I try to relax, reaching into the bandwidth for his signal. My brain is slow and it’s hard to know what to show him. I don’t want to go back to anything that might upset him and I dodge memories of our confrontation at the Gallaghers’ estate. I decide to keep things recent and focus on my break-in at the detention centre. The details fill out in my mind. I’m back in the moment, my foot punching through reinforced glass; I press the image forwards.

Aiden grunts, his hand tightening around mine, but he doesn’t resist it, letting the Kinetic Memory Transfer play out. I reach the part where I take the guard in a headlock and Aiden draws air through his teeth. “Whoa.”

I release my hold on his signal and hand. He opens his eyes, an involuntary smile parting his lips. “That was definitely clearer. It’s unreal. Like a body snatcher thing.”

“Ergh,” Kitty grunts.

“I mean, it’s like being in someone else’s skin. Seeing everything. Feeling everything. Like you’re them. It’s – it’s unreal.”

Nodding, I smother a yawn and let my head loll back on the rest, enjoying Aiden’s animated face. He seems to be shaking off the effects of the Fretizine.

“So there’s Transfer and Harvest, neither of which I seem to be able to do but I can receive okay, then there’s all the strength and speed stuff which I have a bit of.”

“Trust me, you’re plenty strong.”

“Explain precognition again. I didn’t have that when I was–” He cuts off, his face stricken, and pulls his arm away from Kitty’s seat. “Kitty, I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head, her voice low but certain. “It’s okay.”

He sits back, rubs his face. “It’s not.”

She gives me a pleading look.

I sigh. “No one’s saying it was okay, Aiden – the way things were for you before. We’re all clear on how not okay it was, but can we take it as a given that you wanting to kill Kitty was no more your fault than me wanting to protect Kitty was a reflection of my moral character?”

“Thanks very much,” Kitty says.

Aiden flinches at “kill” and scowls at the rest, before slumping into a sullen stare out at the darkness and rain. If I could convince him to agree, I’d try, but his dedicated self-loathing has worn me out since he came to at the motel. I let silence settle. I can’t take his burden from him. I’ve told him what I can about the origins of our condition, leaning heavily on the core loss of free will that comes with the activation of the synthetic gene. I’ve rehashed Miriam’s tutorials on the Affinity Project, butchering most of it. None of it helps. None of it alleviates the crushing truth; it didn’t when Miriam explained it to me.

Thinking about Miriam turns the icy weight in my stomach. Knowing Affinity will take her because of me is unbearable and I wonder if they’ve gotten to her yet. I wonder what they’ll say, what she’ll say and whether they’ll punish her because of me. I dig my nails into my palm.

“What was it like?” Kitty asks, her soft voice filling the silence. “Before.”

Aiden stiffens.

Kitty’s gaze lifts to the rear-view mirror.

Their eyes meet. He winces and looks away. She bites her lip and frowns at the road.

“Like … losing my mind … my body.” He sounds distant and distracted as though speaking to himself. “Like being possessed. Half the time I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.”

“But you seemed normal at school,” she says, and her tone’s so matter-of-fact that I have a moment of surreal dislocation as my Spark and her Stray discuss his mental state and the weirdness of it swells in my head. Their voices take on a distorted quality, like I’m listening from another room, or hovering above the scene, detached from all the right emotion. Where’s my horror, my sympathy, my raging sense of injustice? Kitty’s voice breaks through, “… just seemed so normal.”

“I did? I didn’t feel normal.” He grows quiet for a moment then draws a shuddering breath. “The dreams were … I don’t know how to describe it. Like being in a nightmare and waking up and not being sure if I was really awake and then finding out I was – I don’t know – the monster, the Wolfman.” He lowers his head.

Wolfman.

A terrible bubbling laughter rises inside me. So inappropriate. So wholly irrational and yet it grips me deep in the belly. I don’t look at Kitty. I can’t bear to. Aiden’s just ripped his guts open, for crying out loud; genuine confession in the most vulnerable way before the one person who has every reason to despise him. The building pressure makes my face hot and then it’s too late, my shoulders start bouncing and the geyser rises and I shake in my seat.

Kitty reaches out to me, one hand on the steering wheel. She squeezes my hand and makes shushing sounds. I can’t make out Aiden’s expression, with tears streaming from my eyes. “It’s okay, Evs … Everything is …” Her head swivels towards me. She whips her hand away. “You’re laughing?”

“I’m sorry!” I burst out, rocking in my seat. “I’m not. Not really. God, Aiden. I’m sorry … It’s just … it’s just–” Overcome by another hysterical wave, wiping away tears. “Wolfman.”

“Evangeline!” Kitty smacks her hand on the steering wheel. “It’s not remotely funny.”

“You’re right.” I squeeze my sides for control. “It’s not funny. It’s terrible. It’s just … Wolfman.”

Aiden makes a noise of disgust.

“Ignore her,” Kitty mutters. “Your sister has lost her bloody marbles.”

Then her shoulders begin to shake and it’s all over.

* * *

At the station we gather by the ticket machine, me wobbly on my legs and woozy about the head. There are a few early morning commuters arriving, shuffling, grey-faced. No one pays any attention to the three of us, though we’re all on edge. Aiden wear his Dartmouth cap pulled low. Kitty has pulled her beret down around her ears and I have my hoodie up, hunching my shoulders as though resisting the cold. It’s hard not to look for security cameras.

“Don’t wait,” Aiden says. “It’s freezing and you should get back. Kitty’s parents must be freaking out.”

The thought of leaving him at the station for half an hour before the first train doesn’t sit well with me at all, but I can’t ignore the growing urgency and dread I feel about getting back to New Hampshire and Doctor Sullivan. I can’t think about Barb and Leonard, Miriam and Jamie or the police until we get the sample safely to the lab.

The police will want to interview us. Kitty and I were the last people to see Aiden in any official capacity. It would make sense for them to interview us. I imagine questions like, “Was Aiden acting strangely when you saw him? Had he ever talked about anyone who might want to hurt him? Do you have any idea who would want to break into the facility and take him against his will?” My insides churn with what might have been captured on the security feed at the detention centre, my stupidity in calling out to the guard. What are the chances we make it home to answer their call?

Tucking my hands in my pockets, I nod, wondering what the etiquette is for farewelling one’s newly met fugitive twin.

“I guess we should hug it out?” The corner of Aiden’s mouth twitches up.

“I guess, yeah.”

He makes the move, surrounding my shoulders so that I clasp him around the waist. My throat tightens and I hold my breath. “No fair,” I say, croaking. “You’re taller than me.”

“I have to have at least one advantage.” He pulls back and narrows his eyes. “Which of us is the eldest?”

I make a face and he chuckles.

Kitty produces a soft laugh and he gets that uncertain look she provokes in him. “I hope they go easy on you, Evie.”

They won’t. “You’ve been over the map?”

“Kitty talked me through it.”

“You’ve got the key and the money.”

“I hope I get to pay you back.”

I snort. “Live and we’re square.”

“Thanks for everything, sis.”