* * *

Pegasus glanced at his watch, readjusting his posture. He was getting tired. His endurance was still at a low.

Sarah was showing more than obvious signs of her annoyance. But this was supposed to be grueling. That was when people showed their true selves.

“How should I know if it was raining or not when I was born? It’s not like I checked the weather that day to make sure it suited me.”

He ignored her exasperation. “What was the name of the woman who thought you were her daughter?”

Sarah stared him down. “I didn’t bother asking her name, I was too busy screaming for my mommy. I was three years old!”

“Four, actually,” Pegasus said with a glance at the paper.

“Whatever,” Sarah muttered.

“What year did your parents get married?”

Sarah crossed her arms. “And I would know this… because?”

He pointed at the page with the remaining questions. “We still have to finish this.”

“This is ridiculous.” Sarah pushed her chair back, almost disconnecting a wire when she moved. She glanced at the wire and readjusted her position.

The wires were serving their purpose well. He’d always found that when people were given something else to worry about, they usually paid less attention to what they should.

“How’s anyone supposed to know all this?” she asked. “I mean, do you know what your favorite baby food was? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t steak and that’s about it.”

“Sorry, but we have to go over all these questions.”

“Is this like a secret government experiment where you’re going to clone me but you need detailed info first?”

Pegasus laughed. That was some imagination. Completely off the mark, but still some imagination. And the reasoning behind it wasn’t that far off. “Pretend it’s all part of a self-awareness program if it helps.”

Sarah relaxed a little, though she didn’t return the smile. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I don’t know the answers.”

She rolled her eyes at his misinterpretation. “Why didn’t Scorpion keep going then? It’s more questions.”

“She had to be somewhere else. And you seemed unwilling to keep talking to her.”

“So why didn’t you do the entire interrogation? That’s why you’re here now, isn’t it?” she asked coldly. “Because you can get me to talk?”

“I rarely do the questioning.”

“And why’s that?”

He shrugged. “Ready to get back to it? Just a few more questions left.”

“Can’t you at least tell me why this is so important? I mean, really? You think I’m someone pretending to be me?”

“We’re trying to be sure.”

“Who’s the daytime soap opera fan? I think you’re taking this fear of identical twins a little too seriously. Can’t you guys test my DNA? Dental records, fingerprints, stuff like that?”

Pegasus could almost feel her frustration. He couldn’t blame her.

The truth was they’d already checked all that, and everything matched down to the last tooth filling. Physically, there was nothing to suggest she wasn’t exactly who they thought she was.

That would normally mean the chance that she wasn’t the real Sarah was null, but they didn’t deal with normal. And the slightest chance still seemed great when there were lives at stake.

It’d been his theory initially, but he wasn’t sure what he believed. He suspected that the puppeteers behind the New Nation had been trying to replace Sarah with one of their own agents. But if the girl sitting in front of him was the real one like he thought, then they’d failed.

It wasn’t far-fetched to hope that the attempt itself or the steps they’d taken towards that attempt would yield some information. The previous spy had been killed before anyone had got anything out of him.

Pegasus rolled his shoulders, trying to relax his muscles. He’d been feeling progressively worse throughout the interrogation, but procedure had to be followed. Until she was cleared, they couldn’t trust anything Sarah told them.

“We’re almost done,” he promised both of them. “Who was your best friend in second grade?”

“Wait, I know this,” she said with fake enthusiasm. “Amy. I think.” Apparently, she was back to being uncooperative.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Ever break anything? Arm, leg?”

Sarah shook her head. “Does mom’s vase count?”

“We’re not doing this to annoy you,” Pegasus said patiently.

Sarah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine, what’s next?”

Pegasus went through the remaining questions. They ranged from personal history that she barely remembered to recent events like the last time she’d gone to the mall, which she was worse at remembering. A few she flat out refused to answer, like the ones about her ex-boyfriend.

Sarah sunk down in her seat, careful not to disturb the wires. “Might as well been tied down for all the freedom of movement this gives.” She poked at a wire attached to her wrist, distracted. “There can’t possibly be anything left to ask, right?”

He closed the file. There was nothing more to ask from the script.

“Really? We’re done?”

“One last question,” he whispered. “Were you serious when you asked me about finding a place here?” This question wasn’t on his list. He wanted to know.

“Yes, I was. You didn’t have to turn it into a joke.” Anger flashed in her eyes. It was obvious she hadn’t liked that he told someone about that.

He believed she was sincere, but he’d been fooled—or plain wrong—more than once. He might not be as good at reading people as everyone seemed to think. Or maybe they all saw what they wanted to see, including him.

* * *

Robyn turned off the sound, but left the image on the screen in the observation room. All in all, nothing horrible had happened during the interrogation.

“She’s very spirited,” Zeus said from behind her.

Robyn almost jumped out of her skin. She’d been so focused on Sarah and Pegasus’ talk and her own thoughts that she hadn’t realized he’d come in.

Twice in one day. That certainly wasn’t a good sign.

“She reminds me of you when we first met. Do you remember?”

Robyn smiled, unsure if he was thinking of a specific event. “Was I really that much of a pain?”

She handed him the file where she’d been marking Sarah’s answers and Zeus started looking them over.

“What do you think?” he asked as he read.

“She’s Sarah.”

“There are over two hundred questions here. It looks like she couldn’t answer at least half. Several questions took her too long to answer and in several she changed her answer.”

“It’s so sloppy it has to be true type thing?”

Zeus’ expression remained unchanged.

“That’s her alright. The behavior is hers, down to the last grin and glare. That’s Sarah, I know it is.”

He met her gaze. Gone was the friendly father figure. “But is she your Sarah?”

Robyn looked at him evenly and nodded. “She’s the real thing.”

“Alright. You should get back to work.”

Robyn glanced at the screen. Sarah was still sitting in the room. Pegasus was removing the wires. “What about Sarah?”

Zeus unmuted the com. “Pegasus, take her to a room on five until we discuss her results.”

Pegasus gave a subtle nod towards the camera as he finished packing everything up.

* * *

“What now?” Sarah asked. Her nervous system had apparently decided she hadn’t been nervous enough before.

Well, it was too late now, but welcome to the party, sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Pegasus set aside the folder and turned off the screen on the machine that he’d ignored the entire time. “I’ll take you to your room.”

Sarah followed him out without protest. Even going back to her cell sounded like a good idea after all the time spent in this other locked room.

At the end of a hallway, where it split in two, Pegasus went right when she was turning left. He stopped in his tracks, preventing them from running into each other.

“Aren’t we going back to my cell?”

“Yes, we are.” He gestured to the right, not bothering to correct her use of the word.

She could swear they should have gone left. “Did I get turned around?”

“No.”

Was he having fun being cryptic? “Am I getting a new room that really looks like a cell this time?”

“Not yet. But you are getting a new room.”

Despite his words, Sarah was expecting a real cell.

The hallway they wound up in was on a different floor. The darker shade of gray on the walls gave it away if nothing else. Nothing else looked different. She couldn’t tell any of the doors apart despite how closely she looked.

It wasn’t until they went inside her new room that she noticed the difference. This was as different from a cell as she could hope for in this place.

A bed that didn’t look like it had been stolen from a hospital was the first thing she noticed.

Two comfortable-looking armchairs sat in the opposite corner—a half-finished reading nook someone forgot to add books to. A full-length mirror hung on the wall facing the bed. The door on the other side of the bed, standing ajar, led to a small bathroom.

Pegasus stopped at the outer door. “Someone will bring your clothes over later.”

She nodded absentmindedly. Nothing here was hers. She’d been living off of Robyn’s borrowed clothes so far. Her sister had a whole other wardrobe in this place. It explained why some of her clothes would vanish from their closet for a while and then miraculously reappear. Had that been the fate of the flowy blue shirt she let Robyn borrow last year?

“Sarah? How are you feeling?”

“Why? Do you need something to fill in the last two pages of your report?” She regretted snapping at him a second after the words left her mouth. But she didn’t take it back.

“Just checking. Try to get some rest.” He pulled the door closed as he left.

Sarah didn’t bother checking the lock. She recognized the sound by now. This was a nicer cell, but a cell nonetheless. She glanced at the ceiling. How many tiles would this room have?

Her reflection caught her attention as she walked towards the bed. There were circles that were too dark under her eyes, and hair that hadn’t seen a comb or brush in days. But what bothered her most was her gaze.

Her eyes were hollow.

Was there nothing left of her?

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but her reflection remained unaffected.

She slammed a hand against the mirror as if it were at fault, but all that did was send a spike of pain along her side. Holding in a scream, she cursed herself.

She wanted out of this nightmare.

“I wanna go home,” she whispered to her reflection. As soon as the words escaped, she clamped her hand over her mouth.

It wasn’t home she wanted, it was her family. She turned her back to the mirror, holding in her sobs.

Whatever version of herself the mirror showed, she couldn’t bear to see.

* * *

Pegasus hesitated at the end of the hallway. Exhaustion and embarrassment were currently playing a tug of war within his mind.

He shouldn’t have reacted poorly and walked out when Sarah snapped at him. There was no one else she could talk to since Robyn was still avoiding her.

As of now, she wasn’t considered a huge security risk. They had cleared her as best they could under the circumstances, and there wasn’t a lot of damage she could do from inside a locked room. Even if she killed him, that would be on him.

He took a step towards the elevator, stopped again. There was nothing urgent he needed to deal with.

What should he do?

As usual, what he should, what he could, and what he wanted to do were conflicting.

He turned on his heel, heading back to Sarah’s room.

Wasn’t that always how he got in trouble?