Chapter 162
Everett's First Memory
Everett was sixteen when his brother Samuel died.
Their mother told him Samuel had chosen to leave. Marisol told him Samuel had never existed. The clinic told him grief could be transferred.
Everett chose the clinic.
He sat in the first room and watched the machine copy the moment he heard the news.
“I did not start this,” the boy said.
The adult Everett appeared beside him.
“I only wanted the pain to belong to someone else.”
Claire answered, “Then you built a world where it did.”
The boy looked at her.
“Would you have done differently?”
Claire thought of the four hours, Lena's coat, and the chair.
“I would have asked.”
The memory cracked.
Room Twenty-Nine opened beneath the clinic's first room.