“Are you so sure they’re all monsters?” challenged Stell.

“Yes,” he said forcefully. There had been a time when Eli thought himself exempt from that label. Now he knew better. “EOs may look like humans, Stell, but they don’t think or act like them.”

Victor would have enumerated any number of symptoms—diminished sense of consequence, lack of remorse, self-absorption, amplification of demeanor and aspect—but Eli said only, “They have no soul.” He shook his head. “You want to save EOs? Save them from themselves. Put them in the ground, where they belong. Unless that’s your plan, I have no intention of helping.”

In answer, Stell set another folder in the fiberglass slot between, this one black.

Eli cut a glance at the file. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“This isn’t another dossier,” said Stell. “It’s your other option.”

Eli glimpsed his own name printed on the front of the file. He didn’t reach for it, didn’t need to—he knew what it was. What it meant.

“Take a day to think it over,” said Stell. “I’ll be back tomorrow for your answer.”

He retreated, and the wall went solid again in his wake, turning the cell back into a tomb. Eli gritted his teeth. And then he swiped the black folder from the tray and carried it to the table where the thin manila file already waited.

Eli sank into a chair and flicked back the cover. On top was an X-ray, black and white, seemingly innocuous. He flipped past, and saw an MRI, the body lit up in red and blue and green. And then he turned the page again, and his throat constricted at the sight of the first photograph. A man’s chest—Eli’s chest—pried open by metal clamps to reveal ribs, lungs, a beating heart.

Every pre-med student did dissections. Eli had done a dozen his freshman year, peeled and pinned the skin of small animals out of the way to examine the organs beneath. The photos in the black folder reminded him of that. The only difference, of course, was that Eli had been alive.

The pain itself was gone, but the memory of it etched along his nerves, echoed through his bones.

Eli wanted to sweep the file from the table, tear it to shreds, but he knew he was being watched—he’d noted the cameras set into the ceiling, imagined Stell standing in some control room, a smug expression on his face. So Eli stayed seated, and turned through every page of the gruesome, graphic record, studying every photograph, every diagram, every scrawled note, every aspect of torture laid out in sterile detail, memorizing the black folder so that he would never have to look at it again.

You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You’re a science experiment.

Maybe Victor was right.

Maybe Eli was just as broken, just as damned, as every other EO. It was true, he hadn’t felt that presence the night he killed Victor. Hadn’t felt anything like peace.

But that didn’t absolve him of his task.

He still had a purpose. An obligation. To save others, even if he couldn’t save himself.

XVI

TWENTY YEARS AGO

THE FIFTH HOME

ELI ran his fingers over the cover of the book.

It was massive, and heavy, and every single page detailed the marvels and miracles of the human body.

“I thought we should get you tickets to a game,” said Patrick, “but Lisa insisted—”

“It’s perfect,” said Eli.

“See?” said Lisa, shouldering Patrick. “He wants to be a doctor. You’ve got to start young.”

“From ministry to medicine,” mused Patrick. “John must be rolling in his grave.”

Eli laughed, an easy sound, practiced to perfection. The truth was, he didn’t see the two avenues as separate. Eli had seen God the day he arrived, in the drawings on his wall; saw Him again now in the pages of this book, in the perfect fit of bones, the vast intricacies of the nervous system, the brain—the spark, like faith, that turned a body into a man.

Patrick shook his head. “What fifteen-year-old boy would rather have a book—”

“Would you rather I asked for a car?” asked Eli, flashing a crooked smile.

Patrick clapped him on the shoulder. These days, Eli didn’t flinch.

His attention fell back to the anatomy textbook. Perhaps his interest wasn’t strictly normal, but he could afford this small divergence.

At fifteen, the personality he’d crafted was nearly perfect. The day after he arrived, Patrick and Lisa had enrolled him in school, and Eli had realized the hard way that a six-month crash course in normalcy was a pale foundation of what he’d need to survive. But it was a big school, and Eli was a quick study, and soon charming, focused, clever had not only been cemented, they’d been joined by handsome, friendly, athletic. He ran track and field. He aced his classes. He had a winning smile and an easy laugh, and nobody knew about the scars on his back or the shadows in his past. Nobody knew that it was all an act, that none of it came naturally.

* * *

LISA’S laughter rang through the house like bells.

Eli could hear it over the classical music in his earbuds as he did his chemistry homework. A few moments later, Patrick knocked on the doorframe, and Eli hit Pause.

“You guys off?”

“Yeah,” said Patrick. “Show starts at seven, so we shouldn’t be back late. Don’t work too hard.”

“Says the professor to the student.”

“Hey, studies show that variation is good for retention.”

“Come on!” called Lisa.

“I put money on the counter,” said Patrick. “At least order a pizza. Steal a beer from the fridge.”

“Will do,” said Eli absently, already hitting Play.

Patrick said something else, but Eli didn’t catch the words over the concerto. At nine, he finished his homework and ate leftovers at the kitchen counter. At ten, he went for a jog. At eleven, he went to bed.

And fifteen minutes later, his cell phone rang, a number he didn’t recognize, a voice he didn’t know.

“Is this Eliot Cardale?” said a man.

A stillness formed in Eli’s chest. Not the kind he’d felt when he pushed his father down the stairs. No, this was colder, heavier. The weight of finding his mother floating in the tub. The exhaustion as he sank like a stone to the chapel floor.

“I’m afraid,” continued the man, “there’s been an accident.”

* * *

ELI wondered if this was shock. He sat on a flimsy plastic chair, a social worker at his side, the doctor straight ahead, an officer looming like a shadow. The cops had come to the house. Driven him to the hospital, even though there was nothing to see, or do. Dead on arrival. On impact, according to the doctor.

“I’m sorry, son,” said the cop.

God never gives us more than we can bear.

Eli laced his fingers, bowed his head.

It’s up to us to find the purpose in the pain.

“The driver didn’t survive,” continued the cop. “Toxicology’s still out but we think he was drunk.”

“How did they die?”

Eli realized, too late, that he’d asked the wrong question. A shadow crossed the doctor’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t—it’s just—I’m going to be a surgeon, one day. I want to save lives. I just—I need to understand.” He balled his hands into fists. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll lie awake, wondering. I think I would rather know.”

The doctor sighed. “Patrick suffered a cervical fracture of C2 and C3,” he said, touching the bones at the top of his own neck. “Lisa sustained a massive concussion, which resulted in an intracranial hemorrhage. In both cases, it would have been nearly instantaneous.”

Eli was glad they hadn’t suffered. “All right,” he said. “Thank you.”

“They didn’t name a guardian,” said the social worker. “Do you know if there’s someone you can stay with? Until we get things sorted out?”

“Yes,” he lied, digging out his phone. “I’ll call a friend.”

Eli rose and walked a little ways down the hall, but didn’t bother dialing. There was no phone tree this time. And no point in pretending. Eli was popular, well liked, but he had always been careful to keep a measure of distance. Too close, and someone might see the seams in his facade, the subtle but constant effort of pretending. Better to be friendly, without being friends.

Eli returned to the social worker and the cop. The doctor had left. “I need to get some things from my place,” he said. “Could you drop me off there?”

He let himself into the house, listened to the sound of the patrol car pulling away before he closed the door. He stood for several long seconds in the darkened hall.

And then turned and slammed his fist into the wall.

Pain flashed through Eli’s hand, up his arm, and he hit the wall again and again until his knuckles split open, and blood dripped down his wrist, and he could breathe.

His legs folded under him, and Eli sank to the floor.

After everything, he was alone again.

God never gives us more than we can bear.

Eli told himself there was a plan, even if he couldn’t see it. There was a purpose to the pain. He stared down at his bloody hand.