Chapter 2

Mila sat very still on the edge of the bed and waited for the dream to end but it did not.

The room was exactly as she remembered it. She pressed her palm against the wall and felt the faint chill of morning seeping through it. It felt far too real.

A dying mind can invent anything, she told herself. Even this.

But dying minds did not smell burnt toast drifting up from the kitchen. They did not feel a cotton ball tugging at a fresh needle mark, and they did not feel the slow, steady thump of a heart that had never been broken.

She closed her eyes and tried something small.

What was the date of the very first blood draw?

The answer came instantly, so clear it startled her. The date, the time, the color of the nurse's shoes, the name of the song that had been playing from a radio in the corner. She had been eight years old and had cried, and her mother had told her that brave girls did not cry.

Mila opened her eyes slowly.

She had not simply remembered it. She had seen it again, as if someone had played the memory back for her frame by frame.

She tried another. A newspaper headline from three years ago. Then the closing price of a stock she had once heard mentioned at a dinner table. Then the exact words of an argument her parents had had when she was twelve and thought she was asleep.

Every detail rose to the surface perfectly, sharp as glass.

Her breath caught.

Whatever had happened to her, it had done more than send her back. It had changed her.

"Mila!"

Her mother's voice cut up the stairs like a blade.

"Mila, come down this instant. Breakfast is getting cold."

Her body reacted before her mind did. Her shoulders tightened and her stomach dropped, the same way they had for nineteen years. Mila noticed it but was determined not to be used anymore.

She stood, smoothed her hair and walked downstairs with her face carefully blank.

The Collins dining room was bright and expensive. Her father sat at the head of the table reading the financial pages, and he did not look up when she entered. Her mother stood by the sideboard pouring tea into a porcelain cup and she did not look up either.

Sophia lay on the sofa in the next room under a cashmere blanket, one pale hand draped over her forehead like an actress in a painting.

Mila stopped in the doorway and studied her.

She had spent nineteen years believing that hand was trembling. She had believed the blanket was necessary and the pallor was real. Now, with the memory of that hospital room burning behind her eyes, she saw the way Sophia's cheeks held a faint, healthy flush, and the way her fingers tapped idly against the pillow in boredom.

She is not sick.

The thought was so quiet it almost felt like a whisper from someone else.

"Sit," her mother said, setting a plate in front of her. "Eat quickly. We have a lot to do today."

Mila sat.

"Sophia had a rough night," Margaret continued, in the soft voice she only used for her favorite child. "Her energy is very low. Dr. Parks thinks she may need another transfusion by Friday, so you will have to go back to the clinic."

Mila lifted her fork and kept her face perfectly calm.

"Friday?" she said.

"Friday morning by nine o'clock. I've already cleared your schedule."

Cleared my schedule. As if she had one worth protecting.

Her father turned a page and spoke without raising his eyes. "Don't be late this time. The doctor doesn't like waiting."

Mila took a slow breath.

Before, she would have nodded. Before, she would have said yes, Mother, of course and gone upstairs to mark the date on her calendar like a good, obedient daughter.

Instead she set down her fork.

"I can't," she said.

The room went quiet. Her father's newspaper lowered an inch. Her mother turned slowly, the teapot still in her hand.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm not feeling well," Mila said softly. "I've been dizzy all week and I think my iron is low. If I give blood again so soon, I might faint."

It was true enough to be believable, and it gave them nothing to attack.

Margaret's eyes narrowed. "You've never fainted before."

"I'm saying I might."

"Mila." Her mother's voice went sharp and sweet at the same time. "Your sister needs you. You know that."

Mila looked down at her hands so they would not see her eyes.

"I know," she said. "I just need a few more weeks to recover."

"A few weeks?" Richard said, finally lowering his paper. "That's out of the question."

"Then I suppose I'll have to see the doctor myself," Mila replied, and she let her voice tremble just slightly. "If he says I'm well enough, I'll go."

It was a perfect little trap. A straight refusal would sound ungrateful but pushing too hard would risk a doctor's opinion neither of them could control.

For a long, tense moment, the only sound was the ticking of the clock. Then Margaret set the teapot down with a sharp click.

"Fine," she said coldly. "We'll discuss it later."

Mila lowered her eyes and nodded meekly.

Inside, she felt victorious. It was the first time in her life she had said no and survived. She waited until the house was quiet. At two in the afternoon her mother left for a charity luncheon, her father drove to the office and Sophia disappeared upstairs to nap. Mila slipped on her coat, walked to the bank three blocks away and stood at the counter with her heart thudding.

"I'd like to close this account," she told the teller, sliding over her card. "And open a new one in my name only."

It held two thousand, three hundred dollars, every cent she had saved from three years of part time work. In her first life, her mother had borrowed it for Sophia's medical expenses and never paid it back. Mila remembered the exact day. It was this week.

The teller typed quietly. Mila watched the screen the whole time, memorizing every number, every line and every code.

When the transfer was complete she walked out into the afternoon light with a new account number held perfectly in her mind. Nobody in the Collins house would ever find it.

She breathed in the cold air. It was a very small victory but it was hers. That night, when everyone was asleep, Mila crept down the dark hallway toward her father's study. The door had always been locked. In her first life she had never once wondered why.

She slid a hairpin from her pocket and knelt in front of the lock. It had been a childhood trick, one she had learned from a library book when she was ten and bored. Her hands remembered it before her mind did, and after a few quiet clicks the door swung open.

Moonlight spilled across the desk. She did not turn on the lamp. She only opened the bottom drawer, where she had once seen her father hide something and snap it shut when he noticed her watching.

Underneath a stack of tax papers, a thin gray folder lay waiting. Mila opened it with trembling fingers.

The first page was an adoption certificate. Her name was typed at the top. Beneath it was a date, twenty eight years ago, and the signature of a man she did not recognize. The orphanage listed on the page had a name she had never heard before.

Her stomach turned.

It is true. She had heard them say it but seeing it in ink made it real in a way no deathbed confession ever could.

She turned the page, and something small slid out of the folder and landed softly on the carpet.

Mila bent down and picked it up.

It was a tiny plastic hospital bracelet, so small it could only have fit a newborn. The plastic had yellowed with age. A single line was printed across it in faded black ink.

Baby Girl H.

Her breath stopped.

She turned it over in the moonlight and found something scratched into the back, written in blue pen by a hurried, trembling hand.

Do not let them take her.

Mila stared at the words until they blurred.

Someone had written this. Someone had held this bracelet and been afraid. Someone had known that a baby was in danger and tried to warn the world.

Who were you? she thought. And what did they take from me?

A footsteps sounded in the hall and Mila froze. She slipped the bracelet into her sleeve, closed the folder, slid it back beneath the tax papers and stepped silently behind the study door.

Footsteps passed slowly. Light and almost too playful to belong to a sick girl.

Through the crack in the door, Mila saw Sophia walking down the hallway in her nightgown. She was barefoot, carrying a glass of water, and she moved with an easy, graceful stride. She took the stairs two at a time.

Mila watched her disappear into the darkness and held very still, her heart pounding in her ears.

The girl who could not climb a staircase without help had just bounded up one like an athlete.

Mila slid the bracelet deeper into her sleeve and a slow, cold smile touched her lips for the first time in two lifetimes.

Oh, Sophia, she thought.

How long have you been pretending?