"You're slouching." The soft voice made the observation hover just above a question.

"Sorry, Eun." Amy pulled herself up in the chair and gripped each of its arms. Her fingers dug into the plush fabric and stayed there as tense and rigid as her spine.

"You don't need to apologize, Amy. I'm just wondering if anything is wrong. You usually have such perfect posture." On the other side of the protective glass, Dr. Tan was in her usual stance, leaning over her notes and glancing over the top of her glasses. Today, her short, black hair was loose and the tips hung down like pincers on either side of her chin. Behind her, the backdrop of an office with bookcases and a Monet painting was cloaked in gloom to help preserve the illusion.

"Nothing's wrong. Just tired. I guess, I over did it this morning." Amy jerked her head to the treadmills next to her, wondering if Eun would spot the lie.

The little woman leaned in another few inches toward the glass. "Tired? Are you feeling sick?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Any headaches or nausea?"

"No." Amy began to shift in her seat, but was too self-conscious to draw her knees up to her chest like she wanted. She could hear Eun's voice in her head. Why are you feeling defensive, Amy? Do we need to change your dosage again, Amy? Should we schedule more counselling sessions, Amy?

She finally settled on crossing her legs. "Sometimes a slouch is just a slouch. It doesn't mean anything."

Eun made a note on her pad that was hidden just below the sill.

"I don't mean to pester you, dear. But with the event in less than a week, we have to be extra careful about your wellbeing, Amy."

"I know, but I'm in control. I would tell you if I felt I wasn't. Are they still going to give me an MRI next week?"

"Yes, but R.J. will be by later to speak to you about it. I'm sure he'll be able to answer your questions."

Amy shrugged. What questions? They wanted to scan her brain. What more did she need to know. She had to be on her best behavior because someone would be entering the cage with her after she became the beast. But they were going to be extra cautious. They'd check her physical and mental states and then check them again. Then again and again.

Hadn't she proved she was the one in control? Hadn't she fought the animal's urges? The joy of the hunt? The insatiable hunger? The thrill of spilling blood? It wasn't easy. Not when the beast was both inside in her mind and outside on her skin, but she had beaten it. She had seized the power and was in charge of it.

But despite all she had done, no one seemed to trust her when she grew her fur and sharp teeth. It annoyed her that they still didn't fully trust her but she couldn't really blame them either. The past was not so easily forgotten.

Earlier while she was washing up after the run, she had let the steam cover the shower door. There weren't supposed to be cameras in her bathroom, but she didn't entirely trust them either. With the clouds of water vapor enveloping her, she performed her secret ritual.

Mommy, she thought as she drew a line down on the tile. Daddy and Donny. Two more streaks took their place next to the first, cutting through the foggy vapor leaving shiny, white lines. Then she made three identical ones on the next tile in rapid succession. Three lines without names for three men she had never known and whose names she would never learn. With her finger suspended over the next square she said, Jamie. The name was just a twitch on her lip. Amy made two more lines-one for her friend and then one for her enemy. Larry.

Each time she ran her finger down the porcelain, it felt like a razor slicing across her skin. These were the eight people she'd killed. Four years hadn't diminished the impact of what she had done. No amount of showers would ever wash all that blood away. But the flowing water could hide the tears.

"What about dreams?" Eun said, pulling the loose strands of her jet black hair back behind her ear. "Any dreams or nightmares?"

"You know I never dream." Amy couldn't remember the last time she dreamt. Sometimes it felt like she had never had one in her whole life. She couldn't remember what a dream felt like any more. The sensation of those surreal visions were gone, even if some of the images remained, haunting her.

The ones she had as a child still lurked among her memories of that time like those of her favorite bedtime story or the stuffed rabbit she carried around everywhere. But she tried not to remember these things. Amy fought to block out that time. All those memories, real or dream, came unasked for like Trojan horses left outside the gate. It had taken her a long time to learn not to let these wonderful looking things in, because each had hostile invaders hidden inside.

Mr. Carrots always started off as this bright, warm memory linked to summer afternoons in the backyard, playing in the sunshine. The white and pink bunny would be sitting at the miniature plastic picnic table looking like she had stumbled upon it in a moment of quiet contemplation. The image brought such comfort and love with it, flooding her with other nostalgic visions: cuddling under the blankets during a thunderstorm; talking to it while strapped into her car seat ; and hundreds of other flickering fragments. Then a shadow would enter the scene-a darkness between the bunny and the sun. It would be her mother standing there. Her hair was a dazzling gold fire in the sunlight and she looked down at Amy and smiled. She looked like she was about to speak. Perhaps she was going to call Amy in to have lunch or a nap.

Her features faded as the light behind her grew stronger, until all of the details of her mother were lost and there was only blackness. Like a hole against the sky.

Like the hole Amy had ripped into the universe when she tore her mother out of it.

"What about Ylva? Any sign of her?" Eun asked, sounding like she was running down a checklist.

Amy let out a weary chuckle. "Why do you still bring her up? She was an imaginary friend I had when I was a child. A coping mechanism. You were the one that told me that." It had been one of Dr. Tan's first conclusions when she took over from Dr. Horus.

Dr. Horus had disappeared after the attack. There had been so much confusion that it had taken Amy a long time to notice. She had been stuck in the wolf-room again, because for the second time, she had destroyed the bedroom and covered its walls with blood. But unlike the first time, people didn't seem upset with her. They said that Larry was a bad guy and got what he deserved.

It had taken weeks for Amy to learn this, though. It was only when R.J. came back that anyone spoke to her. Day after day, she spent in the gray, steel pen pacing out the floor, wondering what they were going to do with her. Wondering if she had finally gone too far.

But R.J. came back and things got better. He stayed and talked to her. She was returned to her bedroom, which was cleaned up and repaired like nothing had happened. Others began to come and visit her. With all the new company, Amy didn't miss Dr. Horus. She had never really liked him anyway. Although like so many things from back then, Amy couldn't really remember why she had felt that way.

When Amy asked R.J. why she didn't have therapy anymore, he told her that Horus had used the attack on the facility as a diversion and ran away. That was fine by Amy.

Unfortunately, they eventually replaced him.

Amy didn't exactly dislike Mrs. Eun, but the psychiatrist wasn't her friend like most of the others in the facility. She felt more like one of the teachers Amy used to have when she was in school. She was pleasant but stern-too impersonal to be a parent and too authoritative to ever be a friend. She was all business and Amy was the business.

"Just covering all the bases, Amy. You have always associated Ylva strongly with the changes. And coping mechanism is too simplistic a term. When you were younger, she was your ersatz parental figure, who you used to abdicate responsibility for your action and to project your guilt on. If she should make a reappearance, it would be a sign that you were returning to an infantile state of dependency and it would be indicative of a forfeiture of the control we have worked so well to establish."

"Whoa, Mrs. Eun! Ease down with those big words. Try and remember you're talking to someone with a grade seven education."

"Don't try to deflect. You are more than capable of understanding me. You have a higher reading level than half the people working in these labs. What is really bothering you?"

Amy bit on her thumb nail. She worried it between her teeth for a moment without damaging it. "It's Katie."

"Did you two have a fight?"

"No, nothing like that. She had a date last night and she really likes this guy but she's not going to see him again because of this stupid little thing. It's like she doesn't want it to work out. It's like she's looking for any excuse to call it a failure before even trying."

Eun paused for a moment perhaps analysing the problem or perhaps examining the minute details of Amy's expression. After a few drawn out seconds, she pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Are you bothered because you see her actions as sabotaging her own happiness or because you are disappointed that you are unable to pursue a romantic relationship like she can?"

Amy stared back at her wanting to answer that she was concerned for her friend's happiness. But that felt too much like lying. She could lie to Eun but not herself. The word both lingered seductively on her tongue, but the selfish truth drummed loudly in her head.

***

Amy was pretending to ignore her when she walked in. The girl sat on her bed sketching. A colored pencil scratched away on the page. Her face was scrunched up in concentration and strands of her hair hung down pooling on the blanket beside her sketch book.

The room was crowded. It had never been intended to hold so much furniture. The two treadmills squeezed out the little floor space that had once been there. Dark drapes add to the closed in feeling of the room. The navy blue curtains covered the metal security door to the wolf-room and the window of the therapist's office.

The only reason the stupid window was hidden behind the heavy brocade fabric and not blocked off was because Dr. Tan was too big of a coward to come in here like a normal person. If anyone in charge had any brains, they would seal the window and stopped wasting money on psychiatrists.

Psychiatrists. Barbara shook her head. Why not just have an astrologer or a tarot card reader come in here to bother Amy?

She calmly wove her way through the clutter to the stereo and shut off the migraine inducing music. "It's too loud. You're going to damage your hearing listening to that crap."

"My hearing is fine. I heard the tumblers of the outer lock turning before you came in."

"Very impressive. Stop that nonsense now and come over here and sit down." She pointed Amy's way to the oversized, beige armchair by the curtained window.

Amy threw down the pad and bounced out of the bed. "Dr. Gracie, you're a vampire. You know that? A damn vampire. I can't believe you need more of my blood." Despite the words of exasperation, there was a sliver of a smile on her face. It had taken awhile for Barbara to understand, but for some reason Amy relished the antagonism they had for one another.

"No blood today." She sat down in the hard wooden chair by the vanity and waited.

"Then why are you here? I had a physical two days ago." Amy threw herself into her chair. She was no longer the little girl that would curl herself up in the seat like burrowing animal. Instead, the teenager stretched her long legs out and slumped in the corner.

"Can't a doctor visit her favorite patient?"

"I'm your only patient."

"And that's what makes you my favorite." Barbara turned up the corners of her lips in a mock smile. "Now sit up straight. You're posture is horrible."

Amy half obeyed her. She pivoted so her back was fully on the cushion and her spine vertical if not straight. "Seriously, why are you here, Barbara?"

"R.J. sent me to go over the MRI procedure with you."

The disappointment was so clear on her features, Barbara wondered if the girl wasn't trying to trick her with such an overt display.

"I thought he was going to do that," Amy said.

"Don't worry, he'll be by later. You'll get your daddy time."

"Eww." Amy seemed to borrow the mannerisms of one of the girls from the nattering TV shows she watched. "You don't have to make it sound like that."

Barbara hadn't been aware of any intention her voice. "I meant that as the authoritative male in your life, you probably have feelings toward him as one would have to a father. Which is why you are upset by his not being here."

"You sound just like Eun."

"Please. Don't compare me to that mouth-breathing psychiatrist. I'm a real doctor."

Amy twisted her mouth out like she was trying to suppress a smile. "So if R.J. is my dad, then does that make you my mom?"

"I have no illusions about my maternal abilities." Barbara straightened the hem of her skirt. "I have no desire to be a mother, not even a surrogate one."

"Oh, I can see it. You're always telling me what to do: sit up straight, clean your room." Her smile had broadened and her voice was squeaking with giddiness. "So tell me about this MRI, mom."

Barbara stiffened as Amy broke out laughing. She spoke over the girl's snickering sounds. "Are you pleased with yourself?"

"Oh shit, you should see your face."

"Watch the language. You've been hanging around Emily too much, picking up her bad habits."

Amy tired herself out until her laughs were gone and there was only a strained expression on her face and tear in her eye. She wiped it away and asked, "What's so special about this test, anyway?"

There was a time when Barbara wouldn't have wasted her time explaining such elementary things. She was loathe to admit it, but prison had added a harshness to her personality. It had taken some effort but she was learning to be kinder and more patient again. Barbara was trying to be more like she was at Hoffman Memorial: the professional surgeon that didn't get annoyed when people constantly needed to be coddled and comforted. Or have the simplest things explained to them.

"An MRI will scan your body with radio waves and produces detail imagery of your organs, your skeleton, and your brain," she said trying to give the most economic description of the procedure.

"Duh. I know what an MRI is. What I want to know is why suddenly it's important?"

"If you know so much, then it should be obvious."

Amy gave her an eye roll.

It was strange how much easier it was to read this girl than the other people Barbara dealt with each day. There was almost something a person might call a rapport between them. Maybe on some subconscious level, monster recognized monster.

Barbara said, "If they could have given you an MRI when you first arrived, they would have. The standard machinery is too large to get in here." She pointed to the portal she had come in by. It was set up like an airlock with only four feet between the set of doors. "The Agency has acquired a portable device-the first of its kind. It'll be a tight fit, but they'll be able to get it in."

"But if they wanted to run this test so badly, why didn't they just take me out of the cage?"

"Safety." Barbara spoke blankly, her mind tracing along the real reason. The truth was always the simplest thing but most people didn't like to learn it. It was better to know you had cancer than be ignorant of it, but patients still got upset when you told them.

Coddle and comfort. Console and pander. That's all people wanted.

Was Amy really one of those? Wasn't she stronger? Shouldn't Barbara give her the benefit of the truth?

"Also, there is some sort of failsafe."

"What do you mean?"

"To prevent you from ever escaping. I don't know the details, but if you're detected in the portal, it's designed to exterminate you. There is no override. That's why they have never taken you out."

"Oh."

Amy looked down. The glee in her face wiped away without a trace. The look of despondency didn't make sense. The girl was smart enough to know that they were never letting her out. What did it matter the mechanisms they employed to keep her there? Had Barbara been wrong about her? Was she unable to cope with this?

Before Barbara could find any consoling words, Amy started to speak again. "You're going to be there? When they do the test? You'll be there with me?"

"I'm going away on a small trip, but I'll be back before the full moon." She should only be away one night, if all went well.

"Ooh. How exciting." Amy seemed to have moved on from the dangers of the failsafe. She was strong after all. "It's been awhile since you took a vacation. Where are you going?"

"Las Vegas."

"Why? What are you going to do?" The eagerness practically dripped off of her like sweat.

Barbara knew Amy would see the withholding of details as cruelty, but it was hardly appropriate to tell the girl what she was up to. Never mind what ears might be listening and what microphones might be recording the conversation. "Cards. You know what kind of a gambler I am."

Amy pretended to pout. "Fine. Don't tell me."

"So, should we start with the details of the procedure? Or do you have more questions to waste my time with?"

"I have one more." Amy seemed unusually serious. Her lips were pressed together tightly, draining their color in the hesitation before her question. "Aren't you afraid to get in the cage with me when I turn?"

Distilled down to its bare essence, Amy was asking if she was too scary for Barbara to be close to. Anyone else wouldn't understand Amy's fear so deeply, but this was monster speaking to monster. Barbara had felt much the same way when she had been with the one man she'd ever loved. Carlos was gone, but she remembered that raw insecurity-the dread that he would see her for what she really was and be afraid.

Barbara's face softened. Her lips formed a natural smile. "Don't worry. I'll bring my whip and my chair."

***

R.J. navigated around the heavy, steel door while balancing the overburdened tray.

"What did you bring me?" Amy asked before he got both feet into the room.

"The finest food that Bistro Music Box has to offer."

Amy's groan seemed to deflate her. Her enthusiasm drained and she dropped into her chair. "Couldn't you have gotten take out?"

"What and get Liz mad at me again?" R.J. placed the tray down on the vanity, where a space had been cleared off on the cluttered top. The tower of plates reflected back at him in the makeup mirror. With the Observation Center empty for the evening, the one-way glass was only a mirror.

"Liz never makes anything good."

"She's your dietitian. I think she knows a little bit about what's good for you."

"What's good for me, but not what I like. What is it anyway?" Amy asked, her hunger getting the better of her.

"Teriyaki salmon with sweet potatoes and salad." R.J. took the plastic plate cover off the top dish and passed it over to Amy with a flourish. She recoiled at the sight of the chunk of overcooked fish in sticky brown sauce and the greens piled high with bean sprouts. He didn't blame her. It reminded him of the food they served in the hospital.

"Don't look so grim, I've got the same thing." He handed her a bottle of sparkling water before taking a seat on the vanity's chair.

"Oh, and I almost forgot: dessert." R.J. reached into his shirt pocket with two fingers and pulled out a candy bar. He flung the contraband Snickers over to Amy's eager hands.

"Score!"

"Now don't tell on me."

She ripped the wrapper open and bit an obscenely large chuck off of the bar. Chewing the giant wad, she mumbled, "About what? I don't see no chocolate."

R.J. started in on his sad low-calorie, low-carb, low-flavor meal. Nikki would have been horrified by it. She would have taken one look at the meal and said, there is no love on that plate.

It went against everything she believed in as a chef. To her food was all about love and comfort. It should feel like a hug when you eat it, she had told him on more than one occasion.

Nikki was the only person he had in his life outside of The Music Box. She was the only one he could talk to when he wasn't down in the bunker. And she had been the only one that cared enough to visit when he was convalescing after the shooting. There was a part of R.J. that felt like they should still be dating-that Nikki deserved to be a bigger part of his life than just a friend. But if keeping her at arm's length wasn't fair to her, a closer relationship with all of its lies would be worse.

He was too scared to let her in and even more afraid of losing her entirely. So it became a sick game of keeping her close but not too close. Like the other night, when she called him up to invite him to a special event at her restaurant.

"I'd really like you to be there. You are my partner after all," she had said.

"I told you that money was a gift, not an investment."

"Reginald Jeremiah Blass, if you think I'd just take all that money then you don't know me. You own thirty percent of Eight on Seventh."

"Only thirty percent? As I recall, I contributed the lion's share."

"Ah, but you're forgetting my talent and business acumen. Those things are worth far more than cash. So what do you say? Will you come Saturday? It'll be like a date."

It had been that one word that had stopped him and made him stammer out an excuse. R.J. couldn't start going down that road again. No matter how much he may have want to.

"Are you thinking of your girlfriend?" Amy spoke in a schoolgirl voice like she was teasing the boy who sat next to her in class.

"What? Can you read minds now?"

"When they're as easy to read as yours is. You always get this little crease between your eyes when you think of her. It's hard to see with those dorky glasses on, but it's there." She pointed at the bridge of his nose with her fork.

"She's not my girlfriend. And these aren't dorky."

The fork waved in the air silently saying: whatever.

Amy took a stab at the salad and shoveled a mound of greens into her mouth. When she swallowed, she said, "You know, I think having a girlfriend would be good for you."

"I doubt that." R.J. put his empty plate back on the tray. "So how was your day?"

"No fair changing the subject." Amy's scolding expression hung there for a second but disappeared in a flash. There was something disturbing how her mind seemed to jump so quickly from one thing to another. How she'd lose interest in what she was doing or what she was saying suddenly and immediately switch to something else.

R.J. had asked Dr. Tan to test her for attention deficit disorder once. But she had just laughed at his concerns and said, You obviously don't remember what it was like to be a teenager.

"It was great." Amy said, now with a bright smile on her face. "Had a run with Katie. Started rereading The Order of Phoenix. Chatted with Dr. Eun. Did some sketching. Barbara visited me and told me about the MRI tests. And then I had dinner with my dad."

"What?"

Amy laughed and had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from spitting out her food. "Barbara said that. She said you were like my dad."

"Really? Gracie said that?"

"Well, she said it with big words." Amy straightened up and mimicked in a robotic, monotone voice, "Now Amy, I have concluded that due to the restricted nature of your existence, Mr. R.J. Blass has established himself as a father figure in your life. It is only logical."

R.J. shook his head, tilting it downward to hide the wide grin on his face. "You better not let her catch you doing that."

"Not a chance. I don't want to be bled dry." Amy drank a large gulp of water.

R.J.watched her, strangely moved by the thought. This girl was his life now. Everything he did revolved around her. He sacrificed so much to be there with her. Would he be any more committed to her if she were his daughter?