“Is Mr. Sharp also available, Ms. Fairmont?”

“I’m here, Len. And I agree with everything Lana just said.” Brant leans forward to make sure the speaker catches his voice.

“I’ll need you both to provide your security passcodes.” Any comradery I’ve shared with this man over the last six months is gone. Suddenly, I see the ex-Special Forces asset we had hired.

“4497,” Brant mutters, sinking his head back against the headrest.

“1552,” I say.

“Thank you. We will be ready when you arrive. Would you like me to alert the police?”

I glance at Brant, speaking when he shakes his head. “No, thank you. Just make sure Windere is secure.”

“Will do, Ms. F.”

“And please connect me to Anna.”

“Certainly.”

The house manager answers promptly and with more perkiness than any individual should contain before 7 AM. I speak quickly, wanting to get off of the phone and talk to Brant. “Can you have Christine prepare breakfast? A full spread of everything Brant likes. Also, please prepare the bedroom. Draw a hot bath. And light the fireplace. I also need you to bring a physician in. He needs a full tox screen done, so have them bring whatever they need for that.” I had a sudden thought. “Actually, call Dr. Susan Renhart. She’s at Homeless Youths of America. Tell her it is urgent, and that discretion is important.”

She repeats the instructions back to me, then I end the call and glance over at Brant, his eyes closed. “Stay with me, babe,” I say softly, the sun rising spectacularly as my car whips around a curve.

“I’ll never leave you,” he says. “Not willingly.” He sits up, pulls on my hand slightly. “I’m so sorry, Lana. For everything I must have put you through.”

“We have the rest of our lives to talk about it.” I squeeze his hand. “Right now I’m more concerned with Jillian. Brant… she’s…”

“Crazy,” he finishes with a growl. “Crazier than me,” he adds with a wry laugh.

“Should you call your parents? I’m trying to think through her next course of action. It might be best for you to speak to them before she does.” I reluctantly pull my hand from his, put both on the steering wheel before he feels the shake in my palms. I was literally shaking with anger, at myself, at Brant, at the manipulation this woman has had in our lives. “I mean… Brant, she tied you down. What kind of sick person does that?”

“What if I’m dangerous, Lana?” His voice is quiet but walks the steps of giants.

I slow the car, jerking my gaze to him. “You’re not dangerous, Brant.”

“Brant isn’t dangerous. But you said yourself I have other personalities, what if one of them…” He suddenly leans forward, gripping the sides of his head. “Oh my God.”

“What?” I reach a frantic right hand out as my left pulls the wheel hard enough to turn through our gates. Tugs at his knee as I careen down our driveway. Pull at his shirt as I shift into park. Try to break through, but he ignores me, gripping his head as he shakes it from side to side.

“October 12th,” he whispers. “Oh my God. October 12th.”

I say nothing, wait, as he repeats a date that means nothing to me. Then, he stills. His head stops moving, he slows his frantic rock, and drops his hands, a calm settling over him as he raises his head and looks at me.

“I remember.” He says softly. “I remember October 12th.”

Chapter 62

Brant

There is not a moment when I feel the switch, when it bubbles through me and replaces one person with another. There is nothing to fight. Nothing to struggle against. I simply open my eyes to a place I don’t recognize. Stare around, take in my surroundings, and then continue.

Our minds are unique in that they are like infants in their acceptance of what is shown. I don’t wonder that I don’t remember yesterday, because I have always had no yesterday. It, to me, is normal. That personality has never lived another way. I don’t find it strange to be suddenly awake and at a restaurant and midway through a meal because that is what I know. How I know life to be. The regular world, as a species, doesn’t question the fact that they close our eyes and—for eight hours—time passes in literally the blink of an eye. Doesn’t question the fact that they may have said things in our sleep, held a brief conversation in the middle of the night with a spouse—a conversation that they remember nothing about. And just as they don’t question that, I never questioned the two decades where things didn’t always make sense. Blamed any gaps in memory or sudden changes in location on my medication’s side effects.

But now, suddenly, I remember something. One glimpse into a day I have wondered about for twenty-seven years.

I didn’t know much about my world when I opened my eyes on October 12th, other than a few simple facts. I was Jenner. I was eleven. There was a girl down the street named Trish who had a pet mouse and wouldn’t let me play with it. She’d shown me the tiny, trembling figure a few weeks earlier and I had touched it. Pale white with red eyes, and I had poked it too roughly and she had pushed me away. Pulled it close to her chest and screamed that I’d never touch it again.

I digress. I was Jenner. I did not know who this woman before me was and had no interest in her brand of authority. I wanted my mom. I wanted my blue house with the broken porch rail and the iced tea pitcher that collected condensation in the fridge. I didn’t want to be in a basement with a woman whose mouth was tight and eyes were black, who smelled of vinegar and coffee and whose finger wouldn’t stop jabbing the paper before me.