Footsteps approached outside, and a lock on the door slid open. I scrambled back on the bed, drawing my legs up, as if they were a shield between me and them, but when the person walked in, the tension in my body immediately faded.

“Mom,” I said.

Her hair was tied back in a tight bun. She wore a white lab coat, silent lab sneakers. A stethoscope wound around her neck.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said.

Somehow, her being here didn’t surprise me, either. Even so, despite what that implied, I was relieved to see a familiar face.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Shh.” This is our little secret.

She came to the bedside and sat next to me, running a cold hand across my forehead, pushing the hair from my face. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

I shrank away from her, away from her touch. “Am I?”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “Of course.”

“This is the lab, Mom. The lab where I was held captive, where your life was threatened.”

She shook her head, and a lock of hair fell from her bun. “We are not in danger here. I promise.”

“Even if that is true, this place… everything here…” A growing lump in my throat threatened to choke me. I swallowed hard against it. Just being in this room was setting me on edge. Surely she must understand that, considering she had been as much a prisoner here six years ago as I had.

I turned to her. While I could hardly breathe, as if the walls were pressing in around me, her shoulders were loose, her mouth relaxed. Being here didn’t faze her at all. She was almost comfortable.

As if this place had never been her prison.

She reached out for my hand, but stopped when I flinched.

“You aren’t in danger here, are you?” I said.

“And neither are you.”

I looked away from her and stared at the tile floor, trying to make sense of the nagging feeling in my chest that I was missing something. Something important.

“This is a medical lab. Everything I was subjected to here was medically based and”—I flicked my gaze back to her—“you’re a doctor. And a good one at that.”

Realization dawned, and I felt like the biggest fool ever. “You’re part of their medical team. You”—I jumped from the bed—“you’ve always been a part of their medical team, haven’t you? You were never in danger here. Not now, not six years ago.”

“Elizabeth—” she started, but I surged on.

“Why was I taken? Why was I part of this whole thing? I don’t”—I swiped at my cheeks as tears escaped out the corners of my eyes—“I don’t understand why you kept me here. Why would you do that to me?”

“Honey—”

“Tell me!”

She stood up and straightened, pulling that familiar steel back into her shoulders. “I needed you. You were the most important part of this whole program.”

When she paused, I wanted to urge her on, but I couldn’t seem to find the words, so I waited several long seconds as she put her thoughts in order.

“When your father and I were trying to have kids, I miscarried several times, and then when I finally carried a baby to full term, it died within minutes of birth.”

My mouth clamped shut with surprise, my teeth clacking together. She’d never told me this. I’d always thought she and Dad had wanted only one child, because they were both so busy with work.

“I knew how to fix it. I knew.” Her eyes turned bloodshot with unshed tears. “All I had to do was modify the genetic makeup at the embryonic stage. The goal was to strengthen the embryo to the point that it was indestructible.”

She reached over, taking my hand in hers. “The first successful baby was you.”

“Me?” I whispered.

“I made you stronger, Elizabeth.”

“But—what does that even mean?”

“Think about it. Have you ever been sick?”

I tried to recall being sick. Aggie suffered from frequent sinus infections, and last winter she caught the flu and lay in bed for six days. I’d thought for sure I’d catch it, since I’d taken care of her.

But I hadn’t. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t recall ever lying in bed with an illness, other than a mental illness.

Mom went on. “Remember that car accident we were in when you were nine?” I nodded weakly. “You had a broken arm and a deep gash on your forehead, and I suspected you had a cracked rib as well, but by the time the ambulance arrived—”

“I was fine,” I said, my voice so low I wondered if she’d heard me.

“The EMTs said it was a miracle you weren’t injured, considering the wreck, and considering the injuries I’d sustained. They said you were left untouched, but that wasn’t true. You just healed before they reached us.”

I tried to make sense of the questions crowding my head, and the memories of my childhood, wondering if perhaps they held more clues to my mother’s unbelievable story. Skinned knees that disappeared by the time I ran to my mother’s arms. Mosquito bites that were swollen, itchy, and then gone in seconds.

I had thought, when I left this lab six years ago, that my captors had changed me irrevocably, that they’d poked and prodded me to make me invincible. But I was wrong.

I had been invincible when I arrived.

“So why did they bring me here in the first place?” I asked.