in silence, except the willows’ lament. It swells around us like a siren song.

“Do you still hear them?” I whisper, listening to their chorus.

He nods, taking a sip of coffee from my thermos, his lips wrapping where mine do. I’m too afraid to ask him what he hears, and I don’t want him to ask me back. How can I answer ashes, ashes, ashes?

“Did you get any sleep at all last night?” I ask instead. Another question with a difficult answer, but one worth fighting about.

“About as much as you.”

How can I lie about that? How can I tell him the truth and make him feel worse? “But you need sleep a lot more than I do right now. Did you listen to Für Elise?”

“I have things to take care of, Elisa. There isn’t a lot—”

He stops abruptly, but he doesn’t need to finish. I know. There isn’t a lot of time left to secure my entire life before he leaves. My fingers break through my flimsy control and grip his free hand. Warmth shoots up my spine even though his skin is wintry from the night. I know I should drop it—even this slight contact makes him shudder—but the feel of it, so homey and strong, seeps into my bones, nestling there like marrow. “Aiden, I really wish you would come inside at night.”

He pulls back his hand, his eyes burning like the absence of his touch. “Elisa, not this again.”

“Please, just listen. We don’t have to sleep in the same bed or even bedroom—I know you won’t do that—but you can sleep in the guestroom or the sofa where it’s warm and comfortable.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve told you, the ground feels more natural to me in times like this.”

He did—the first time I saw his Alone Place. Of course he will revert to the habits that kept him alive then. “Just because it feels natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you. We have to do the opposite now. You should be in the cottage where you have happy and calm memories, not on the spot that has tortured you every morning.”

“We had to do the opposite when we thought it would work. It didn’t. But I’ll use Für Elise, if it will help yousleep.”

“But that song is only one thing, love. Corbin, Doctor Helen, even you have said that being around me adds hours of rest for you, and a deeper sleep. Even if we’re not in the same bed, the effect of all the other calming and happy associations in the cottage will help, so that you can heal enough for what’s ahead.”

He sets down the thermos, not responding or looking my way. Perhaps he has nothing more to say. Or perhaps like me, he doesn’t think anything can prepare him.

“Please, Aiden,” I press. “I hate knowing you’re out here at night, thinking God-knows-what when we should be together for the time we have left.”

Something changes in his face then, almost a shadow of his former anger. His eyes flash to mine. “And then what?” he asks in a low, hoarse voice. “We wake up together on September eighteen and I load up on a plane? Won’t it be hard enough without this? You want to add one more thing we’re going to miss? I stay out here so you can start getting used to what it would be like, Elisa. I stay out here because I don’t know how to breathe through sharing your home but not your touch.”

All my arguments die in my throat. Because he is right: it is hard enough, excruciating. Even breathing—this most elemental function we can do from the moment we’re born—feels impossible, and he is still here. How much more unbearable will it be after he is gone? I’m not brave enough to find out yet. But he has already started enduring it, and it’s destroying him by the hour.

“You’re right,” I finally manage some words. “I will miss sleeping next to you most of all. I just don’t think we should start missing it now.”

“When will it ever be the right time to miss it, Elisa?” He sounds abruptly tired. He rips away his gaze, staring downstream toward the boulder that almost killed me. All light douses in his eyes. Between us, his plate of food lays unfinished, the Baci untouched.

Never, I want to answer, but that will not help him. Only one thing can help him now.

“On September eighteen, love. And there is something that may make it livable then for you, but we need to restart it now.”

He understands immediately. He shakes his head, never looking away from the lethal boulder. “I’m not restarting the reel—we talked about this. I will not expose you to it again. I have not forgotten what it does to you.”

And I have not forgotten what it does to him. I fight back a shiver. “Aiden, there’s no one in this world, except you, who hates the reel more than I do. But I agree with Doctor Helen. We have to prepare you. We have to lay Marshall at rest so you’re freer for . . .” I can’t say the end out loud, but I know he hears it. He stares unseeingly into the grey depths of the river.

“It’s like those slabs of rock, sweetheart,” I continue, unable to stop. “You can’t carry them all at once. You have to lift them one by one.”

“That’s my problem, and I’m not about to unload that burden on you.”

“I’m stronger than you think. And this is as important to me as my protection is to you.”

His jaw flexes in that fury-at-himself way. “I have no doubt about your strength, but the fact that you are strong doesn’t give me permission to put you through hell.”

“You’re not putting me through anything. This is my choice.”

“Exactly. And it is my choice not to expose you to more horror. It was one thing when you stood to gain something from it. It’s quite another now when you would be terrorized simply for my benefit.” His fists tighten against the idea.

“It’s not just for your benefit. It’s for everyone who loves you, too.” Not that I could ever endure the reel for anyone else. I’d rather live through my parents’ funeral a thousand times over than see him watch one more minute of that torment.

“Same answer. You will not be the sacrificial lamb for everyone who has to bear the burden of loving me.”

What a catch-twenty-two we have snared for ourselves. Never brave enough to hurt each other, but brave enough to die in the other’s stead. How can I ever break this tie? There is no argument or logic he will accept. And the only thing that can give us courage is still an unsolved mess. Abruptly, even with all the things left unsaid and the hours racing toward the end, I want to sprint to Bia.

“Loving you is never a burden,” I say, starting to pack up the basket. “Only Fallujah is, and I will not let you carry it alone.” My hands shake at the thought, and my plate slips through my fingers. But his hand flashes out and saves it before it drops on the grass. For a second, our arms brush, his breath whispers on my cheek. Just one second, yet my body responds with vengeance. It turns to him on its own, leaning into his chest like a bolt sliding home. He catches me reflexively, and our eyes meet—then hold. The small space between us closes and changes. Electricity starts to charge in the warm air blowing through our lips. He gazes into my eyes as his blue depths start to lighten, first with calm, then with heat. There is no question of me blinking away. Even my heart seems to stop. My breath comes out fast and ragged, my skin thrumming with his nearness. His own body tenses in response, and his hands grip my waist. For a second, I think he will rip off his favorite sweatshirt, but he doesn’t. He clenches his jaw and shuts his eyes, breaking the spell. Slowly, I feel his fingers loosen, and his arms release me.

“Be safe at Bia.” His voice is rough; his eyes still closed as if he cannot bear to watch. And I know he needs me to leave. I know he chose the healthier option for us both even if it feels like death to me. But for a few moments, I can’t move despite the urgency for the protein. All I can do is watch his face—beautiful beyond limit even if strained with desire and ache.

“Please, Elisa,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.

I gather every wisp of strength from every crevice of my mind and force myself into motion. Except the only thing my limbs can muster is to caress his scar. His breathing hitches with mine, and he shudders under my fingertips. But the L-shaped ridge above his eye reconnects my body to my brain, and I’m able to remember all the reasons why I should run to the lab right now. With more effort than it took to lift coffins, immigration denials, or reels, I pick up my basket and take out the small, ancient stereo, pressing the play button. Für Elise starts weaving with the willow song. Aiden’s eyes fling open. “Use my calm and love, please,” I tell him. “At least until I make you something stronger.”

“There’s nothing stronger,” he answers, his voice still coarse.

I pull myself to my feet, summoning serotonin formulas for strength to leave him here. To find what he needs more than anything. I sense his eyes on me as I dart through the willow garlands. Help me, Dad. Give Aiden peace until I get back, Mum. This is our last chance.

Back inside the cottage, I storm like a tornado through my new getting-ready routine. Wearing Aiden’s socks, spraying his cologne on my neck and wrists, tucking the locket against my chest as if to fill the burning hole gaping there, layering only clothes that trigger happy memories—all like armor to help me breathe. Then I start doing the same for him: sprinkle my Aeternum perfume on his clothes now in the linen cupboard in the foyer, set Für Elise on repeat throughout the cottage in case he comes in. I’m propping a photo of me in the fridge when the door knocks, but I know it’s not Aiden. Benson is towering on the threshold like every morning at this hour to drive me, even though the danger is long gone and Edison is behind bars. But we both know it’s easier on Aiden if I’m not alone.

“Morning, Benson,” I say, grabbing mum’s parka for strength, not warm. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine. How was the night here?”

“The same . . . so worse I should say.”

He frowns, pointing behind his shoulder with his thumb. “I see he’s taken on the river today.”

“The river, the forests, his own self.”

“Don’t worry,” he says as I break into a run down the garden path. “I’ll check on him during the day.”

“Thank you. I don’t know what we would do without you.”

He smiles but it doesn’t wipe the creases on his forehead. “You won’t have to find out.”

The ride to Bia is short as Benson speeds through the sapphire dawn. It’s as though he knows without speaking that I can’t waste a single second. I will miss him terribly when he is gone. This gentle, quiet presence protecting us at every turn. And not just him, but the whole new constellation Aiden has chartered for me. As if hearing the very thought, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I yank it out with greed, knowing exactly who is up with us at this hour across the globe.

Stella: Darling, I pray you got some sleep. We love you both. We’re with you. I overnighted another care package with happy things. It should get there tomorrow afternoon your time. Please call when you can. Oh, how I wish I were there!

Robert: Elisa, we were talking: what if we came and stayed in London or somewhere closer in case you need us? Would Doctor Helen and Corbin approve of that?

Javier: Amorcita, how did the night go? Let me know when you can chat. Love you. You’re not alone. I can come right back.

Reagan: Isa, I’m packed and ready. Say the word and I’ll be there. Don’t let Aiden go, no matter what anyone says. Xo.

James Callahan: Hey pest, you up yet? How’s he? Helen and Corbin are on my shitlist. Why the fuck can’t we come?

Ryan Hendrix: Hey Trouble! What Cal said. Fuck the docs. We want to be there.

Jazzman: We can’t be there if the docs think it would hurt him, Cal. That’s the whole fucking point. They obvs have a plan. It’s not Elisa’s choice.

James Callahan: What the fuck do they know? We’ve always stuck together before.

Jazzman: But this time Elisa can help him more with her calming effect than we can with our triggers. Are you a fucking neuroscientist now? Elisa, ignore him. What else can we do to help?

James Callahan: Fuck this. I’m getting on a plane.

I almost drop the phone, heart in shreds. Because they have every right to want to be here. If only it wouldn’t make it worse for Aiden. But how much worse than this can it get? I shiver just thinking the question. Every time I ask it, a new wave of horror finds a way to drown us. I thumb back a reply, needing auto-correct multiple times from my trembling fingers.

Hey all, thank you for everything. Sorry for the group text, but I’m on my way to work. I’ll talk to Doctor Helen again today and let you know what she says. In the meantime, can each of you text Aiden some photos of your day? Only happy or positive images, no words—that should reduce the negative triggers. I’ll call you after work. Love you.

My text bubble has barely floated on the screen when Benson curves around the chemistry car park, skidding to a stop. I missed the whole ride here. Outside Rover’s window, Oxford’s golden heartline sparkles with the first rays of sun. But its soft glow burns my retinas, harsher than all the combined sunrises Aiden and I have watched together, wrapped around each other. I shove my phone in my purse and hop out of the car before Benson can get to my door.

“Late again tonight?” he confirms.

“And every other night until I solve this. I’ll be in the lab all day—Doctor Helen will check on me. You stay with him, please. Make sure you both eat. His favorite chicken soup is in the fridge. Cora sent me the recipe.”

“Don’t worry, Isa. Focus on whatever smart thing you’re doing to help him. Believe it or not, physical labor can help with things like this. The harder, the better.” He winks, trying to cheer me up, but doesn’t move as I sprint across the quad to the chemistry building. I’m already deep in serotonin calculations by the time I bound inside the lobby.

And then for a few seconds it’s like returning to England all over again. The news of Edison’s betrayal has exploded, and curious, blood-shot eyes follow me everywhere despite the early hour. But dad’s bust waits for me like a steadying anchor. I resist stroking his bronze cheek and dart down the hall, looking down at my Byron sneakers.

I burst through Bia’s door, expecting it to be empty, but Graham is there already, hunched over his workstation, staring at the gleaming tiles in his rain jacket. I don’t expect that either—he is never in the lab without his white coat, doing nothing. He looks up at me, no sunny smile on his drawn face. But at least that look is now familiar. He hasn’t smiled once since Edison’s blow, even though the coppers, Oxford, and Aiden’s own private investigation cleared him of any involvement.

“Morning, Graham,” I say, feeling a twinge of sorrow and even more regret that I can’t be alone yet. “You beat me today—did you have a spark?”

He shakes his head and stands. Only now I notice a small package in his hand, wrapped in lab paper. “No sparks; only wanted to catch you before you got started.” His desolate voice derails me from my own hell, and regret becomes worry.

“Graham, what is it? You sound really upset.”

He seems to force a small smile. “I’m taking leave for a while. I just wanted to give you this.” He hands me the white rectangle while I try to blink through this surprise.

“Leave? But why? You love Bia. The 2-AG is your life.”

“That’s precisely why. I’ve been doing loads of thinking, Eliser. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with that bloody molecule, I’d have seen Edison for who he was. Instead, I was so consumed, I ended up passing him information that almost got you hurt. I—” His breath catches, but he squares his shoulders. “I’m sorrier than I could ever say. I was a rubbish friend, a miserable mentor, and an all-around disappointment.”

“No, don’t say that!” I argue, my throat tightening. The only friend I’ve made here, a brilliant chemist on his own right who adored my father, is now exiling himself from the very axis of his life, because of my mistakes. “This wasn’t your fault at all. None of us saw Edison for who he was, not even me and I had several red flags.”

He shakes his head again. “Professor Snow knew it. I’m sure of it now. That’s why he left me no clues about the protein. He must have known I’d fall for the arsehole’s lies. I disappointed your father, too, and almost stained his legacy. I deserve this and a lot worse.”

“Of course you don’t!” I counter, trying to think of a truth I can share with him. “I think dad was protecting you, Graham. If he suspected Edison, he would have never placed you at risk. That’s why he didn’t tell you, not because he didn’t trust you.”

He squints at the package in my hand as he does when he tries to solve the 2-AG algorithms, hopefully believing me. “Your father is exactly who I aspired to be,” he says after a moment.

“You can still be like him. Don’t go now. You’re—we’re lab partners . . . friends.”

He smiles again without any sunshine, but this seems more real. “You don’t need me, Eliser. I’ve known for a while you’re light years ahead in this. You have his brain. You will solve the protein, I just need to get out of your way.” He raises an eyebrow slightly, and suddenly I have a feeling he knows I have been hiding something, a secret a lot more important than he ever told Edison.

“I don’t need you just to solve chemistry problems. I’ll miss you as a friend. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Stay, and we can start over,” I say, even though “starting” has nothing to do with me. But I realize now how much I was counting on his presence. Aiden will leave forever—all love, life, meaning, purpose will be over. Javier is just starting the stratospheric future that has been waiting for him. Reagan will hopefully be by his side as he reaches all his dreams. The Solises have finally found their peace. And the Plemmonses will eventually pass away. But Graham was supposed to be the constant in this imploded cloud of ash. Avogadro’s Number expressed in our devotion to chemistry, our mutual admiration for dad. I thought perhaps this is how I would exist after September eighteen: working with Graham in this lab, both married to science with zero romantic interest, both missing the compass of our lives, him striving toward an ideal, me trying to breathe away from it. I didn’t imagine I was going to lose even that.

Perhaps he senses some of this, more emotionally perceptive than he would ever guess. “Despite the wanker, you have a lot of friends here, Eliser. Let them in.” He reaches in his pocket and fishes out his keys to Bia, dropping them on my desk. “I’ve recommended you as interim lab manager until they find someone more senior. That way you’ll have Bia to yourself. And if you stay true to who you are, I think you’ll run this place someday.”

He runs his hand over his workstation and passes by me while I watch more versions of the future fade away.

“I don’t want to run Bia,” I counter even though I can sense it will be futile. “I’d rather work with dad’s favorite student. Maybe a protein for detecting wankers early next time? Or cure unnecessary guilt?”

He pauses at the door, looking over his shoulder with a faint smile. “Don’t name a bench after me yet. I might be back eventually. Until then, take care of that.” He points at the package in my hand. “Your father gave it to me my first year when I ruined my first experiment.” His butterscotch eyes sweep over Bia one last time, and then he is gone.

I stare at the closed door, feeling off balance. How many times have I wished he would leave so I had time to test alone, and now that he has, I can’t imagine Bia without him at the helm. It seems unnatural, like a rose without petals or Oxford without its spires. Not as life-ending as a world without Aiden—nothing can ever compare to that—but lonely in its own way. Not to mention the added worry it will cause Aiden to hear that I lost a friend, especially a friend that was safe. What can I do to hide it from him with how determined he is to leave everything in order? It’ll be easier to clone Graham than keep this a secret.

I rip the paper off the small package, riddled with guilt. Inside is a silver frame, but that’s not what makes me gasp. It’s the letter it contains in dad’s slanted script.

Graham, he has written,

Don’t despair. There’s no such thing as a failed experiment. There’s only trying, then trying again. And when things seem hopeless, step outside. Everything is better after a deep breath of fresh air. I prefer the old bench myself. It has a rare magic. You may use it anytime.

I caress the glass cover as the words become blurry with tears. I know the magic he meant—it was the magic of love, of our carved initials that I told Aiden about. Not that Graham would have known that, but he obviously cherished this simple wisdom for years. And now he gave it to me despite his own need. I set the frame on his workstation, take a photo of it with my phone, and text it to him.

Thank you. It will wait for you here while you take a deep breath. Do it and come back.

Three grey dots hesitate on the screen, then his answer pops up: Keep at it, Eliser.

And I know I won’t hear from him again for a long while. I hope he finds his oxygen even as I struggle for mine.

I wipe my eyes and follow dad’s advice. Try again. Because I cannot fail this experiment. In failing at this, I forfeit my will to live. And Aiden cannot survive that. I throw on the lab coat and wheel to the fridge, taking out the ampules of serotonin and the twelfth oxytocin. My hands steady the moment I touch the cold glass, then my fingers start flying through the motions with the same desperation that Aiden is moving boulders. Quicker than any other time in my life even though I no longer have Graham to race. But another deadline, deadlier than all the others, is looming closer by the second. And all those frenzied prior experiments—in the first dark days in England, the hours waiting for Javier’s trial, the rage at dad—seem peaceful compared to the current horror. The pipettes seem to fuse with my bones, becoming their own entity. But no matter how many serotonin doses I try, the solution stays the same old indigo sap, bubbling here and there like boiling mud. Still I keep injecting more serotonin with manic precision, milliliter after milliliter, ampule after ampule, molecule of fear after molecule of fear—ninety vials, one hundred, tic toc, tic toc—until abruptly dizziness strikes. A sudden weakness lashes at my knees, and I grip the workstation for balance. What on earth is happening?

I drop on the stool, blinking through my tunnel vision to make sense of the change. And then I see it. The clock on the wall, ticking away time. Bloody hell, no wonder I almost collapsed! How is it already two thirty? How have I worked nine hours straight without any food or break? Even worse, how did I not make a single difference? The crystal vial rests in front of me useless, filled with blue sludge. I almost hurl it in the sink and set it on fire. But I’m still dizzy and have made a promise to be safe. A promise I just broke like a thousand vials. Aiden would be besides any remnant of self if he saw this fiasco, and he would be absolutely right. I wouldn’t put him past him to hire someone to spoon-feed me three times a day, plus snacks.

I rest my cheek on the cool porcelain tiles and close my eyes, waiting for the vertigo to pass. I try to feel past the terror and anger at myself and think only of his sandalwood cologne filling my lungs. And quickly, dizziness subsides. That’s when I realize my other mistake. In my focus, I forgot to keep breathing. What hope do we have if I can’t handle oxygen and chemistry at the same time? Especially when we need both to survive.

I lift my head—it’s pounding now—and stand slowly, testing my legs. All that’s needed to end the world is me spraining my ankle on top of everything else. On Graham’s empty workstation, dad’s frame reflects the fluorescents. When things seem hopeless, step outside. Well, they’ve never been more hopeless than now. I decide to trust him again. What else do I have left?

Carefully, I use the restroom, gulp some water, then grab my lunch and shuffle out to the quad. As soon as I step outside, a light breeze cools my clammy face. The afternoon sun has gilded the air with a molten haze. Students and professors hurry by, some peeking at me, others carrying on with their day. I trudge to the bench with its new bronze plaque, taking a deep breath, concentrating only on the gasping flow. Is this ever going to get any easier? Or will it always feel like a war just to find air, let alone inhale it? I don’t mind for myself—I would fight that war every minute because if I breathe, Aiden breathes. But isn’t there anything left I can do to make this easier for him?

I draw another gulp of fresh breeze and eat my BLT sarnie, trying to think. What am I missing here? Is it just a matter of finding the right dosage or do I need an entirely new element or two or three? Why did you make it so difficult, Dad? There are no answers in our carved initials under the bench.

Futilely, I open the locket where Aiden’s scroll of oxytocin is tucked with dad’s clue. Both worn from the hundreds of times I have read them.

Fifth time. Not December. Add love.

But no matter how long I stare at the words, I find nothing new. “Fifth time. Not December. Add love,” I mumble under my breath over and over until it sounds like a tongue twister. Fifth time—not December—add love. Fifth times not December add love. 

Abruptly, right then, something clicks! When I chant the words this way—quickly, together like a sentence without periods or breaks—their meaning changes. Their sound transforms. And the entire quad vanishes. Instead, numbers and elements spring in my vision, flitting around like the letters of Solstice Gallery in my sleepwalking dream—the dream that gave me the truth about Aiden and Feign. For a wild second I think it’s another dizzy spell, but it’s not. My mind delivers another verdict now as it did then. The elusive answer, the solution that has been haunting my every minute asleep or awake, the yes to all the prayers and wishes. The very obvious formula I have been missing. The antidote to terror.

“Oh my God!” I choke out. “Bloody hell! Is this—no—yes—it has to be. It’s dad’s style: two meanings in everything! It’s not just three sentences, it’s one key! Holy fuck! How on earth did I miss this?”

I stare at the symbols dancing in my vision, unable to blink. I know I should run and test the theory right now, but I can’t move past the epiphany, past the images as my mind breaks through another barrier. The formula spins out as vividly as if etched in dad’s handwriting under this bench. And not just the formula, but the message behind the clue, the lesson behind the solution.

“Thank you, Dad. I get it now,” I murmur in wonder. “I see it so clearly, but am I too late?”

L-a-t-e. The four letters unfreeze me. The outside world blinks into focus again, but only briefly, just enough blinks to register the elderly groundskeeper frowning at me in concern, and then I’m running. Bursting back through the building doors, crashing into a body, shoving it out of my way, and hurling myself down the hall to Bia, straight at the refrigerator. Then I start ripping out fistfuls of ampules in a tray because if I’m right, it will take more serotonin—a lot more self-love—to erase fear. Sixty times the amount of oxytocin to be exact. Five times twelve, add love. For every milliliter of love you need five times more confidence, more faith in yourself. That must be the true meaning of the clue.

I dump all my old work into the sink and line up everything anew on my station. The 2-AG spun five times, minus magnesium. The twelfth oxytocin, five milliliters. Serotonin, sixty milliliters. And the peptides to bind everything together. My hands don’t shake, but my heart is ricocheting off my ribs. I secure a large vial with clamps and start pouring in the ingredients, watching them change with my throat clenched like closure.

It’s not a transformation like any I have ever seen. It’s almost a dance. First the music of the molecules wrapping around each other. An ahh here, a pop there, a hushed ssss. Then love spins with fear, the purple and golden fluids twirling to a lilac shimmer. One leads, the other follows, one takes, the other gives, but both fading, equal forces bubbling above the flames of the burner, until confidence waltzes in. They vibrate together then, rocketing from a gentle tango to a tribal beat. Blending their atomic crescendo, swirling and pirouetting before my incredulous eyes, faster and faster as the liquid emulsifies. The vial starts to shake in the steel clasps, and a violet smoke spirals from it, igniting into golden sparks. I gasp and duck away reflexively, but the fiery stars don’t scatter. They shoot up like a fountain while, underneath, the viscous potion starts darkening, from violet to orchid. Another ripple billows through the liquid with a hiss. Then in the same second, quicker than I ever could have dreamed, the cloud of vapor dissipates completely and the substance pivots to a full stop.

I watch in a trance the amethyst mixture as it settles fluidly at the bottom of the vial. It’s not the hard candy consistency I had envisioned at all. It’s a wondrous texture, part-liquid, part-solid with a pearlescent aura at the very top like a halo. Yet despite the clarity, it looks oddly impermeable, unyielding.

I stand rooted on the spot, eyes wider than my goggles, not daring to breathe, waiting for . . . anything. Fizzing, exploding, dissolving, or simply waking up. Just another false start. But I know I’m not dreaming because Aiden isn’t here. And because a sense of conviction washes over me, more powerful than instinct. Conviction that this is it. Bravery has arrived. After hundreds of hours, countless tears, endless prayers and searches and calculations and tests, right when it was the last resort, when failure was no option, courage is finally ours.

Yet time ticks away and I still can’t move. The vial of bravery rests confidently, waiting like me.

Waiting for fears to tame, terrors to fight, love to save.

S-a-v-e. It takes only those four letters again. And then I’m the one spinning. Not to swallow the protein, although I’m certain it would not harm me in the slightest, but to do this right for Aiden. I unlock the vial—it’s warm, almost hot to the touch—seal it and wrap it safely inside mum’s parka several times, clutching it to my chest. Then I sprint out of Bia, jumping the stairs two at a time. More students and professors give me a wide berth as I huff and leap out in the quad, but I’m already gone, hurtling down the cobblestoned lanes, flying through doors, catapulting in the lift, toward the only person here I can trust.

It takes only a frantic blink to find the familiar office, but its door is closed. I pound on it with my foot, almost tearing it off its hinges. It flings open and Doctor Helen glowers there with a look of outrage that changes instantly to alarm when she sees me.

“Elisa? Good heavens, whatever has happened? Are you alright?”

“It’s—done!” I wheeze, leaning against the door frame and holding out the crumpled parka for her.

She frowns at the ball of red fabric in my hands. “What’s done? Elisa, what’s the matter? Is Aiden hurt—?”

“No—the—protein—it’s done—it’s here!”

A different shock drops over her face in comprehension as her grey eyes widen beyond her rimless glasses. “I don’t believe it!” she breathes, staring incredulously at the parka hiding the vial even though she can’t see through it.

“Test me!” I splutter while she stands there, frozen. “Test me while I take it—my life signs, its strength, everything! Make sure it’s safe for Aiden.”

That unthaws her. She blinks back at me in unconcealed bewilderment as I had feared. “That’s outrageous. We can’t test it on you—”

“I know it’s safe—I’ve tried it before—but for him I want to do it right. Please, we don’t have time to waste. Every hour he grows worse. Every night, I’m losing him before he’s even gone.”

Conflict implodes in her stunned mien. Science and ethics on one side, requiring rigorous rules for testing, but medicine and humanity on the other, mandating immediate action. It’s not a battle Aiden can afford to lose.

“Please, Doctor Helen!” I rasp again, shoving the protein closer to her hands. “I’m begging. You know I’ll do it anyway. Help me do it right. I have to save him! He will not survive the end without this, and you know it!”

That’s all it takes. The hesitation vanishes from her face. “When you put it that way . . .” And before I can gasp thank you or crumble to my knees in relief, she grabs my elbow as if unsure I can stand anymore and tows me down the hall to her vast lab. The white walls blur past me with the sudden motion, then the myriad of screens blare everywhere, all displaying Aiden’s mind as she must be relentlessly studying it. I almost trip over my feet as she marches us across the polished expanse to the electroencephalograph in the corner that measures Aiden’s heart and brain waves.

“Very well.” Doctor Helen gestures toward the chair where Aiden sat the day she took a photo of our kiss. “Let’s be brave.”

But the second she utters that last word out loud, unmistakable panic implodes inside me. I plop down on his old seat, staring at the stormy images of his memory. So staggering and unfathomable compared to the delicate vial tucked in my chest. Doctor Helen holds out her hands for the protein. “May I take it?” she asks, her voice softer as if she sees the havoc. “I will just place it next to you while we get set up.”

I nod woodenly and hand her my precious cargo. The moment it’s out of my touch, the lab’s cold air nips my fingers. A shiver slithers down my spine. She sets the parka undisturbed on her control desk with the wires of electrodes fraying out of it like nerves.

“I’ll need you to remove your blouse, Elisa,” she adds, sounding apologetic. “Please, don’t be embarrassed. No one will dare to come here with me inside, I promise.”

I manage another nod and start wrestling with my locket and buttons, but my hands are shaking so much that she has to help me. I don’t know why, but now that I’m sitting here on this chair, a terror unlike any other I have ever felt crushes me. The policeman telling me there has been an accident was nothing. The ambulance ride to the hospital was almost a breeze. The two beloved bodies in the morgue come close, but still don’t compare to this dread. Neither does Javier’s imprisonment or his trial or leaving America or Edison’s blow. Bravery is resting only a foot away, yet every droplet of my blood feels frozen solid. Because what if it still doesn’t work? What if even this weapon fails? For all our closure and preparation, I know deep down we have gambled our last hope on this one vial. And I’m about to roll the dice on our survival.

Peripherally, I feel my locket and blouse peel away as shiver after shiver ripples over my skin.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s cold here,” Doctor Helen says, but we both know my goosebumps have nothing to do with the temperature in the lab. She starts placing the electrodes on me gently, as Old Morse did with Aiden. On my temples, forehead, scalp, neck, pulse, sternum, wrists, hands. Her touch is light and warm, triggering distant memories of mum combing my hair.

“You look exhausted, Elisa,” she observes as she pastes the last electrode over my thunderous heart. “No sleep again last night?”

I open my mouth to speak but, just then, the wide screen to my right blares with my own heartbeat, and my EKG and brain activity lines blast across it.

“Oh, child!” Doctor Helen’s grave voice mutes my startled gasp as I stare at the monitor in horror. I don’t know anything about neuroscience, but even I can tell my heartline looks nothing like the waves of love that undulated for Aiden. Mine is craggy like the daggers of glass in the library the night Edison struck. And the second line—my brain—is stabbing and plunging erratically as a thrashing power line. My beeps are different, too, more like the rise and fall of ambulance sirens.

“Elisa, dear, you’re terrified,” Doctor Helen reads the data easily as she takes the chair in front of me, the chair I perched on for Aiden. To my surprise, she folds her organza hands around my wired wrists. “I could see that even without the monitor, but the intensity is too high. Let’s try to relax for a moment so we can get a baseline reading, shall we?”

I try. I summon every strategy and trick I know—Aiden’s cologne, the locket, the periodic table, Maria’s prayers, even a photo of our kiss—but they’re all futile. The monitor keeps wailing.

“Deep breaths, Elisa, try for a deep breath with me,” Doctor Helen coaches patiently, inhaling and exhaling to set the tempo. “Keep the faith that it will be all right.”

The knives of terror slash my heartline. “How?” I gasp.

“Follow Peter’s advice that you shared during your speech. ‘Have faith in science when you don’t know, in your heart when you do, and in yourself to be able to tell the difference.’ Maybe your love and this protein will be enough.”

“And if it’s not?” I whisper the words, unwilling to voice them into reality.

Her hands tighten on my wrist, digging in the electrodes. “Then you’ll know you did everything you could.”

I know she is trying to assure me, but all I hear is the postscript: that this is truly our last shot. Another round of beeps fires from the computer like bullets. I focus only on the sterilized air, trying in vain to calm my heartrate. Hydrogen, 1.008, Helium, 4.0026…

Doctor Helen must see the futility in my efforts. “It’s all right, Elisa,” she murmurs, eyes trained on the riotous screen. “I’ll work with this. It’s not standard but in a way, it might make the test more accurate. We won’t have to manufacture fear artificially.”

Manufacture? There could never be any lab-made fear that can compare to this. She stands, setting my quivering hands on my bouncing knees. Then gently, she starts unraveling mum’s parka, finding the vial nestled within.

“Oh but it’s beautiful!” she marvels, and even in my state, I know she is right. “I’ve never seen a substance like this.” Her inquisitive eyes dissect the part-fluid, part-solid elixir. The lilac halo shimmers on the surface unbroken like sunrise mist over the clearest lake. I sense her trying to grasp every facet, but she doesn’t ask me details about how, what, why. She lets me keep those secrets, and for that I’m grateful. She picks up the vial ever so carefully, shaking it gently. “It’s warm,” she muses in wonder. The knives on my heartline sharpen to razor-thin blades as the seconds to the truth tick closer. She peers at me, her gaze filling with apprehension. “Are you sure it’s not harmful, Elisa?”

“Positive,” I breathe, feeling the only gust of certainty. Of all my fears, this is not one. “Dad would have never left me something that could hurt me.”

“That’s true,” she agrees with evident relief. “How many doses do you have in this vial?”

I have no doubts about this answer either. “Three. That was dad’s style: one for each of us in a moment of need. He and I followed the same dosing for the nutritional supplement.”

Her silver eyebrows arch in surprise. “Ingenious. And how long will it last?”

I sense this answer, too, but not from anything dad taught me. “I’d guess a few hours at most. Serotonin has a very short half-life on the brain, but oxytocin can linger. We’ll need to test it to be sure, but I can’t see dad creating something that would eliminate an entire emotion for extended periods.”

“I tend to agree with that analysis. Very good.” Her voice bustles with finality. “Are you ready?”

The beeps trumpet like an alarm clock. “I am.”

She unseals the vial—my hands are too shaky to attempt it—and carefully brings it to my lips. The crystal rim is warm with the protein’s internal heat. “Let’s start with a tiny drop first,” Doctor Helen suggests. And with a slight tip of her hand, I taste bravery for the first time.

And almost vomit instantly. The beautiful tincture is pungent to the extreme. Bitter and sour, not quite as unendurable as denatonium, but certainly worse than raw thistle or citric acid. My throat seizes up against it, and the monitor shrieks. Doctor Helen stops immediately.

“Elisa, what’s the matter? Does it hurt?”

I force down the pool of saliva that surged in my mouth to drown the taste. “No, it’s tolerable. Dad must not have had time to refine the taste . . .” Or perhaps the revolting taste is the point. Like sulfuric acid added to gas to warn or stop you. Perhaps you have to be in dire need to take this. Is that part of dad’s message? Why? “I’ll have to adjust the flavor before Aiden ingests it, not that he would complain.”

A sad smile lifts her lips. “Of course not. Shall we go on?”

“Yes, but in one go this time.” I don’t want to gag and waste a single droplet.

“You read my mind.”

I open my mouth wider, and she pours a third of the vial in one swift spill. I gulp it down instantly but despite the speed, my entire body protests, from my throat to my toes. I have to clamp down my teeth and grip the edges of the chair not to spew it out. But as soon as the potion slides past the gagging point, the taste changes abruptly. It becomes numbing like lidocaine, though only for a few seconds. Then the bitterness starts to fade at the precise moment that a cloud of heat engulfs me, starting from the pit of my stomach and radiating to my fingertips.

“Oh!” I gasp as the racket of beeps literally skips a beat.

“Elisa?” Doctor Helen prompts, but abruptly several things happen at once. A feeling of raw power sweeps over me like a tidal wave. I feel my body snap out of a hunch I didn’t know I was holding. An awareness of physical strength spreads on my skin like a layer of steel. In the same split second my vision sharpens. Like an invisible veil has been ripped off, and every detail becomes crystalline. The first thing I see—although “see” no longer seems to be an adequate verb—is the screen. It looks oddly smaller, not as vast as I had been perceiving. The knives of terror in my brain waves judder as I stare bewildered, and the jagged edges of my heart rate quiver.

“Whoa!” I cry out, transfixed, as the gold of my heartline brightens into sunshine yellow. My brain waves sparkle electric blue, similar to Aiden’s neural activity. Then the digital wailing stops as suddenly as it began, the sirens quieting to chimes and the blades flattening to wavelets.

“Astounding!” Doctor Helen murmurs, but in the same breath, the lab bursts into a focus so clear that all images I have ever viewed through powerful microscopes dim in comparison. And not just clearer, but friendlier. The stark white expanse looks more like a powdery snowfall. The blue storm of Aiden’s memory images seems like a summer ocean. The blood-red button that can incinerate our brains twinkly as a ladybug. And the Amazonian neuroscientist who has always intimidated me looks kindred—a fairy godmother. I see her shrewd eyes widening in awe and her mouth falling open, but I also see her vulnerability, her age. Even the height difference between us shrinks as my vision impossibly hones further. And not just my vision now, but the rest of my senses. My hearing is clarion, not muffled by any hammering of blood in my ears. The calm computer beeps sound cheerful, like jingle bells at Christmas. The lab feels sultry like the rose garden. The hard chair under my fingers like putty. My sense of smell clears too as though I have had a stuffed nose all my life that has finally cleared. I can smell the distinct electric odor of the technology, a faint freesia perfume that must be wafting from Doctor Helen, the ethanol of the sanitizer. All richer, but instantly irrelevant. There is only one fragrance I care about inhaling. My wrist flies to my nose despite the electrodes. And Aiden’s fading cologne suddenly rules everything. It’s as if I have never smelled it before this moment. I try to find words for it but cannot. Pure beauty, almost soporific, and even though I’ve never felt more awake, abruptly my new eyes want to close. I inhale single-mindedly, and desire sings from my every pore, stunning me with its force. How can I possibly feel this when I was just drowning in terror? But terror is long gone like a distant, vague dream from a lifetime ago.

All this takes only a few seconds. Then a sense of endless possibility grips me. My mind seems to clear some quantum leap because the world transforms again, at once expanding and narrowing. It’s as though I can see farther in the distance, yet it would take only one step to traverse thousands of miles. Because cross them I would. As sudden as the changes in perception are, they don’t compare to this new conviction, this creed that I can do absolutely everything and anything.

Take the walls around me: I think I could demolish them. The ocean between here and America: I would swim it. Planes across the sky: I would ride on their wings. Every insurgent in Fallujah: I would find them and flay them alive, first the skin from the flesh, then the flesh from the bone, body part by body part. I would die at the end—I’m surprised by the certainty and irrelevance of that knowledge—but I absolutely would attempt all of it. My mind, freed of all fear, can already analyze exactly the preparation I would want; want but not need because right now, I’m the most fearless human that exists.

“Elisa?” Doctor Helen’s voice weaves easily through my refined perception, but it rings differently than a minute ago. Although louder than usual from her evident concern, her tone sounds soothing like a nighty-night. I realize then exactly what the protein is doing beyond honing my senses and strengthening my body. It’s converting any potential stimulus of fear into one of comfort. Doctor Helen is right: it’s truly ingenious.

“Yes?” I hear my own voice for the first time. The timbre distracts me. It’s more musical than I ever knew but, more than that, it’s slow and measured as though it has lassoed time.

Time! The name of our terrifying foe croons smoothly in my head, not chopped up in four letters and mental gasps. Time, time, time! It plays as easily through my thoughts as Für Elise. It will finish me in the end—I haven’t forgotten that—but it doesn’t matter because I own it until then. For once, time is not an enemy, nor an ally or a friend. Time is an equal.

Another second has ticked by. My entire transformation from terror to invincibility has taken only one minute.

“Your EKG and EEG are extraordinary,” Doctor Helen murmurs, staring in wonder at the monitor where the sunshine and ocean waves are now rising and swelling deeply in perfect synchronicity. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Could you describe what you’re feeling?”

In response to her question, the raw force of my mind breaks into the emotional realm. And then I feel it, truly feelbravery for the first time. It floods every corner of my being, flushing out every obstacle my fears had ever constructed. I always thought the protein would make us untouchable, impervious. But as it gushes inside me, I don’t feel less, I feel more. A lot more than I could have ever imagined I had room to feel. And that’s exactly when I grasp the full impact of the protein, its repercussions, the possibilities, why dad made it so difficult, maybe even why he kept it hidden, perhaps not just from Edison.

Because now that fear has cleared out of my system, it has freed space for every other flicker of emotion. And has magnified it to the nth degree. Surprise, calm, joy, grief, longing . . . although opposites, somehow they coexist in the same heartbeat. So deep and unfathomable, no normal human could breathe through them. The beeps on the monitor become stentorian tolls.

Yet, despite their potency, these other emotions are all tangentials. At the very core of my new being is Aiden. His existence pulsates like a blinding star in this realm. The epicenter, the gravity, the alpha and the omega, the nucleus and its energy, the entire meaning. As if every second in my life has led to this one moment of loving him without fear. The feeling is so overwhelming it disorients me. Even my new mind cannot contain it. All thought is replaced instantly by an irrepressible compulsion to protect him. It isn’t a choice; it’s the most basic of instincts. Exactly like self-preservation, as though he is me and I am him.

“I need to go.” The words fire from my lips as I jump to my feet. The action seems sinuous to my new eyes. A side effect of self-love? Confidence that I can be anything, including graceful?

“Elisa, wait!” Doctor Helen cries in alarm, her hand out to stop me from ripping off the electrodes. “What are you doing? We haven’t finished.”

“We don’t need more testing,” I answer, my mind already working, thinking ahead with this new knowledge. “My fears are gone. I need to go help Aiden.” The moment I imagine seeing him, the beeps quicken again, trilling as my heartrate surges forward. Silverbells of the most powerful love any human anywhere has ever felt at any time.

Even stunned, she doesn’t waver. “Of course this is to help Aiden. And I see the EKG and EEG, but I still need to monitor them to ensure you’re safe and the protein is truly working. Can you please answer my question?”

Another deluge of emotion roils through me: impatience, frustration, desire, longing for him. I have to lock my muscles against their intensity as their gravitational pull thrills in my limbs. A bugle call for me to complete what I was meant to do: save Aiden from anyone and everything. But my mind is amplified too. Despite the super-emotions, it can see all implications, the sense in Doctor Helen’s insistence.

“Elisa?” she prompts again. “Do you remember what I asked?”

“I do. You asked how I was feeling.”

“And?”

“I’m trying to find the words. Our language doesn’t have them.”

Worry crumples her forehead. “Neither does science based on what I’m reading. Let’s start with good or bad. Can you tell me that?”

“No, because both good and bad are an absolute understatement. I feel every emotion I have ever felt in my life all at once but magnified, except fear.”

Her eyes deepen, flitting to the computer. On the monitor, my heart and brain waves are billowing in tandem, charged and ready for action as soon as I release my body. “No fear at all?” she verifies.

“None.”

“But every other emotion must feel a lot more powerful based on the data.”

“Oh, yes. By far and away.”

“Even pain.”

I—or perhaps the protein—must have instinctually been shielding the self from this emotion until now, but the moment she says the word out loud, agony strikes inexorably to my consciousness. And once it claims my focus, it detonates through my body with such force that, without the protein, I’m sure it would have demolished me on this floor. As it is, my heartrate plummets again, and the monitor quiets to near-silence. Because all the facets of the truth become finally clear. Despite bravery destroying fear, it cannot heal pain. It cannot erase violent memories. It will not rewire a conditioned reflex. It does not cancel our own honor code. It will not stop time or distance. All those emotions and processes are apparently separate and distinct from fear. And the protein will intensify them, beyond any limit of the human existence. There is only one thing the protein can do for us: vanquish the terror for each other and give us faith in ourselves. Is that enough to make a difference to survival? In a world where we can be either safe in fear or brave in agony, what do we choose in the end?

Doctor Helen has clearly read my emotions in my tolling heartbeat without me needing to answer. “If the pain is this strong,” she says with a deep frown. “We had better be certain fear is truly gone. Some humans survive torture, but fear can kill.”

Yes, it can. Even though I don’t feel it now, I know which emotion I would pick for myself. But for Aiden? That’s an entirely different question. I sit back down on the chair even though my mind is still racing in the future. “What do we need to do to be sure that the protein works?”

Her grey eyes gentle in a godmotherly way, reminding me of the gazes I would see during the funeral. Gazes of sorrow. She sits back on the chair across from me and wraps her hand around mine. “I think you will need to live through a lot of pain, child.”

On the blue screens, the ocean of Aiden’s memories deepens. My heart and brain waves rise and fall with it. But my new mind flexes with confidence. There is no pain I wouldn’t endure for him.

“I am ready,” I answer.

The lab floor throbs with the knell of my heartbeat.©2022 Ani Keating