The Brokenhearted by Amelia Kahaney Page A

mirror.
    “Just like a hummingbird’s,” she’s saying, “your chimeric heart beats ten times per second. It’s working so hard and so fast that it appears to have already reversed all the effects of hypothermia. Lucky, because I didn’t want to have to amputate your legs . . .”
    My eyes move back to the rat cage. The rats appear to speed up, their bodies almost flying in their wheel. I’m not sure if it’s because of their unnatural speed or my blurred vision. I put a hand to my chest, resting it lightly on top of the jagged line Ford warned me against examining. Knotted wires poke through the hospital gown. Stitches.
    Picturing it, the edges of my vision turn black. My legs start to give out. I stagger back to the gurney and grab hold of it. Inside me, there’s that fluttery sensation again, only now I know its source. A freakish hummingbird heart, beating ten times faster than my old one. Racing at 600 beats per minute. Pushing the blood through my veins faster than any human heart could, or should. Pumping hard and fast until the day it burns itself out.
    “My clothes,” I mumble, my eyes flicking across Ford’s face before I squeeze them shut against the dizzy whirling of the room. “I’m cold.”
    He nods, springing toward the door. “I bought some stuff for you. I’ll grab it.”
    “How long will I live?” I whisper frantically to Jax the moment Ford leaves the room.
    “If you’re very careful to resist torpor, you’ll live to a hundred, maybe longer.”
    “If I resist what?”
    “Think of your heart as like an engine. If a car sits in the garage for too many days, the engine will cease. Your heart is the same way. Your blood flow will slow if you’re too still for too long, or if you deprive it of fuel. This slowing of the system is called torpor, and it can kill you if you aren’t careful.”
    “What about when I sleep?”
    Jax shrugs. “We’ll observe you over the next few days and see how the heart responds to eight hours of REM state. After that, we’ll know more.”
    But I don’t have a few days , I want to scream. All I can think about is Gavin being dragged out the door by the kidnappers. If I’ve been here three days, I have less than forty-eight hours to get them their money.
    Jax taps the IV pole. “This is glucose. It’s been keeping your blood sugar steady. Once we disconnect you from the IV, you might find you’ll need to eat more often than you’re used to.”
    “I need to go home,” I say, my voice thick. “My parents . . .” I silently add, Gavin. Everything depends on getting that money to the kidnappers by tomorrow night. My stomach sinks as I stare at the rats trapped in their cage. Ford comes back, holding a carefully folded sweatshirt and workout pants with a pair of tube socks sitting on top. Under his arm are two shoeboxes. The tags are still on everything.
    “I had to guess your size,” he says apologetically. “I hope some of this fits.”
    I look at him, then at Jax. “Could I have some privacy?”
    “Of course,” they say in unison.
    Jax pauses in the doorway and turns around, her eyes tearing up. “Your recovery is truly astonishing, Anthem. If only this were legal, we would make history.” Her eye twitches as she leans into the room and continues. “Every scientist in the country would give their right arm to study you in their lab. For now, it’s best that we keep this between us.”
    A shudder ripples through me at the thought of being studied, hooked up to wires for the rest of my life. I nod and force a weak smile as she backs out of the lab.
    Alone again, I grit my teeth and rip the IV out of my hand. It stings and burns at the same time, but I manage to swallow my scream. There’s a little blood, so I grab a roll of gauze from the metal table and wrap it around my hand, ripping it with my teeth and tying it in a sloppy knot. I slip into the workout pants, rolling the waistband so the bottoms don’t drag on the floor, and