"When?"

"Jenna — "

"When were you going to tell me!" I yell. I shove my hand out in front of me. "What is this?"

Mother's hand comes to her chin, half covering her mouth. "Jenna, let me explain — "

Lily rises. "You should sit down," she says. She steps behind her own chair and offers it.

I sit down because I don't know what else to do. I look up at Claire. "What's wrong with my hand?" I lay it on the table and spread the gash apart with my fingers. The skin lies on a thick layer of blue. Blue gel. Beneath that is the silvery white glimmer of synthetic bone and ligaments. Plastic? Metal composite? Mother looks away.

"What happened?" I ask. My voice is a whisper.

"It was the accident," she says.

The accident. "Was it cut off?"

Mother reaches out. She lays both of her hands on my arm. · "Jenna, darling."

"Tell me." "It was burned. Terribly burned."

I look at my other hand resting on the table next to the gashed one. My other perfect hand. The perfect hand that won't lace right. The monster hand. I look at Mother. She looks like she is crumbling inward, caving like a terrible weight is pressing on her. "What about . . . this one?" I ask, raising my other hand.

She nods.

Oh, my God. I look down, the world disappearing beyond the circle of my lap. I am suddenly so cold. My skin that has never felt right instantly feels foreign. I hear Lily move to the other side of the table. The scraping of a chair. The sigh as she sits. It all pounds in my ears. My hands twitch. I look at them. Can I even call them my hands?

I turn to Mother. "Is there anything else?"

The tears flow. Her face is desperate. "Jenna, what difference does it make? You're still my daughter. That's all that matters — "

My clumsy feet. My legs.

Oh, God no.

"Stand up," I say. I rise to my feet. Mother looks at me confused. "Stand up!" I yell. She stands, inches from me. We look eye to eye. We are the exact same height. "How tall are you, Mother?" I whisper each word distinctly, like a string of knots in a rope I am clinging to.

"Jenna?" She doesn't understand. She doesn't know what I've seen. In the last video that Lily told me to watch where I blurt out my height. Fear twists her face. She doesn't answer.

"How tall are you?" I demand.

"Five-seven."

I collapse back into my chair, shaking my head. Mother is mumbling, rambling, saying something that is all noise for me. I finally force myself to look at her. "Tell me everything."

"What?" she says, pretending she doesn't understand what I'm asking. She does. I see it in her eyes, a frantic back step, hoping all this will go away.

"How much is me?"

Her lip trembles. Her eyes pool.

Lily intervenes. "Ten percent. Ten percent of your brain. That's all they could save. They should have let you die."

I try to understand what she is saying. I watch her mouth move. I hear words. Ten percent. Ten percent.

And then Mother is suddenly fierce. A lion. Within inches of my face. "But it is the most important ten percent. Do you hear me? The most important."

Pinned

I lie in my bed. I stare at the ceiling. Claire paces. Leaves. Comes back. Pleads. Informs. I listen but I don't respond. Lily comes in, too. Watches. Whispers to Claire. Steps closer to me. Leaves. And comes back.

They don't know what to do with me. Father is coming. Claire called him. Hours ago. It is now the middle of the night. Two a.m. He will explain it all, Claire says. When he gets here. He will make me understand. And yet she sits on the edge of my bed and tries to explain herself.

"You were burned so badly, Jenna. We tried everything. Even with all the temporary grafts, you were losing so much fluid. We had you stabilized for a few days. I was so hopeful. But then the infections set in and we were losing you fast. The antibiotics weren't working. There wasn't time for a lot of decisions. Your father pulled me into a closet, Jenna. A closet! That's where we had to decide. He whispered to me the only possible way of saving you. We had to make a choice — save you the only way we knew how or let you die. Any parent in the world would have made the choice we did." Her hands knead the side of my bed. She stands. Circles my room. Returns to the end of my bed.

"We had you moved. Immediately. To a private facility. A private room. All physicians on your case were dismissed, except for the ones who worked with your father at Fox Bio-Systems. The infection was moving so rapidly through you. Your father actually injected you with the nanobots while you were in an ambulance en route to the new facility. They had to start the brain scan right away."

"Why?"

She stands again. Her face is alert. Careful. Bright. She is encouraged that I spoke. She shouldn't be.

"Your veins were collapsing. We weren't sure how much longer your heart could last. Blood circulation is critical for a good scan. They take at least six minutes. Vital organs were already shutting down. By the time they got you to surgery, your heart had stopped twice. They had the Bio Gel waiting. They saved as much as was still viable."

She comes close. White. She falls to her knees beside my bed and takes my gashed hand in hers. She holds it like it is keeping her from dissolving away. "The butterfly, Jenna. That's what they call it. The heart of the brain. That you still have."

And the rest. My memories? My history? Those aren't all in the butterfly. What is the rest? How am I remembering so many things? Nearly everything now. Except the accident.