The Deathless Trilogy

1.16. Misty

I'm seated in the chair beside the computer platform. The headset is over my forehead, and a visor screen hangs in front of my eyes. For now the screen shows nothing, and its transparency allows me to see Nate biting his lip in muffled excitement. He mouths the words good luck to me, but I'm too nervous to do anything but smile in return. Wires snake down my back, connecting the headset to the computer, and Mom is nestled beside me, gripping my hands as if she's afraid I might fly away.

"Alright, Isla, how are you feeling?" Mitchell asks after attaching the last electrode.

"A little like a science experiment, but okay."

"It's better than actually being knocked out," Phoebe insists.

"Yes, Phoebe, it is," I say. She's been repeating this throughout my nervous preparation for the program, and I fear she won't ever stop unless I admit she's right. But she is: This is a better solution. I just wish she would have asked me and Declan if this was okay before announcing it to the group as our only option.

Dr. Patel speaks over the walkie-talkie, "Dr. Kunkle, is everything set up on your end?"

The walkie crackles before Declan's voice breaks through. "Yes... well, I think so."

Phoebe rolls her eyes. "Mitchell, go check to make sure he didn't mess anything up."

"Dr. Kunkle, we are sending Mitchell over to check, don't begin the experiment until he approves," Dr. Patel says.

There is silence on Declan's end, and I can only imagine how he must be beating himself up right now.

After a few minutes, Mitchell speaks over the walkie-talkie: "Ready here."

"Ready Isla?" Phoebe asks.

Mom's grip tightens.

"Yes," I lie.

Phoebe presses a button on the keyboard, and in an instant, the visor darkens with the image of what Misty sees. I am no longer in the Captain's dining room, but in the experiment cage.

I am Misty and she is me.

The cage bedding feels soft beneath my clawed hands and feet, and my colorless vision is blurred; but the world around me is as sharp as a pin through my nose. I can smell every change to the environment, every movement in the air, and every flower in the lab; but a familiar scent overpowers all the rest: Declan. He is a pine-scented blurry mix of grays.

"Administering the compound to test subject 1."

I turn my head and see his massive hand reaching towards me in a blur of light, the compound in a syringe between his long fingers. Even though I, Isla, know this won't hurt me, Misty, we still panic and scurry to a corner of the cage.

If I can sense her, can she sense me? I try to think about comforting things—books and Daniel's smile and Mom's embrace—and I can feel our heart rate slowing.

Good girl, Misty.

The syringe enters my hind side, and even though it's not my body, I still feel the pressure and the piercing needle jabbing me. I shriek.

"Calm down, Isla, it's all okay," a familiar voice says—Gabriela—and even though her words sound like lullabies, they still startle me with their invasiveness.

Declan removes the needle from my back side, and I feel his fingers rub the area of injection. I wait for a moment, frozen in the corner of the cage in anticipation.

Nothing. It doesn't work, I think.

"Give it a minute," I hear Gabriela say.

She can hear me!