One (One Universe)

to God I will kill him. I will rip his throat out through his eyes.
    I didn’t agree to a goddamn thing, but I know what he means. Staying. Testing. What Elias has been doing since he was a little kid. Poking, prodding, sensory deprivation goop. I look up to where Nora and Lia’s tank is being drained, where nurses pull tubes out of their throats and wrap waffle-weave bathrobes just like the one I have at home around their atrophied bodies. I choke, try my best to keep the vomit down. Something that reminds me of home has no place here.
    “Mrs. Grey,” Leni wails when she sees Mom coming back into the room for Michael, “You said they were making me stronger.”
    I look from Leni to Mom and back again. Leni’s remembered. After all this, she remembered what Mom was to her and what Mom did to her all in the same breath.
    “We… Honey, we thought we were. Thought we could enhance your indestructibility.”
    “Indestructibility,” Leni says. “I’m not indestructible. Only when I’m with… But if I ever was… I could have…” She looks quickly at Daniel, then stares at the ground, her face contorting between pained and composed.
    I think of that snapshot of Mom and Leni I found. Of course she needed a mom-substitute. Sucks that it was just for research purposes. A flash of hate for Mom burns through me.
    Yeah, Leni trusted her. Not only that. Leni loved her. That’s why it worked.
    I was just a kid, too. I should have trusted Mom. It should have worked for me, too. But my instincts have always been pretty damn good, apparently, because I’ve never really trusted anyone — never transferred a thing — until I met Elias.
    Mom stares at the ground, too, then clenches her fists around the side of Michael’s bed and walks him out without another word. My heart twists for Leni, but there’s no way to comfort her now.
    Suddenly, the electric prickle of the buzz overwhelms me. I turn around to see Elias sitting up.
    I whimper and bury my face in his shoulder. I can’t possibly do anything else. “You’re awake.
    “You made it,” Elias says. “You actually broke in to the Hub.” His voice is filled with awe. “But, Mer,” he says, his breath hot against my neck. “Michael and Max. They’re…”
    “I know. And the girls, too.”
    He swallows, blinks hard, and I motion behind me. Nora coughs and sputters from the tube removal. Lia’s still. A look I’ve never seen on Elias before roils in his eyes. Pure, unadulterated rage.
    “I heard them talking about me. They said I was going under…indefinitely. What did you do? How did you get them to wake me up?”
    “I told them if the twins all go home, we show them what we can do.”
    Tears fill Elias’s eyes. “Thank you.”
    I nod, resting my forehead against his. Then something catches his eye to the side, and he takes in a shuddering breath.
    Leni murmurs, “Elias…” and puts her head on Daniel’s shoulder.
    Elias’s head jerks up and then falls back to my shoulder. “They got Len and Dan, too.”
    I don’t say anything. I can’t.
    “They helped you. They helped you get in.”
    I nod. “I never wanted them to get involved in this.”
    “They always were. You knew that.”
    “How are we going to get out of here?” My voice breaks.
    “Hey,” Elias says, his arms shaking, fighting to stay around me. He’s still so weak from being sedated. “It’s going to be okay.”
    Fisk clears his throat, causing me to whip around and glare at him. I feel Elias’s shoulders tremble above my arm, which I’ve wrapped around his chest. Elias may know what he’s going to do to get us out of here, but he’s not going to do it when he’s so weak.
    I’ve got to buy us some time.
     
    Behind me, where my hands join with Elias’s, my messenger bag bobs against my back. I swing it around front and fumble through, my hands shaking as I hold out a vial. “I know what you’re doing here. Know what you have been doing, ever since we were little kids.”
    Leni’s face screws up.
    “This is your whole life’s work, isn’t it?” I continue, glaring at Fisk. “Trying to fix all the Ones? Using us as a key to the whole problem?”
    “Not a problem, Merrin. Not anymore. Not now that we know about you and Elias. Helen and Daniel. You are the next step in the evolutionary chain. To lift the Ones up from their pathetic situation and make them better. If you’ll only show me what you can do… Merrin, you could change the world. Be the biggest