Don't Turn Around (23 page)

“Abstracts?” Noa’s eyebrows knotted together.

“Like a summary of the study. It doesn’t list all the details, just tells the basics: what they were trying to find out, how the study was conducted, what the results were. That sort of thing. So it’s like some of the people working on this actually thought it would be publishable research someday. Which, of course, it wouldn’t.”

“Because they were experimenting on people,” Peter said.

“Exactly.” Cody pointed to the stack of papers on his right. “Anyway, the abstracts are in this pile.” Shifting to the one by his left thigh, he continued, “These guys, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what was going on. Those are your doctors’ notes, all the vital-signs monitoring, that sort of thing.”

“So what did they do to me?” Noa asked impatiently. Peter could hardly blame her. He didn’t see why it mattered who knew what was going on; it was more important to determine what had happened to those kids.

“Here’s where it gets a little complicated.” Despite his fatigue, there was a definite note of excitement in Cody’s voice. “It looks like they zeroed in on the endocrine system, which is hardly surprising. Most PEMA research has focused on that.”

“I thought it came from deer. Like mad cow disease,” Noa said.

Cody shook his head. “That theory was discredited. The symptoms are similar to Chronic Wasting Disease, which usually afflicts deer and elk. But that’s caused by abnormal prion proteins. They’ve already determined that PEMA has nothing to do with prions.”

Noa gazed at him blankly.

“Anyway,” he said. “Right now their best guess is that PEMA somehow interferes with the endocrine system. Which consists of all the glands that secrete hormones into your bloodstream to regulate things.”

“Those kick into overdrive when you hit puberty,” Peter said. This much, at least, he knew. He’d made a point of keeping tabs on current PEMA research after Jeremy died, even though there had been frustratingly little progress. “They figure that’s why it mainly affects teenagers.”

“Right,” Cody said, meeting Peter’s eyes. Sadness flashed across his features, so fleetingly Peter didn’t think Noa had noticed. “But from what I can see, even though they went so far as to run tests on humans”—at that, his voice went tight—“they still didn’t find anything new.”

“So why did they cut me open?” Noa asked.

“The question isn’t really why,” Cody said. “The question is, why did they cut you open
there
?” He drew a line across his chest, mimicking the one she’d made.

Peter and Noa exchanged a confused look.

“Here’s the thing,” Cody said. “Most of the research has focused on the hypothalamus, which is here.” He pointed to the back of his head. “Because that seems to be what PEMA really impacts. Your hypothalamus controls your body temperature, hunger, thirst, that sort of thing.”

“What about sleep?” Noa asked in a small voice.

“Sure,” Cody said, warming to the subject. “In fact, some doctors think one of the reasons people develop insomnia as they age is because of changes with their hypothalamus.” Suddenly noticing the stricken expression on her face, he abruptly stopped speaking.

“Are you not sleeping, either?” Peter asked.

She shrugged, her gaze locked on the floor. “Keep going,” she said in a hard voice.

“You sure?” Cody sounded uncertain.

“Yes.”

He still looked hesitant, but continued, “So according to these files, in the earlier experiments they tried to manipulate the hypothalamus.”

“Manipulate it how?”

“That’s not very clear.” Cody rubbed his head. “Remember, I’m just a second-year med student. A lot of this stuff is over my head, too.”

Peter very much doubted that. Cody had always been one of the smartest people he’d ever met.

“So what’s in my chest?” Noa asked.

“Your thymus. Another part of the endocrine system. Kind of a weird one, actually. For a long time, no one thought it did much of anything. But in the 1960s, they discovered that it grows steadily until you hit puberty, then it stops and starts to shrivel. By the time you hit your sixties, it’s smaller than it was when you were born.”

“Damn,” Peter said. “They really are teaching you something in med school.”

“I just had a test on it last week,” Cody admitted. “And I’ve been leaning toward specializing in endocrinology because … well, you know.”

Peter nodded. After Jeremy died, Cody had switched from law to premed, a choice that basically forced him through an extra year of college. All so that he could devote his life to finding out what had killed his best friend.

“Okay, so they messed with my thymus, and that’s why I can’t eat or sleep?” Noa asked.

Cody looked apologetic. “That’s the weird thing. If they’d done something to your hypothalamus, it would make sense. But there’s no incision on your scalp, right?”

Noa had gone very still. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I didn’t check.”

“Do you want me to check for you?” Cody asked gently.

She nodded and bent her head toward him. As he ran his fingers across her scalp, Cody said reassuringly, “They would have shaved a section of your hair off, probably.” He sat back, satisfied. “Nope, all clear.”

“So what would messing with my thymus do?”

Cody shrugged. “Nothing, really. You’re what, seventeen?”

“Sixteen,” Noa said.

“So it should already have shut off.”

“Well, what do the abstracts say?” Peter asked.

Cody hesitated.

“What?” Noa demanded.

“It’s just—they did a lot of different types of research. And the data is all coded, so I can’t say for sure which of the tests they did on you.”

“But you have a theory,” Peter said. It was clear from Cody’s tone of voice that he’d found something.

Cody seemed to be debating.

“Tell me,” Noa said quietly. She’d raised her head and was looking at him levelly. Peter was struck again by how collected she appeared. He would have been completely freaking out.

“I don’t think they messed with your thymus,” Cody said. “I think they gave you another one.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“A
nother one?” Noa asked.

“I can’t say for certain,” Cody said. “The only way to know for sure would be to do an X-ray. But this paper”—he lifted a sheet off the abstract pile—“hints at a major discovery related to adding a thymus gland. Which isn’t that strange, actually. Some mice are even born with an extra one. So whoever was planning on publishing the paper probably assumed that the data they were looking at came from lab rats.”

“Where did the new one come from?” Noa asked.

Her voice had gone completely flat, atonal. Like they were discussing the weather.

“I can’t say for certain,” Cody hedged.

“But if you had to guess?” she pressed.

He lowered his voice and reluctantly said, “Some of the kids in the files … well, I couldn’t find correlating stats sheets for them.”

“What does that mean?” She looked confused.

Peter had gone completely cold. “They took it from one of them.”

“What, you mean, like …” Noa’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes went wide. “Oh my God.”

“I’m not sure,” Cody hastened to add. “It just seems like the most likely possibility.”

Noa was looking green again, the same as when she’d abruptly stopped eating. “So I have a dead kid’s thymus inside me?”

“I don’t know,” Cody admitted. “Maybe.”

She got up and left the room. Peter pushed off the couch to go after her, but Cody shook his head.

“Give her a minute.”

Peter hesitated, then sat back down.

“So I still don’t get how you two hooked up,” Cody asked after a minute.

“Noa’s part of /ALLIANCE/. She’s a pretty amazing hacker, so when I needed help getting into their site, I asked her. But I mean, I had no idea …”

“Crazy coincidence,” Cody shook his head. “And Amanda?”

Peter examined his nails. “Turns out she’s more into college guys.”

“Oh, that’s—I’m sorry, man.”

Peter shrugged. He appreciated that Cody didn’t say what other friends probably would’ve: that she was a bitch, that he was a free agent now. He understood that wasn’t what Peter wanted to hear. Yeah, he was mad at Amanda, but he wasn’t about to let people bad-mouth her.

“I like this one,” Cody said. “She’s tough.”

“Yeah, she’s definitely that,” Peter managed a laugh.

Cody eyed him but didn’t say anything else. Through the closed bathroom door Peter could hear the sink running. He wondered if she was crying.

Cody got to his feet and stretched, then rubbed his back. “I’m already starting to feel like an old man. Help me pull out the couch?”

Peter helped him set up the futon as a bed. Cody went into the other room and came back with sheets and towels. He was followed a moment later by Noa. Her face had recomposed itself into that solid mask. She eyed the futon. “Who sleeps here?”

“You do,” Cody said. “Unless you two are—”

“I’ll take the floor,” Peter said quickly.

“So I’ll dig out my sleeping bag, too. Sorry I don’t have more pillows and stuff,” Cody apologized.

“That’s okay,” Noa said. “Thanks for letting us stay.”

“Of course. Pedro’s a brother to me.” He squeezed her shoulder as he left the room and said, “You need anything, I’m down the hall.”

Noa lay on the futon, staring up at the ceiling. Her hand kept going to her chest; she couldn’t stop tracing the incision under her T-shirt. The rigid line felt colder than the surrounding skin. When Cody had first given voice to his suspicions, she’d raced to the bathroom, overwhelmed by the roar in her ears. Tiny spots of light darted around her peripheral vision, as if dancing in a concerted effort to make her throw up or pass out. She’d bent over the toilet, heaving. Tasted bile, but nothing came up.

Splashing some water on her face made it better. But then she’d met her eyes in the mirror and seen the fear in them. They were little-kid eyes again, young and scared. It had taken everything Noa had not to march into the kitchen, take a steak knife out of a drawer, and start carving into her chest.

It might not be true,
she reminded herself. It was just a guess. And Cody wasn’t even a real doctor yet.

Still, the minute he’d said it, something clicked. Noa could almost sense it now, a foreign presence inside her. Like the extra thymus was pulsing in time with her heartbeat. She wondered who it had belonged to, if maybe she’d known them. They might even have shared a bunk bed at The Center.

Noa rolled over on her side facing the wall. She felt cold again. The heat was turned so low her breath left thin vapor trails. Cody had apologized for that, explaining that he was trying to keep the bill down. Even though she was wearing layers under a thick comforter, Noa was still freezing. But then, even in the toasty Cambridge apartment she hadn’t been able to fully warm up. She wondered if that was a byproduct of having an extra thymus. And if so, what other side effects there might be.

Noa reminded herself that wasn’t all she had to worry about. They might have infected her with PEMA. Somehow, the prospect of that was much less frightening than the thymus thing. Death she could handle—she’d become familiar with it at an early age, and honestly hadn’t expected to live as long as she had. When the social worker handed her a cup of cocoa at the hospital and explained that her parents had “gone up to heaven,” her first thought was that bad things always happened in threes. Noa had spent her life waiting for the other shoe to drop.

This other thing, though … that was a heavy weight to bear.

“You awake?” Peter whispered.

Noa debated whether or not to answer. She didn’t really feel like talking. Still, Peter had provided a roof over her head tonight. And it had been really nice of him to offer to sleep on the floor. She hadn’t encountered a lot of guys who would do that. “Yeah,” she finally said.

A pause, then Peter said, “I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I know I didn’t. I wasn’t accepting blame; I was expressing empathy. There’s a difference.”

“I know that,” she said testily.

A moment of silence passed, then he said, “Now I’m less sorry.”

In spite of herself, Noa laughed.

He continued, “Anyway, it sucks. I was just thinking this must be pretty scary for you.”

“I’m not scared,” she said.

“Really? Because I’d be completely freaked out.” The sound of knuckles cracking—she’d noticed Peter did that whenever he was mulling something over. “Waking up on that table—I probably would have lost it.”

“Not helping,” she said drily.

“Sorry.”

“You apologize a lot,” she said.

“Only because you make me nervous.”

“I do?” She rolled over to face Peter, propping her head up with one hand. There were no curtains in the windows, and light from the street below faintly illuminated him. The sleeping bag was unzipped to his waist, exposing a faded Country Day soccer T-shirt. He was gazing up at the ceiling. “Why?”

He turned toward her and smiled sheepishly. “Not sure, really. Maybe because of the way you talk.”

“How do I talk?” she demanded.

“Like you’re trying to start a fight. Or like we’re already in one. My mom would call it confrontational.”

Noa thought that over. “I don’t mean to,” she finally said.

“Yeah, I figured. You were different tonight, when the files distracted you.”

“Oh.”

He laughed again and said, “See?”

“What?”

“I never have trouble talking to people.”

“Lucky you,” she snorted.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just something I’ve always been good at. But with you, I have no idea what to say, and everything that comes out of my mouth is idiotic. And I can’t figure out why.”

He sounded genuinely puzzled. After a minute, Noa asked, “Did your folks really kick you out?”

“Yeah.” It was hard to tell in the dimness, but it looked like his face clouded over. “Plus my girlfriend broke up with me.”

“So you’re having a crappy couple of days, too.”

“You still win.” His teeth flashed in the dark.