In a flash of white, the world loses its color again. The quiet hum of the house Sven and I share disappears, replaced by that same distorted, echoing voice calling my name.

"Ronnie?"

I freeze. I squint, willing something, anything, to materialize out of the bright light. The only thing I can make out is my own body, standing on something solid but indistinguishable, so that I wonder if I'm even standing at all.

I spin on the spot and shout at the sky, "Why are you still doing this to me?"

The hoarse cry tears my throat on the way out, and I hate the way it ekes desperation. I hate that, even now that Sven has found me, he still feels the need to engage in psychological torture. I hate that it works.

"Ronnie—"

"Go away!" I scream, slapping my once again unblemished hands against my ears.

But the barrier does nothing; when the man's voice speaks next, his words are loud and clear, as if they echo from within my own mind.

"Ronnie, are you okay?"

I freeze, my mouth falling open as I search for words, but only one comes to me. I recognize his voice.

"Carlos?"

* * *

I jolt awake, disoriented. The comforting weight of Davis's arm drapes over my body, but the ground underneath me is too soft.

"Carlos is just fine, Ronnie."

Sven's voice is like a punch in the face, slamming me back to reality with a mean right hook. The arm that encloses me doesn't belong to Davis, and I'm not safe underground anymore. I flail like a fish out of water, kicking against the resistance of the sheets as they tighten their grip around my ankles.

"Ronnie, it's okay!"

His assurance whips my heart into a gallop, and I finally break free. My bare feet hit the floor, sending a cold shock straight to my soul. For a second, I wish it could rouse me out of this waking nightmare.

Sven raises his hands, his eyebrows tilted upward in what I would have once thought an expression of sincere concern. Now, it seems like sacrilege to what we used to be. What I thought we used to be. What we never were.

It's okay. His lips coat irony onto those words until they mean nothing of the sort. Here, with him, is the opposite of safety.

"Get—"

Away is supposed to be the next word out of my mouth, but I fall silent as I remember his ultimatum: Everything goes back to the way it was, or Davis suffers.

I close my eyes and picture Davis, but it's not the ripple of the muscles he once had, nor the perfectly crooked set of his teeth, nor his charisma that come to mind. It's the tenderness of his touch as he dresses my wounds, as if they're real and he can hurt me. It's the wicked flash in his eyes every time I insist that I'm fine. It's the fight in him every time I remind him that I'm not human, and that he shouldn't care. It's the way he goes on caring anyway.

"There. Just breathe."

Not even my deepest wish can morph Sven's voice into Davis's. But I open my eyes and force a smile, hoping he can't see through it to my pounding heart and the tremble that weakens my knees.

The ease of Sven's return grin jars Davis right out of my mind, and I fight the urge to flee. Nothing lies beyond the bedroom except more memories—painful ones, of our past, of when I thought I loved him. When I thought I could ever know love, at all.

It was all a lie, and now I'm living it again.

I turn away and start pulling open drawers, searching for day clothes. I've only been away for a few months, but everything seems out of place.

Sven doesn't stop me as I retreat into the bathroom with a pair of jeans and sweatshirt in hand; the second the door closes, I close the toilet lid and sink down onto it, my head in my hands. I listen to the muffled rustles and thumps as Sven moves about the room outside, and I wait until all I hear is silence before I begin to change.

The clothes, untattered and clean, cling to my body like desperate hands. I want nothing more than to rip them off, turn on the shower, and huddle on the floor under its spray forever. Maybe, eventually, the water will soak through my skin and fry my circuits.

But I paste another smile on my face and open the door, for Davis.

I follow the clink of silverware to the kitchen, where Sven is setting our usual places at the island. As he turns to the stove, I stare at the plates, lingering in the doorway as I remember the morning he made me chocolate chip pancakes.

Part of me wonders how much of it I imagined. I do have documented mental illness. Everything feels fuzzy, like fragments that I dreamed under psychedelic influence, and I can't separate the real from the fake. Darwin's memories, my memories—they all feel exactly the same to me.

What if Sven is right? What if there is no Darwin, only my own hallucinations? What if, after Davis got fired, I went off the deep end? What if my feelings for him and my own cybernetic identity are just figments of psychosis?

I stare at my hands, wondering if I'm still hallucinating. I still see metal, wires, capacitors, hinges where my knuckles should be.

"You okay, Ronnie?"

I look up, the question echoing Carlos's. Ronnie, are you okay?

No. I'm not.

"You barely slept last night," Sven continues. "Your dream, about Carlos—was that a nightmare?"

I freeze, only my eyes darting left and right. Is that a trick question? He helped create me. Does he know I shouldn't dream?

"It's just, I know you've always had nightmares...."

Yes. About Darwin. He knows they weren't really dreams, but someone else getting inside my head.

Who keeps infiltrating my mind? Maybe it is him. Maybe he's lying again. Maybe this is some kind of test. He's waiting to see if I admit it. He just doesn't want me to know it was him, so he used Carlos's voice.

I run my hands through my hair, pulling at it. The air thickens around me, molding in close to my body and solidifying in my lungs. I'm trapped, just like before, and once again, I don't know what's real.

Sven drops his spatula with a clatter, sending my heart racing. He crosses the kitchen, nothing but worried for me. One hand lands on my shoulder, pulling me closer, and the other winds its way around my own damaged one as if it's completely whole.

"Shh, Ronnie. It's okay. You're safe now."

I feel the tears leaking from my eyes, the way they soak the fabric of his shirt and make it stick to my cheek. I hate it. I hate his overly gentle touches, as if I've been through a tragic ordeal and if he touches me wrong, I might shatter. I hate that it makes me question whether he even grabbed me last night in the car.

But most of all, I hate the unspoken blame he places on Davis and the others. It nestles under my skin like coarse sand, and I itch to throw his hand off.

The only thing that stops me is the threat hanging over Davis's head.

It's not even been twelve hours, and already Sven is twisting me around myself. I try to shrink away from him, but his grip surrounds me. There's nowhere to go that he isn't already.

"Please don't be scared," he whispers, his breath hot and heavy against my hair. "I'm not going to ask anything of you that you're not ready for. Just talk to me, please."

He finally lets me pull away, only to hold me at arm's length. I avert my eyes, but I feel the intensity of his stare until the doorbell rings.

He sighs, and my whole body droops as he leaves to answer the door. My eyes roam the kitchen, noting tiny details that have changed in my absence. The plates are new, plain and white where the old ones had been blue with intricate designs around the edges. The drapes in the window over the sink are thick, heavy fabric that blocks out all the sunlight, but the ones I remember were a semi-sheer, cheerful material.

I step around the island, letting my fingers trail along its surface as I remember the morning Sven made me pancakes. I'd seen his eyes change color, right before he buried his face against my neck and whispered that one word.

Mine.

I'd whispered something, too, something I know he must have heard just before he crushed me against him. It echoes in my ears now like the whispers of a spirit, haunting this house.

No, I'd said.

No, and he didn't listen.

No, and he'd kissed me harder. Pulled me closer. I'd thought then that it was his love, his way of anchoring me to him in my panic. But now, looking back through the veil of my own awakening, it doesn't seem right.

"No," I breathe. My fingers fall away from the island as I veer toward the hallway, walking slowly and silently as I start to feel the cool draft from the entryway.

"Well, I appreciate you coming." I recognize Sven's voice, but I have to strain to hear the words. I peek around the corner as a few dry coughs punctuate the silence. A tall, willowy woman stands in the doorway, coughing into the elbow of her white lab coat as she shakes Sven's hand.

"Apologies," she says, clearing her throat. "The travel hasn't been kind to me. Shall we?"

He steps aside, allowing her inside, and I scurry back to the kitchen as they enter the hall. Their murmurs float to me through the crack I leave in the door, and I hold my breath, trying to catch every word.

"I trust this will be handled with discretion?"

"How long have we worked together, Sven?"

Their footsteps stop abruptly, their shadows falling over the light at the bottom of the door. I grip the island, waiting as the silence presses on my ears; I will it away, afraid that it will mute Sven's response.

I needn't have worried, because his voice comes clear as day from the other side of the door. "Long enough that I don't trust you."

The door swings inward, and I step as far back as the island will allow. The lip of its cool top presses into the small of my back as flutters make their way from my heart to my throat. How long have they worked together, and where? I don't recognize her, and yet there's something vaguely familiar about her as she offers me a smile.

Sven trails behind her, reaching for me. For a brief moment, the island jabs harder at me, until I force myself to relax.

"Ronnie, this is Dr. Kayode," Sven introduces us. "She's going to take care of you today, just to make sure everything's okay."

I don't trust you. The words spring to my tongue, but I bite them back.

The doctor holds out her hand, her eyes crinkling as she smiles. "Call me Ayo."

I take the hand she offers; it's unbearably warm, and I let go almost immediately. If she notices, she doesn't bring it up.

"I think we'll be just fine here," she says cheerfully, turning to Sven. "I know you're a busy man these days, so I won't make you stay."

He doesn't move. I feel like a decoration in the room as they stare each other down, but their singleminded competition fascinates me, too. I've never seen anyone challenge Sven for more than two seconds before realizing that it's a terrible idea. The doctor, however, lasts almost a full minute, and even when she sighs her concession, it feels more like they've had a silent conversation than that she's given up.

"I need you to relax, Ronnie," she says, finally turning back to me. She has a slight, calming accent and the kind of eyes that feel like a safehouse, like if I could just find a way to jump into them, Sven wouldn't be able to touch me. But underneath them, her mouth tightens, and as her hands sink into the pockets of her lab coat, I realize why the déjà vu has such a strong hold on me.

It's the dream I've always had, the one that started everything. The one of Darwin, standing alone over a sea of bodies. Some of them wore security uniforms, some of them street clothes—but the rest were all draped in the same crisp, white coats as the woman in front of me now.

I jerk back, but the island blocks my retreat. She withdraws her hand with surprising speed, and it closes around my wrist, sending a shock of electricity up my arm. My back arches, my chest heaving as it reaches for something unknowable—an escape, an explanation, anything.

I start to fall, and when I land in Sven's arms, my muscles seize. I try to struggle, to throw myself from his hold, even to blink, but nothing obeys my commands. All I can do is stare up at him, feeling the useless course of whatever substitute for blood runs through my veins, as he gently cups my face in one hand and smiles.

"It's okay, Ronnie."