My body felt heavy, and though someone had pulled off my sweater, my shirt was plastered to my skin with a thin sheen of sweat. If I had been alone, I might have taken it off, or at least kicked my jeans off my legs to let my body breathe, but I knew better. I was still in his room, and if I was here, then so was he.

The light on Clancy’s dresser was on, and I could hear the voices of kids below at the fire pit. Night, already? It was insane that my blood could run as frigid as winter at the same moment my heart started to squeeze out a panicked rhythm.

The creaking of the old mattress was drowned out by the TV. For a while, I did nothing but listen to President’s Gray baritone voice give his nightly address. My legs seemed to be the last part of my body willing to wake up.

“—assure you that the jobless rate has declined from thirty percent to twenty percent in this past year alone. I gave you my word that I would succeed where the false government would not. As much as they would like you to believe they have influence on the world stage, they can barely control their terrorist branch, this so-called Children’s League—”

The TV set turned off with a hiss of static. Footsteps.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes,” I whispered. My throat felt sore, my tongue swollen.

The bed dipped as Clancy sat down beside me. I tried not to wince.

“What happened?” I asked. The sound of the voices below grew louder, getting trapped between my ears.

“You passed out,” he said. “I didn’t realize…I shouldn’t have pushed so hard.”

I raised myself up on my elbows in a vain attempt to pull away from his touch. My eyes were fixated on his lips, the white teeth gleaming behind them. Had I imagined it, or had he—?

My stomach clenched. “Did you find anything out? Did it prove your theory?”

Clancy sat back, his face unreadable. “No.” He stood again and began to pace between the window and the white curtain. I caught a glimpse of the other side of the room, and was unsurprised to find that it was awash in the blue light of the open laptop.

“No, see, I’ve been going over this again and again in my head,” Clancy said. “I thought maybe you erased their memories intentionally because you were angry or upset, but you didn’t go all out and erase their entire memories, just…you. And again, with that girl Samantha. Samantha Dahl, age seventeen, from Bethesda, Maryland. Parents Ashley and Todd. Green, photographic memory…” His voice trailed off. “I’ve been thinking around and around and around in circles, trying to understand how you do this, but walking through your memories doesn’t tell me what’s going on inside of your head. No cause, only effect.”

I wondered if he even realized he was rambling, or that I had managed to get myself off the bed, with my only thought to get the hell out of that room and away from him. The pain came back to me in pieces.