The drive to Trentville Memorial Hospital normally took fifteen minutes from their mother's house, winding through residential streets before connecting with the main road that led to the outskirts of town.Jenna kept the radio off, hoping the silence would encourage conversation.
“Sleep okay?”she asked, glancing sideways at her sister.
Piper stared out the passenger window at the passing houses.“Fine.”
“Mom said you were quiet at breakfast.”
“Just thinking.”
In the days since finding Piper at Wendell Gillis's farm, Piper had shared fragments of her life as Emma Kirby—the homeless shelters, the brief stay in a commune called the Lost and Found Collective, her time as a captive of the human traffickers called the Harvesters.But there were gaps in her narrative, places where memory failed or where the truth was too painful to say.
“Anything you want to talk about before we get there?”Jenna asked, trying a different approach.“Dr.White will have questions.It might help to practice answering them with me first.”
Piper finally turned away from the window, studying Jenna's profile.“Do you ever wonder if all this isn't real?”
The question caught Jenna off guard.“What do you mean?”
“This.Us.Being reunited.Me being back home.What if it's all just a dream?”
Alarm bells rang in Jenna's mind.She kept her expression neutral.“It feels pretty real to me.”
“Yeah,” Piper said softly, turning back to the window.“That's what dreams do, though, isn't it?Feel real while you're in them.”
Jenna searched for the right words, sensing the importance of this moment but uncertain how to reply.
“Piper,” she asked carefully, “is something happening that you're not telling us about?”
The silence stretched long enough that Jenna thought her sister might not answer.Then the words came almost inaudibly: “Not yet.”
Jenna recognized the tone—it was the same one she'd heard in her own voice when she backed off from trying to explain her dreams to most listeners.The voice of someone who knows something others don't, something they won't believe.
Casting a sidelong glance at her sister, Jenna saw that her gaze was fixed on the passing landscape. She couldn’t tell if Piper was still fully present.Was her twin drifting away again, into the realm of voices only she could hear?Was something deeply wrong with Piper, something more than the obvious effects of her past traumas?
CHAPTER TWO
“You okay over there?”Jenna asked, her voice deliberately light.
Piper turned slowly, as if returning from a great distance.“I'm fine.Just thinking.”
Those words again.Just thinking.The same phrase Piper had used before asking her unsettling question: “Do you ever wonder if all this isn't real?”
The hospital came into view—a sprawling three-story brick building at the edge of Trentville.Jenna pulled into the parking lot and found a space near the east entrance, closest to the psychiatric wing where Dr.White's office was located.
"Here we are," Jenna announced unnecessarily.She turned off the engine but made no move to exit the vehicle.Instead, she turned fully toward her sister."Whatever's happening, Piper, we can face it together.That's what we missed out on for twenty years.I'm not missing another chance to be your sister."
Piper met her gaze, something vulnerable and uncertain in her green eyes—eyes identical to Jenna's own.For a moment, it seemed she might confide whatever troubled her.
Then the moment passed, and she reached for the door handle.“We're going to be late for the appointment.”
They walked side by side across the parking lot, their footsteps falling into an unconscious unison—the twin rhythm they'd shared since childhood.Jenna held the door open, and they entered the hospital's sterile interior, with its antiseptic smell.Familiar with their route, Jenna guided them past the main reception area toward the elevators.
In the elevator, Piper's reflection stared back at them from the polished metal doors—hollow-eyed and drawn.Jenna saw her own reflection too, the lines of worry around her eyes deeper than they had been just months before, when finding Piper had still been an impossible dream rather than this complicated reality.
They reached the third floor and made their way down the hushed corridor to Dr.White's office.The door was already open, and the office was bright with morning light.Rows of books lined the walls, and an oversized green armchair sat invitingly in one corner.
Dr.White rose to greet them as they entered, her silver hair gleaming under the soft lighting.
“Good morning, Jenna, Piper,” she said, her voice carrying the practiced warmth of decades in her profession.She gestured to the comfortable chairs arranged in a small circle.“Please, have a seat.”