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you slipped into a coma at all,” Dr. Siders said. “You had no evidence of brain injury, and no other explanation for your condition.”
    “It is possible for a drug overdose to push a person into a coma,” Dr. Carver said. Dr. Siders frowned at him.
    “Overdose?” Shauna echoed.
    “A blood test showed traces of MDMA in your system, enough to make you unsafe on the road—”
    “MD what?”
    “Ecstasy. It’s impossible to know how much you actually had—”
    “I never had any !” Even though she couldn’t remember, Shauna knew in the deepest part of her that she never would have done such a thing. Never.
    Would she?
    “The tests were quite—”
    Dr. Siders held up two hands. “Let’s slow this train down. No one is being attacked here.”
    Dr. Carver raised his eyebrows but finally sat and let Dr. Siders take over the explanation.
    “When your coma entered its second week, Senator McAllister ordered the pharmaceutical branch of MMV to take your case. Coma patients’ chances of full recovery decline sharply after five weeks. Even without a brain injury to worry about, everyone was pressed with the need to bring you around, if we could, before then.”
    Shauna was sure her father’s campaign had applied most of the pressure. MMV would’ve loved to get their hands on her in the midst of a presidential campaign. It made sense, at least when it came to generating sympathy for the frontrunner. That kind of medical breakthrough in a personal crisis would be huge for soft-hearted voters.
    Dr. Carver cleared his throat. “We’ve been testing the applications of a new drug cocktail in trauma patients, and we believed it might stimulate your brain out of its coma. We theorized that your brain shut down as the result of some kind of overwhelming shock rather than physical injury.”
    “You’re saying my brain couldn’t handle a simple car accident?”
    “It was hardly simple, Ms. McAllister, but yes. This was the idea anyway.”
    “And your psychological tests so far have supported this,” Dr. Harding said.
    Dr. Carver continued. “The cocktail includes a complex combination of antianxiety meds, including propranolol and D-cycloserine—you’ve heard of these?” Shauna shook her head. “It’s got a few other things in there too. These were originally developed to treat conditions like hypertension, but they’ve been successful in recent years in treating victims of violent crimes, war injuries, that sort of thing. They reduce patients’ stress and speed up their recovery time.”
    “By erasing memories?” she asked.
    Dr. Harding shook her head hard enough to give her mass of curls a lift.
    “No no no. Though that kind of technology isn’t so far out of reach anymore. No, these drugs work by suppressing the intensity of the emotions associated with your memory. Their impact becomes less traumatic over the long term.”
    Less traumatic than what the last three days had been like?
    “And these drugs work two weeks after the event?”
    Dr. Carver crossed his arms. “In your case it did, though that was an unknown. MMV’s formula is unique in that it also incorporates the latest pharmacogenomics technology.” He hesitated, as if explaining it to her might be an insult. She was, after all, the daughter of MMV’s founder and president. When she blinked, he continued, “That means we adapt the chemical balance of the drugs to match your personal response to each element—a response determined by your unique genetic code.”
    Shauna blinked again.
    “You messed with my genes ?”
    Dr. Carver chuckled, which Shauna found irritating. “No, we ‘messed with’ the drugs, based on what we know about your genes.”
    The weight of her already heavy heart grew. She had taken drugs—unbelievable—and been given drugs, and now her mind was a black hole she might never climb out of. Her hands began to tremble. She wished Wayne had stayed.
    “It’s complicated, but progressive. We’ll keep you on the