Skin Deep

92

The next moment Aaron Monks entered the room.

An involuntary cry pressed out of Dana’s lungs as she stumbled to look at the man on the gurney and then at the man walking toward her.

I’ve lost my mind. I’ve had some kind of brain seizure that’s left me delusional. They’re one and the same man.

“Wh-wh-who…” was all she could get out.

“He’s nobody.”

“Wha-what’s happening?” she pleaded.

He walked over to the gurney and pulled the sheet over the man’s face and turned toward her. His face looked strangely immobile, eyes dark but blank. Gone was the warm simpatico smile that she had taken comfort in. And in its place something implacable and raw, like a face that had too long been kept under a mold.

“What are you doing?” she begged. She told herself that things would make sense, that someone would tell her what was going on and rid her of the sense of dread that was wracking her bowels.

She tried to ask who that man was and why he looked like Aaron and was he the real Aaron and who are you, but nothing would come. Nothing but fat dumb syllables that didn’t connect.

From someplace she heard the sounds of people. The dinner party guests had arrived, she told herself. Thank God. Maybe someone would explain things, explain why nothing was making any sense.

My head.

Her brain felt like a lightbulb loose in its socket. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Who are you?”

But he didn’t answer her. “Get her ready.”

And from behind her Cho and Pierre entered with two other men in green. They took her arms and pulled her out of the room and into the bright lights of the corridor and into another room across it where they lifted her up and laid her on a bed.

Then they began to remove her clothes.

She was too weak to stop them.