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“I know it sounds crazy. And I think you deserve to know the truth. I just don’t know if you can accept it.”

“I’m having trouble accepting a lot of things right now. I can’t accept that all this trouble is about a vaccine. I can’t accept that you could disappear in a CDC building and no one would be able to do anything about it. I can’t accept that Granger and those three guys on the interstate had heart attacks because you wanted them to.”

"I can prove it to you."

"How?"

"I can...um, I can hurt you. I mean, I won't give you a heart attack, but I can try something smaller."

A corner of my mouth lifted. "Okay. I'll bite. Prove it to me." I held up my index finger. "Here's something small. Maybe you can give my finger a heart attack."

"Well, maybe what I do isn’t exactly a heart attack..."

I rolled my eyes. "Can you prove it or not?"

Iggy stared at my finger. I was one second away from laughing at her, but I knew it was wrong to make fun of the mentally ill. Then the muscles in my finger seized up, wrenching the digit straight and stiff. I gasped and grabbed at it with my other hand. Then just as suddenly, the pain was gone.

"There. Now do you believe me?"

My eyebrows drew together. "It was a muscle spasm. It happens to everyone." Wasn't it? Surely Iggy couldn't really do what she was claiming. Stuff like that only happened in the movies. I picked up my cell phone. "Let's call Wesley and tell him you're coming alone and that I'm giving myself up. Then you can — ." I yelped. My hand felt like every bone was cracking. I dropped the phone and clutched at my hand with the opposite one, crying out again, watching my own fingers bend at an unnatural angle as the joints bulged through my skin. Then the pain disappeared and I was left panting.

Iggy sniffed and whispered, "Please don't make me prove it anymore. Please believe me."

I stared at her like she was someone I didn’t know. “How long?” I swallowed. “How long have you been able to do this?”

“Since my early teens.”

“Why? How?”

“It has something to do with the vaccine I told you about.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “Impossible.” I looked at her. “Do your parents know?”

“Of course. Why do think
your
parents stopped coming down for the holidays?”

My eyes widened. “Wesley knows?”

“He’s like me. He got the vaccine too.”

“He makes people hurt?” This was unbelievable.

Iggy winced and bit her lip again. “No. He can control something in people’s lungs. The alveoli or some certain cells. I don’t know. Breathing. He can mess with breathing.” She squared her shoulders. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m sick or evil or a freak.”

She looked scared and tired, and she had a bruise on her jaw, but my curiosity was more important than anything. I wanted to know without a doubt why I’d just thrown away my freedom. “Prove it one more time. One finger.” He held up his right pinky finger.

“Stop it, Cael. Stop asking me to hurt you.”

“One more time, and I promise I’ll believe forevermore.” It just couldn't be true, even though my fingers still throbbed. Something like this was life changing. If Iggy actually had this power, my view of the universe would change. If she could do this, then maybe aliens existed. Area 51. The Loch Ness Monster. Bigfoot.

She looked like she was going to be ill. “No.”

“You had no problem back on the interstate.” Maybe I'd just imagined the pain or imagined she'd caused it. Was it possible for a hand to have a seizure?

“That was different. That was self-defense.” She wiped her wet eyes.

“Come on, Iggy. One more time. I won’t ask again. One finger. You
have
to prove it to me.”

“I did. Twice! That's enough.”

“Do it!” She looked at my hand and then it happened. There was a jerk and pop, and I cried out. This time I knew my finger was broken.

“Stupid bastard!” she yelled and jumped out of the car.

She was halfway through the parking lot before I caught up with her. I grasped her shoulder, but she jerked away and started jogging. “Stop, Iggy!”

“You’re just like them!” she yelled over her shoulder. “I’m not their lab rat, and I’m not going to be
yours
either!”

“I just needed you to prove it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She stopped so suddenly that I nearly ran into her. She spun around and I felt like a complete asshole when I saw the tears trailing down her cheeks. She jabbed a finger in my chest and said, “That’s
exactly
what Jensen said. He just needed me to prove it. Over and over and over. On dogs and cats and monkeys. Why don’t you go to work for
him
! I’m sure he’ll give you a job if you just drive me down to the CDC.” She shoved me. "You masochistic asshole!"

I looked up at the sky and dragged my palms down the sides of my face as she ran away. I hadn’t been thinking about how hurting me would make Iggy feel. It was my body, my request, so I thought it was that simple. But how would I like it if the situation was reversed and she wanted me to hurt her? I wouldn’t do it. I’d think she was crazy for asking. “I’m sorry, Iggy.” I ran to catch up and fell into step beside her. “It’s just so hard to believe.”

“Well, newsflash, Mr. Masochist. There are a bunch of us out there who can do stuff like this. In fact, there’s probably all sorts of shit happening in this world that we can’t even imagine. Personally, I don’t care whether you believe me or not. But I’m sure as hell done proving myself to you. Go turn yourself in. You obviously want to be hurt. You'd probably love prison. Maybe they can starve you and beat you up. You'd get a real kick out of that.”

“Please, stop!” I gripped her upper arm and pulled her around to face me. “Iggy! I’m sorry.”

She swiped at her tears with the back of her hands. "Go away!"

“God, you have no idea how sorry I am.” Suddenly I wanted to hug her. "I was a callous asshole. I'm sorry." I pulled her toward me but she resisted.

"I don't care if you think I'm crazy."

"I'm the crazy one," I admitted. "And stupid. I mean, what kind of guy asks three times to get his fingers broken?"

"A mule-headed idiot," she said, but her voice was calmer and I knew I was making progress.

I tugged again. Iggy sniffed and stared at the ground. Then I pulled her into my arms and hugged her. She was stiff. After a minute she said, “Please don’t let this change how you see me. I’m still the same person you’ve known since we were little kids.” And then she wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her head on my chest.

I felt like a bully. She seemed so small just then; her head barely reached my chin. And she’d had more to deal with than I could possibly know or understand. This wasn’t about what
I
needed to have proven or what
I
felt or
I
believed. I already believed in Iggy, and I had proven it when I’d shot two men to save her. And if I had it all to do over again, I would make the same choices.

After a minute, I said, “So this is why Jensen offered five thousand dollars to have you brought in? I’m surprised he didn’t offer more. That is the strangest side effect of a vaccination that I’ve ever heard of.”

“It’s kind of complicated. I don’t even understand it completely myself.”

I didn’t want to let her go, but Iggy pulled away. “Do you still want me to come with you to look for your parents? Or are you going to act all weird around me now?”

I gave her a crooked smile. “Of course I want you to come. But I’ll be honest and admit that it’s a lot to take in. I have all these questions, but I’m scared to ask you any of them. I don’t want you to feel like I think you’re a freak show or something.”

She sniffed again. “I don’t mind questions. I just don’t want you to look at me like I’m a science experiment. I’ve had enough of that.”

It began to drizzle, and Iggy made a sound of frustration. “I am so sick of rain!” She grabbed my arm and pulled. “Come on. We need to get going before Wesley freaks out.”

When we were back in the car and I grabbed the steering wheel, pain shot through my finger. I flexed my hand and examined my pinky. A purpled bruise was spreading between two knuckles.

“Is it broken?”

I nodded. At her dejected look, I grinned and said, “But I asked for it. Like you said, I’m a masochist. Right?” My comment didn’t appear to make her feel any better. I was tempted to ask her if those three guys on the interstate would be okay, but I didn’t want to make her feel any worse than she already did. Instead, as I drove through the parking lot, I asked, “How come you didn’t do something to these guys back at Target?”

“I have to be able to see the person I’m affecting. He grabbed me from behind, and I didn’t get to see any of them before they stuffed me in that toolbox. It was as if they knew to stay out of my line of sight.”

I pulled back onto the highway. “How exactly did you get this vaccination? Didn’t your parents have to give consent?”

“It’s a long story.”

I glanced over and noticed Iggy was shivering. I didn’t know if it was because the adrenaline was subsiding or if she was cold, but I turned the heater on anyway. “We’ve got time. And I’d really like to know.”

She leaned her head on the back of the seat. “Wesley and I met at a summer camp when we were eleven.”

“He mentioned that.”

“Every kid at that camp was the same age, and we were all state champions at some kind of sport. That’s why the camp was free…we all received scholarships. Or that’s what they told our parents, anyway.” She stared out the window as if picturing the story she was telling. “But instead of playing sports or canoing or swimming or singing ‘Kumbayah’ in front of campfire while making s’mores, we had to do tests and get injections all the time.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Psych tests. Blood tests. Fitness tests. Weird stuff, like running on a treadmill and breathing into some tube strapped around our heads while people with laptops and tablets stood around and stared at us. After a while, we were pissed off and wanted to go home. But they wouldn’t let us. All our letters home were examined before being mailed. All phone calls were monitored. We weren’t allowed to use any technology like computers or cell phones.

“Kids started getting in fights. The camp counselors – sometimes it seemed they were more like scientists – didn’t do anything when kids started pounding on each other. They just stood around taking notes. But then we all started getting sick.”

“Sick how?”

“At first, it felt like the flu. But when I got home, it got really bad. Dad and Kim took me to a few doctors, but none of them could figure out what was wrong. Then Jensen contacted us and said the vaccines had unexpected side effects and all the kids at the camp required continuous monitoring by physicians and nurses. I started losing my hair and having nose bleeds. I slept all the time and couldn’t keep any food down. Finally, the CDC moved me to a hospital because I needed medical care twenty-four-seven. IVs, feeding tubes, heart monitors. I thought I was dying.”

“Didn’t your dad contact a lawyer and sue them or something?”

“Sure. But my parents had signed a multitude of consent forms before camp. And besides, they eventually realized it was all a lie.

“Before my hospitalization, Dad and Kim didn’t even have to spend the gas money to drive me to the doctor. Jensen sent a car every week to take me to Atlanta for my doctor’s appointments. Then, when I was hospitalized, they paid for Dad and Kim to visit me four days a week. That ended up being the most my folks could get out of threatening Jensen and the CDC. The police wouldn’t help. Every lawyer they hired eventually called and said the case wasn’t able to be prosecuted. Dad even called the FBI, but that went nowhere, too.”

“How long were you sick for?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Two years. Toward the end, I prayed for death.”

“Two
years
?”

She nodded. “When I was thirteen, I started getting better. My hair grew back. I ate like a pig. I stopped looking like a zombie.”

“Then you got to go home?”

“No. The skills testing started after that.” I could see fear in Iggy’s eyes as she remembered aloud. “They asked me to kill a bird by just looking at it.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah. And then rabbits, pigs, dogs…” She turned away and looked out the window.

"Couldn't you have refused to do what they wanted?"

"I tried, but they did stuff to make me. They'd punish the others for my refusal. They'd hurt the animals anyway." She wrapped her arms around herself. “Long story short, we were allowed to go home but needed to come back once a week for health exams. They weren’t health exams though; it was only ever about more tests and experiments. The whole thing lasted until I was sixteen when Dad and Kim refused to let me go back to Atlanta. They were threatened, harassed, and called traitors to their country. It was horrible. But they’d already built up the farm like you saw. They were ready to fight back. We realized that it was us against them. Law enforcement wouldn’t get involved because I wasn’t doing anything illegal by resisting. Other government organizations wouldn’t either. You can't trust the law.”