Short Chapter, Sorry! I hope you enjoy it anyway! : P

Chapter Sixteen

I stare at her aghast. "Dr. Patrice."

She found me, or I guess I found her—and completely on accident. I did not even know she was in the City. But it doesn't matter now because she knows me, and she'll make me go back. Shock fills her expression even as Bryn pulls me up; is shoving me behind him like she's pulled a gun—but she hasn't. She's just sitting there on the sidewalk in stunned silence.

"We have to go Charlie," Bryn says.

"Charlie?" She utters staring at me, and I can't look away even when I try.

"Charlie! Now!" Bryn is pulling me.

"Wait!" Dr. Patrice throws a hand out gripping my wrist climbing to her feet. "You're you." She says voice slightly awed.

"Lady, I think you've mistaken us for someone else." Bryn says tugging me, but she doesn't let go. Her eyes wash over my appearance and Bryn's in a quick flicking appraisal and one corner of her mouth turns up. "Have you been clubbing?" She asks voice odd.

"Yes," I answer by reflex and her lips slide further up.

"Charlie! We have to go!"

"You won't make it," She tells him over my shoulder, eyes still locked on me. "They're all on high alert due to the disturbance four blocks over, an attack at a night club." And I don't like the look she's giving me. "That's why I was rushing home you see, I knew you'd come to find me."

"I didn't do it." I find myself saying. And she smiles looking suddenly sad.

"No, of course not. It never is you."

The words finally seem to get through to Bryn who steps forward getting between us once more, voice hostile. "What do you know about Charlie's other half?"

She smiles at him. The same expression she used to use in the lab before she snuck me sticks of honey. "An awful lot I'm afraid." She turns back to me. "Charlie," she says it like she's testing the name; seeing if it fits.

I find for the first time in my life I don't care what she thinks.

She turns back to Bryn. "You've seen her?" She asks.

"Yes,"

"Well then we're all in an awful lot of trouble, you best come inside." She turns waving us toward the corner unit of the building she was leaving when I plowed into her.

"Charlie no…" Bryn's voice is tight as I hesitate in the street. Trucks are moving several blocks down. Too far to have made us out just yet. But they won't be long. There is nowhere else to run with them so close.

"If she means us harm it's only the difference of being shot inside or in the back running through the streets." I eye the trucks and he blanches at the choice, obviously realizing we can no longer make it.

"Hurry," Dr. Patrice waves holding the door open.

Bryn moves closer to me, voice low. "It could be a trap." I stare up at him, take in those warm amber eyes, so bright with emotion they almost swirl as each one shifts across his expression vying for dominance.

"Then it is already sprung." I answer and he squeezes my hand.

We scramble up the stairs and she shuts the door behind us leaving the three of us standing in a front entryway of smooth white floors and crisp light green walls while the trucks blissfully rumble right past outside the warped colored glass.

"If you wish to escape the City without further conflict you will have to lay low for a while," She tells us eyes flitting between both our faces before settling on Bryn's instead of mine. "They'll expect her to hit first, attack, not hide."

Bryn stares at her jaw clenching. "Charlie's not attacking anything; we just want to get away."

"Well, yes of course the one you call Charlie does. But that's the problem" Dr. Patrice says. "You're not just dealing with Charlie are you?"

His jaw clenches further. "No. She turned into something else…" He thankfully doesn't tell her what caused it, but my cheeks flush bright red anyways.

"And that's a very big problem, Sariel is not supposed to wake up on her own."

"Who?" I ask; a sinking feeling in my gut.

"Sariel, is what all the research was for; all the tests and the exercises. We only started working with… Charlie… more closely when they realized a few years ago that Sariel was a complete failure."

"In what way?" Bryn's voice is tight.

"She's completely uncontrollable, mute, violent to the point of homicidal…When I heard that she had escaped I assumed that it was Sariel that had taken over on her own; despite the safeguards and that she was the one that broke out of the lab, killed the soldiers—"

"I didn't kill anybody!" I gasp eyes wide. Did I?

"No one blames you," she tells me, and that hardly makes me feel any better. I turn to Bryn wide eyed even though I have no idea how he can help.

"Charlie like her mother was special, from birth they cultivated her other half, nursed it and it grew like we'd never seen before…became aware; the projects original purpose as I understand it was multifaceted; could Sariel be used as a weapon should we be attacked by another invading force using the dead—or potentially overwhelmed by the dead themselves. And there was work on a better cure for a while…among other things. But it soon became clear that while Sariel was aware to some degree and far more intelligent than the average infected corpse it wasn't enough to be reasonable, there was nothing to tether her to commands. She was not controllable. Repetitive testing, conditioning, positive reinforcement, and…negative; nothing worked. There was talk of ending the project many times…"

"You mean killing Charlie." Bryn snarls, expression livid.

"Charlie is simply the vessel! That's why they never bothered to name her! Destroying her would guarantee that something far worse didn't wipe us out."

"I'm sure that's a comforting thought for you to hold onto while you murder an innocent girl for what you did to her from birth!" Bryn almost growls.

"I begged them not to terminate the project, and they listened—we tried cultivating the same instincts in Charlie, the strength, the fighting instincts, the connection Sariel could make with the Others… But it was not the same, and in doing so we weakened whatever gap we formed between the two originally when she was a child. It was completely unintentional at the time, and after Sar…Charlie's escape I realized it had allowed Sariel to be more aware…if you could call it that. And now if you've seen her take over when Charlie is in full control by force then you're in terrible danger, we all are… Sariel is a monster I helped to create…any lives she takes; the blood is on my hands as well."

"…and what about mine?" my voice feels very small.

"I'm afraid you're just another victim," Dr. Patrice looks at me indifferently. "Perhaps, her very first," and her eyes have gone so cold I wonder if I'm not already dead. I don't even realize I've been backing away until I hit the wall.

"So what you're saying is she should just leave with you; go back to a life of imprisonment and torture before someone out there gets tired of their failed science experiment and then what? You shoot her in the head?" Even from here I can see the way his whole frame shakes in outrage. His voice wavers harsh and sharp with emotion.

"It is the humane thing to do, if not for herself then for others. Charlie is the only humanity of the two. She'll make the right choice." She's looking at Bryn, while I flounder, struggle to make sense of her words. "Before she gets you killed." And then suddenly it does. She's talking about the other me killing Bryn… I had not even thought of that possibility. My blood runs cold.

"Charlie wouldn't hurt me," He sounds so certain. I'm no longer sure…about anything, I realize.

"You don't get it, it wouldn't be Charlie!" She says. "If she's switching back and forth and you have no idea what's triggering it then at any moment she could slide into her aggressive nature, possibly to never come back out, but even if she did; how do you think that would make Charlie feel?! Waking up to find her hands buried in your throat?"

"Probably better than it would feel for me," Bryn answers glibly. I wonder for a fleeting second if he drank more alcohol in the club then I realized…

"This is not a joke!" She says. And for the first time in a long while I find myself agreeing with her. I didn't realize what I was. No one told me. I put them all in danger, Bryn and Ethan and Libby…

They're both staring at me and I realize I must have said that out loud. Bryn is shaking his head. "No, no. I don't believe that. I saw this Sariel before, she was aggressive yes, and rough but she saved Libby's life!"

"Whatever you think you saw is merely a coincidence. It was pure dumb luck if your friend was spared while she was awake, that you yourself were spared even." Doctor Patrice is staring at Bryn.

"We were attacked in the forest, and Charlie…wasn't Charlie…She said Libby's name and tore the Geeks attacking her to pieces."

"Are you sure?"

"It was pretty damn memorable." Bryn says drily.

"No, I mean about the voice." Dr. Patrice says. "She spoke?"

"Yes,"

"Then it could not have been Sariel, it had to be Charlie…"

"Charlie doesn't usually go around ripping people's throats out with her hands and teeth." Bryn says a little more bluntly then I'm ready for. My gut churns. I feel like gagging suddenly.

"No, she does not." Dr. Patrice amends glancing at me. "I thought once…but it is not possible." She shakes her head turning away suddenly like I've seen her do in the lab when she wants to think about test results in private.

"Lady I don't care if you thought it a hundred times, if you know something that can help Charlie…"

"Once there was an incident in the lab…Sariel turned on one of the soldiers…a very specific soldier in a room full of them when he was not the closest target she could have destroyed." She hesitates glancing at me.

"What does that have to do with-?"

"Because this particular soldier had done something nasty to Charlie just a few days before…no nothing like that," she adds seeing something on Bryn's face I don't. "But still, not nice. He called her filthy names; gave her a black eye…among other things." Bryn looks livid once more, shaking in outrage whether over her clinical tone or the thought of some nameless soldier doing harm to me, I don't know.

"Why don't I remember this?" I find myself asking hoping Bryn will not kill Dr. Patrice before we get more answers.

"Well, you were very young," Dr. Patrice tells me, her face going oddly soft for a moment.

I had meant any of it. Because how does someone live with a fucking monster inside them and never know it? One that apparently regularly got up and took my body for walks…

"And you thought Sariel was protecting Charlie," Bryn suddenly says making some connection I've missed.

"I think avenging her would be a better word for it, God knows they tore her up pretty badly after the initial attack—Sariel got into fights with them all the time, it was part of the training Griss had her doing…but a lot of the time it wasn't planned. She would just—go off."

"Gee, I can't imagine why." Bryn drawls.

"Do not judge me!" Dr. Patrice says suddenly. "I did what I could! Everyone has a job to do and I am no exception. If I had refused—even if I could have, they would have just found someone else to do the work. Someone who would not have cared so much."

"You're a real piece of work lady." Bryn tells her voice shaking.

And then the door exploded.