Authors: Joanne Brothwell
“How long would that take?” I asked.
“Good question.” Dr. McGill glanced around the room and down at Analiese’s file. “Perhaps one week, maximum, two.”
“I’m in college. I don’t know if I can afford to miss two weeks of classes. Besides, where would I stay?” I asked.
“I’m certain the University would be a willing participant in this research effort. We’ve made arrangements like this before. We will request your assignments, class notes and assigned readings during your stay with us. We can even moderate any quizzes or exams, if necessary.” McGill’s eyes looked bright, as if he took my question as a sign that I was softening to the idea. “And we have all of our participants stay at an adjacent residence, attached to the main building. The accommodations are luxurious, and,” he smiled, “The food is excellent.”
“Okay, I suppose I could stay—”
Suddenly Mom stood up, her abrupt movement catching all eyes at the table. “Absolutely not. You’ve already interfered with my family too much. Bringing Analiese’s body here and doing tests on her without even consulting me or her father is completely unacceptable. It’s an invasion of privacy and a breach of her constitutional rights as a citizen, not to mention unprofessional conduct toward me and her father. And now you expect my only remaining daughter to become your guinea pig, after how we’ve been treated?”
“Mom.” I stared at her. What happened to her manners? Clearly they all disappeared the day Analiese died. “What they’re asking me, it’s perfectly reasonable. Why are you opposing this?”
“No. This is unacceptable.” Mom shook her head. Back and forth, back and forth. Her heavily hair sprayed bob hardly moved.
Dr. McGill remained seated and leaned back in his chair. His colleagues sat motionless, some expressionless, others frowning. “Ms. Sinclair, our institute has acted in accordance with the laws of our country and the ethics of all governing bodies.”
I could hardly believe what I was seeing—mom’s skin blotchy and red, her eyes wild. “I don’t care. This is my daughter we’re talking about.”
“Mom. I think you’re overreacting here—”
She turned to me, and the way she looked stopped the words from exiting my mouth. Her aqua eyes were glassy and red-rimmed, her lips quivering. “Come on. We’re leaving before they decide they can keep you here against your will.”
Dr. Bomer stood up. “Mrs. Sinclair. Please consider the wonderful contribution our research could make to medical science. Your daughter may just lead to the greatest medical and genetic breakthrough yet. We are not asking she stay here indefinitely. We simply would like her to stay a few weeks.”
I startled when mom grabbed my arm with an iron fist. Like in the haze of a strange, vivid dream I followed her out of the room, only having enough time to cast a passing glance back at the scientists sitting around the table.
“Mom,” I said under my breath.
Every one of the scientists had the same furrowed-brow look, including Dr. McGill.
“Hush,” Mom commanded. Her voice had a familiar tone from my childhood, a tone that said,
don’t say another damn word
.
“You are taking this out of context, Ms. Sinclair. We are only interested in what we can learn from your daughter’s passing.” McGill said as we exited the room. “Adriana, if you change your mind, you know where we are. I beg you to consider our request.”
“Thank you,” I said, my mother dragging me along. “Sorry about this.”
We left the building, my mother tugging my arm the entire way. She pulled me along the corridor, into the elevator, and through the foyer. Once we were outside the heavy glass doors, I spoke. “What the hell was that about?” I demanded.
She glanced around, as if scanning for a hidden camera. Was she going crazy? Having some kind of paranoid delusion after Analiese’s death? I’d heard of intense stress causing psychotic episodes in people, but I’d never seen any sign of mental illness in Mom before.
“We’re not talking about this. Not now. Not here,” Mom said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Please don’t go all crazy paranoid on me, here, Mom.”
Mom snapped. “I told you I’m not talking about it here! Do you understand?”
I’d never in my life seen her look so unhinged. We returned to the hotel, her avoiding making eye contact, me peppering her with questions she refused to answer, my volume growing with each rebuke. All I got was a variation of the same vague response:
I wasn’t comfortable with what they were asking of you
. I seethed in response to her silence, with little effect. In bed, I tossed and turned and my mind raced as I listened to my mother’s heavy snore beside me.
Fuck
.
The next morning, on our flight home, mom was twitchy and jumpy, like we were under constant surveillance. Big brother over her shoulder.
Maybe the government is tuned into our radio channel, mom, to pick up our brainwaves
. All she was missing was the tin foil hat. I continued to ask questions with increased frustration, her continually evading me, until she finally muttered between gritted teeth,
Don’t ask me until we are at home
.
I sat there, eyes closed, my outer body the perfect image of calm, hiding the turbulence inside of me.
It wasn’t until we were safely inside her house that Mom looked like she actually inhaled a full breath.
“You can’t put me off any longer. Jesus, there’s no one here, listening to us or taping our conversation, all right?” Jet-lagged and emotionally disturbed by her behavior, I had more than lost my patience.
Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “I’m not putting you off.”
“Absolutely, you are! Answer my question! Do you have an extra rib, mom?”
“No.”
“Have you had your blood typed? Do you have the same blood type Analiese and I have?”
Mom’s expression darkened. “No, I don’t. I’m O-negative.”
“Why do I feel like there is something you’re not saying? Or something you’re afraid to say?” I stepped toward her and she moved back like I had a contagious disease.
Her mouth dropped open and she sat down on a kitchen chair. Then her mouth clamped shut and her eyes narrowed. “Adriana, this is serious. I don’t think you realize just how serious this is.”
“So serious you think NHGRI is going to use me like a lab rat?” I said. “So serious that you think people are lurking around every corner, listening to us, bugging our phone? Come on. You’re losing it.”
“Stop it, Adriana.”
I threw my hands in the air and cursed. “I’m just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Why can’t you tell me what you know?”
Mom shook her head and ran her hands through her hair. “They took Analiese’s body without our permission, which is bad enough, but when they said it was all done legally, that’s when I realized you could be forced to stay at the lab, even if you don’t want to.”
“I gathered that from what you said to them.” I paused. “But Mom, if they insisted, I would go, because obviously, it would be for an important reason.”
Mom let out an odd chuckle. “Important to them, sure. Make you into a guinea pig to run tests and experiments so they can get their kicks. Meanwhile, your quality of life disappears.”
“That’s a little conspiratorial, isn’t it?” I tried to hide the sick feeling I felt inside. Her mental health status was far worse than I’d estimated. “Besides, they said two weeks. That’s hardly going to affect my quality of life.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “You think I’m exaggerating? I know what loopholes the government has so they can get around the constitution. I know they can take you against your will if they want, they can suspend your rights if they deem it necessary and imprison you in a lab until they’re damn good and satisfied.”
My head throbbed and my hands fisted. “Okay…?”
Mom’s lips pursed as she examined my face. “As a child, I remember rumblings in the family, things said in hushed tones between family members. They thought I was out of earshot, but I heard. Something about someone’s blood. Our family has secrets.”
Silence filled the air between us, heavy and still. Secrets? Finally, she was talking.
“Can you find out?” Tears stung at the back of my eyes at the thought of it. If those secrets had been out in the open, could Analiese’s death been prevented?
As if reading my mind, she nodded. “I’ll try. In the meantime, can you please just… go back to college, go to class, blend in, pretend everything is normal, okay? Give me two days, and I’ll dig around. I’ll find us some answers.”
Mutation:
A relatively permanent change in hereditary material involving either a physical change in chromosome relations or a biochemical change in the codons that make up genes.
-Merriam-Webster Dictionary
CHAPTER THREE
KALAN KANE
I sat across the aisle from the gorgeous girl, looking out of the corner of my eye, furtive glances, trying not to be noticed. There was something about her that was hard to put into words, an energy that practically
pulsed
off of her. She hadn’t even said a word, and yet I couldn’t keep myself from staring. I was like a dog, watching my master’s every move, waiting for some small gesture. Some small acknowledgement of my existence. I forced myself to turn in my seat so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at her. I didn’t need to send her the creep vibe before I’d even met her. And that
was
the ultimate goal.
Sitting through a Biochemistry lab wasn’t something I was overly excited about, but I knew it was the only way I’d be able to see her up close. In fact, Stonewood, the small, relatively isolated university town right in the middle of a densely forested area, was one of the last places on my list of locations to move to. But here I was, all because of this girl, whose sister’s death was in the paper, the headline reading, ‘Patient with atypical blood type dies from botched blood transfusion.’
She leaned down from her lab stool and rummaged through her backpack until she touched the object she was in search of. She withdrew her hand from the pack to reveal a shiny red apple. Without hesitation, her lush lips pulled back and she bit down on the crimson skin, her incisors slicing through to the juicy flesh beneath. The familiar crunch echoed through the lab followed by the crisp, sweet scent that took me back to my childhood lunchroom.
I evaluated her features. She had at least one of the classic markers I was hoping she had. In fact, those teal green eyes of hers could be noticed halfway across the room. Even though she already had her lab coat on, it was obvious she also had a great rack. More than a handful, for sure.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
The girl continued to chomp her fruit as she prepared her lab table. She adjusted her Bunsen burner so it sat directly in front of her, set her safety goggles to her right, and the evaporating dish and an Erlenmeyer flask to her left.
Judging by the numerous guys twisting at their desks, I wasn’t the only one looking at her, either. A guy around her age sat in the next aisle over, not even trying to hide his kicked-puppy stare. She glanced over at him and he said hi. Then I heard her voice for the first time.
“Derek.” Her voice sounded as if her throat was pinched. Was there history between these two? Or was her voice like this on account that she had just lost her sister?
Derek’s hound-dog expression transformed. “Hi. Look, we need to talk.”
Her silky black hair swayed across her back as she spoke. A funny sound came from her mouth, like a stifled sob. “No, Derek, we don’t. There is nothing we need to say to each other.”
“I don’t agree,” Derek said. His expression was stricken. “I heard you went to Maryland. Why were you there?”
Adriana’s eyes grew wet and the colour went from teal to a deep turquoise. “They took Analiese’s body to the National Human Genome Research Institute,” Adriana said in a tight voice. She no longer held back her tears and one zigzagged down her cheek in an inky streak.
My heart rate spiked. Obviously this was
the
girl. And the news article I’d read about the atypical blood was, in fact, her sister, and if her sister had some genetic quirks… perhaps Adriana did, too?
Derek’s eyebrows crinkled in the middle. “Why?”
Adriana’s expression changed, grew… twitchy. She surveyed the entire room, and then did a double take. What was she looking for?
“She and I have a weird blood type.”
“Geez, I wish I could have been there for you.” Derek said, his expression sympathetic in a greasy way. “I’m sorry. I’m so… sorry.”
Adriana’s head tilted forward so her hair cascaded over-the-top of her desk like hundreds of long black ribbons. She shook her head. “Don’t.”
I wished I could have seen her face at that moment.
Derek’s expression returned immediately to that of undisguised pain, his mouth pursed into a tight, flat line. He put his head down on his arms atop his desk. Adriana turned in her seat, her back to him, her expression dark, her arms folded across her chest.
Then a couple walked in, chatting loudly, both smiling at Adriana. The woman was petite with highlighted hair and dark skin, her exotic bone structure and almond eyes making me immediately think she was from the Phillipines. She took a seat in front of me, and the guy, a blond with orange pants and orange shirt, sat down across the aisle so he was sitting in front of Adriana. It was obvious they were not a couple, the way they sat apart.
“Hi,” Adriana said, her mouth barely pulled up at the corners into a half-smile. I could imagine myself sucking on those lips and the thought of it made my belly clench. She took another bite of apple with perfect white teeth. She was gorgeous.
Derek nodded perfunctorily at them. “Tait. Zoe.”
The guy, Tait, slapped Adriana’s lab table. “A-dog,” he said in a mock-ghetto voice. “We have great news.” His smile exposed both upper and lower teeth. He had a Disney look to him, all perfectly styled, spikey blond hair and big, round eyes.
Zoe leaned across the aisle and set something in front of her. “Tonight. Seven tickets to the Ruminate concert. Are you in?”
Adriana stared at the concert tickets on the table in front of her. Derek gawked at the tickets as well, his mouth slightly open until he noticed me watching him. Then his eyes narrowed and he turned back toward the front of the class.
“How did you get them? I heard they were sold out.” Adriana looked at the tickets as if they were worth a fortune.
“I was logged in and ready to click the moment the tickets went on sale,” Tait said.
“Wow. Thanks, guys. But I can’t. Not tonight. Sorry” Adriana smiled and handed them back to Zoe, who stuffed them into her purse. Then something stormy and tempestuous replaced Adriana’s sunny expression.
The BioChem Professor strode in. He stood about six feet tall, with dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He quickly nodded to the class before he turned around and wrote his name on the blackboard. Dr. Johansson. Clearly, he wasn’t interested in formal wear, opting for jeans and a t-shirt beneath his white lab coat. The cool professor. The I’m-cool-and-scholarly
type. I could just see him on his recumbent bike, his backpack for a briefcase in the carrying basket in front, pedalling home from his tough day teaching students about stuff they never thought about again after they wrote the final exam.
He turned back toward the class, and after awkwardly muttering his name and the title of the class, handed out the course syllabus. Then he launched into a lecture about mitochondrion outer and inner membranes composed of phospholipid bilayers and proteins. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
Adriana leaned back in her desk and dug into her pack again where her telephone buzzed. She was looking down at it when Dr. Johansson stopped speaking and glared at her.
“Excuse me,” Dr. Johansson said, his eyes narrowing into slits. “You may not care about wasting your tuition dollars, but the other students here do.”
A professor with a self-righteous streak and a hot temper.
Great
.
Adriana glanced up and a pink flush crept across her cheeks. She stuffed her phone back into her purse and nodded. “Sorry. I was listening.”
“If you were listening, you would know the five distinct parts to a mitochondrion. Can you recite them for the class, please?” Dr. Johansson asked. His face twisted up into a mocking smile. Self-righteous and condescending. Charming.
Adriana looked down. “Oh, um… okay. The outer mitochondrial membrane, the intermembrane space, the inner mitochondrial membrane, and…. I’m sorry. I can’t remember.”
“The cristae space and the matrix,” I said, levelling my gaze on Dr. Johansson. The professor’s eyes glazed over. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Adriana was looking right at me. She smiled and mouthed,
Thank you
. I smiled back, lost in this moment, our gazes locked. Until Dr. Johansson cleared his throat.
I looked up at him and noticed how his expression was somewhat more relaxed. “I don’t think I asked you, Mr…?”
“Kane, sir,” I said. “My name is Kalan Kane.”
“Well, Mr. Kane. I didn’t ask you for the answer, did I?” Self-importance oozed from the man, but in a schoolyard bully way. I didn’t like him. Not one bit.
“Sorry, Doctor,” I said with complete neutrality.
The prof’s face softened even further, and a tiny, self-impressed smile tugged the sides of his mouth up. “Fine. Don’t do it again.” He turned back to the board and began to write out the words I’d recited.
Adriana half-turned in her seat, her lips tucked together to stifle a smile. Was it possible she was what I hoped she was? Her evocative eyes were the exact hue of the identifying marker. Her waist was tiny, and she had a long torso as well, a probable sign of the other marker. And the sister stuff… It probably wasn’t really a question of whether she was one. The question was, did she even know what she was?
Class ended and the students filed toward the door. I took my time cleaning up and putting lab supplies away, placing my books into my backpack with slow precision, to kill time. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adriana nod to her friends before they left. When my books were all securely in place, I straightened up. She was looking right at me.
“Hi,” Adriana said as she gathered her backpack and swung it over her shoulder. She stepped forward and as she drew nearer, an infusion of her scent filled the air, a lovely combination of soap and raspberries. The mixture made my head spin and my mouth water. “I’m Adriana,” she said.
“Hi, I’m Kalan.”
“I wanted to thank you for stepping up like that. It’s not often someone will take on Johansson. He’s got quite the reputation for being a hot-head. Last year a student from a course on social deviance was hanging around in his classroom, acting like a… well, a social deviant, and Johansson lost it. His face turned all purple and he started screaming and freaking out.” Adriana rolled her eyes. “Anyway, thanks. I’m heading to my next class. You?”
“You’re welcome. And yes, I’m heading to my next class too.” I followed her out the door and we set off down the bleach-scented hallway, the janitor halfway down the hall, mopping away. “Which classroom are you—”
I was interrupted by a jeering call that originated from a group of mammoth-sized guys lingering against a windowsill. “Wow, that is quite a tan, dude.” A few of them were grinning while others looked away, as if pretending nothing happened. I was used to these kinds of comments. I’d been called worse.
Adriana swore and shot them a glare. “So rude,” she said, loud enough for them to hear. We continued to walk. “Sorry about that.”
“That’s nothing compared to what I’ve been called before,” I said.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you… albino? Sorry, is that even a politically correct term?”
We took a few more steps down the hall before I finally answered. “Yeah. I have Acromia. It’s a genetic anomaly.”
“I know. Albinism affects approximately one in twenty thousand people,” Adriana said, looking up at me through a thick fringe of black lashes. “Remembered it from first-year Bio.”
“Impressive. And do you remember why?” I smiled. “Why I have white hair, the white skin?”
Adriana’s eyes widened. “The absence of an enzyme involving the production of melanin,” she said as if describing the ingredients involved in making Kraft Dinner. “Have you ever had the genetic test?”
“Yes. But it only served to confirm what I already knew.”
We approached a corner, where it was clear we were about to part ways. “I’m heading to this way,” Adriana said, examining my face so closely my nerves began to sing. “Hey—what about your eyes? They aren’t pink,” Adriana’s own pupils dilated, endlessly black within a tiny ring of pale teal.
I nodded, swallowing against a lump in my throat. “I know. They’re more—”
“Silver,” Adriana interrupted in a liquid voice. She stepped forward and set warm fingers on my jaw, tilting my face down for a closer look. I swallowed. She was far more… assertive than what I’d expected. Her finger pressure was tight, but the skin of her hand was warm, soft. Her scent curled up around me once again, the heady infusion so sweet and so potent I got light-headed.
Her eyes shimmered, her mouth slightly open. Few girls had ever been this close to me before, especially a girl who also happened to look like a model. My cheeks warmed.
“Silver eyes. So cool,” Adriana said. She let go of my jaw.
It was obvious we were about to part ways. Shit.
Just ask
. “Hey, I heard you talking to your friend in class. You said something about having a weird blood type?”
Adriana’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Just curious,” I said with a shrug. “I guess, since I’m a genetic mutant, I enjoy finding other people with weird stuff about them.”
The suspicious look melted from Adriana’s face and she smiled. “I’ll bet my mutant qualities beat out albino any day.”
I chuckled. “Oh?”
Adriana glanced around again, as if expecting to see someone taping our conversation. When she appeared satisfied we weren’t being overheard, she whispered, “My blood type doesn’t even exist.”