D.N.A: Does Not Assimilate
Nine

"Doe?"

Curled up on the corner of the couch in the sitting area of the hospital, knees tucked up to her chest, Niyota watched the television. Appeared to be anyway. Cartoons had been put on by the staff for those more traumatized of the patients, no inappropriateness or violence that most other shows were accustomed to. She could've given two shits about it. Niyota was consumed by thoughts of all that had happened in the last couple of days; well the last year in the police detective could be believed.

"Doe!" someone yelled louder.

The girl still failed to make a response. Niyota was aware that she was the one that the hospital staff member was referring to, the only "Doe" presently admitted into the hospital. When she had failed to inform them of her "real" name, no one believing that she could be the real Niyota Y'Fell, they'd put her down as Jane Doe. In their estimation by calling her by the name she wanted, she was getting people to buy into the so-called fantasy world she'd created for herself and less likely for her to be cured.

She snorted. Yeah, right. Eventually these people were going to have to come to terms with the fact that this wasn't some fucking fantasy she had created in her mind. That she was the real Niyota Y'Fell and the girl going around with that same name was an imposter who'd merely stolen her life from her. Eventually, but obviously, that realization wasn't today. The hospital staff and local police department were just too fucking stupid for that.

Someone came up behind her. "Doe."

Her gaze remained focused ahead of her.

A hand touched her shoulder.

Finally dragging her gaze away from the television screen at the hand that came down on her shoulder, aware that she couldn't pretend it wasn't there. Looking through slitted eyes at the orderly that had come to stand behind her, the same one that had been calling her for the last ten minutes. Niyota smiled. "What?"

"You have a visitor," he said.

Oh, yippee. A visitor.

Unfolding her legs from beneath her at the realization that someone had come out to the hospital to see her, she pushed up to her feet. Tossing the pillow she'd been clutching back onto the couch, she walked around the side of the couch and came to stand next to the orderly, "Who's here?"

"Just go Doe," he grumbled.

Immediately pulled up to an abrupt halt at the man's demand, Niyota slowly turned around to face him and looked up the foot that separated their heights. "My name isn't Doe. I'm Niyota Y'Fell."

He shoved her shoulder. "In your dreams."

Biting her tongue to keep from saying anything that could be construed as fighting back, not wanting to give these people any more reason to think she was crazy. Accepting that for the time being, the orderly had the upper hand, Niyota turned back around and continued across the sitting area floor. Ignoring the response her departure received from the rest of the patients, giggling and laughing and squawking, proving how crazy they really were. And people thought that she was one of these people and belonged in this hell hole. Obviously no one had taken the chance to meet a real lunatic, else they wouldn't have these thoughts.

Shown into the conference room on the other side of the hospital ward, where a select few of the patients at Greenwood took their visitors. Those construed to be the most dangerous and lethal. Her among the group. Groaning in frustration as she saw the man sitting on one side of the table, immediately recognizing him by his profile. "It's you again."

"Hello," Detective Gerald warmly greeted at seeing that his guest had finally arrived, motioning a hand to an empty chair across the table from him. "Why don't you take a seat?"

Crossing the floor at the invitation the man had made, though fully aware it was an order from the police officer, she pulled out the chair. Plopping down on the plush softness of the chair, leaning back casually and crossing her legs, turquoise eyes stared moodily at the man. "What are you doing here? I thought I'd seen the last of you when you tossed me away inside of this nuthouse like garbage."

"Why you?" the orderly began.

"You can leave Simon," Gerald said in a deep voice, eyes immediately switching in the direction of the orderly, a silent warning in them it was best not to ignore. When the man had eventually walked out the doors he'd brought her through, he returned his gaze to the girl, softer than it'd been a second ago. "I didn't toss you away anywhere. You're in need of help Greenwood can give you."

"So you think me crazy?" Niyota snapped back, angry that people continued to look down upon her like some vermin, when she hadn't done anything wrong. Well, aside from reclaiming the family stolen from her, the life ripped away from her without a care for her thoughts and feelings. "You should spend one hour with the other patients here and then you will see who's really crazy. I merely told you the truth and in your incompetence of accepting what I say, you've classified me as insane. If being the only one in the world who knows the truth and accepts it is insanity, then I guess I truly am crazy after all."

He sighed, "I'm only trying to help."

That grated on her nerves, worse than his presence there. "Why do you even care?" Niyota snapped, hands clenched tightly together in her lap and gritting her teeth, doing her best to restrain the anger steadily brewing to the surface. "Why does what happens to me matter to you so damned much?"

"It just does," Gerald said.

"Well," she sneered in derision, allowing the man to see all the anger that had been festering inside of her, seeing no reason to hold back her feelings now. "If you cared so damned much about me, then you would protect my father. He's in danger and none of you even care."

"You're not Niyota Y'Fell."

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"Yes I am," she growled.

Opening up the file laid out on the table, that seemed to be getting thicker and thicker each time they saw each other, a finger skimmed through the information. Leaning forward in his chair at that, and folding his hands together on the tabletop, Scott stared across the table at her. "You say that you're Niyota Y'Fell, and so does the other. So how about getting to the bottom of that now? I'm going to ask questions and you will do your best to answer."

So he wanted to play a game of twenty questions? All in a guise to get her to prove that she wasn't who she claimed to be, but she didn't allow that realization to get her down any. He'd be the one proven wrong in the end. Slouching back in the chair, feet kicked up on the table and crossed, Niyota motioned to him with a gesture of her hand. "Okay, detective. Give it your best shot." "Mother?"

She rolled her eyes heavenward. "You don't even seem to be trying. Very well then. Alisha Naomi Marx, born February 12, 1971 to Adaleen and George Marx, in Phoenix Arizona. In nineteen-eighty-nine, at the ripe age of eighteen, she met Charles Daniel Y'Fell, a data analyst at WenCorp. Theirs was a whirlwind romance. Six weeks later they were married. Three years after their marriage, in nineteen-ninety-two, she gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. Niyota Rina Y'Fell, at twelve fifteen in the morning. Four pounds, two ounces. In nineteen-ninety-nine, she was murdered in a dark alley, the only witness was her seven-year-old daughter. Me. I held her for three hours, her blood soaking my clothes, screaming for help and watched the light leave her eyes."

"I see," Gerald gulped convulsively, consumed by emotions at the events recounted to him, having not expected what had come out of her mouth. Brushing away the moisture that misted in his eyes, pushing it off as sweat beading his brow, he moved on to the next question on the list. "Allergies?"

"Hmm let me see," Niyota murmured, going through her memories since birth, wanting to give this man the exact account of what he was searching for. "Tuna. Latex. Mold, but I guess everyone's affected by that. Wasps. Cat hair. Numerous scented oils. I also have seasonal allergies if you're wondering."

He marked that off. "Dating anyone?"

"Of course, I do. Well, before I disappeared a year ago I was dating Mark Williams, as I had been for nearly a year, but as of right now I can't be certain." It all depended on what her look-alike had been doing for the last year, while Niyota had been inside a cave held captive by her abductors. "And before you ask, I was fourteen and a freshman, when I met Mark at a car wash fundraiser for the football team. I'd accidentally bumped into him and knocked him into a kiddie pool. As his friends would say, he'd been hooked ever since."

Gerald murmured thoughtfully as he skimmed through the folder before him, probably mounted full of information on the real Niyota Y'Fell. "Medical records show that Niyota Y'Fell was rushed to the ER two years ago, suffering from multiple fractures, a few broken bones and cracked ribs. Mind telling me what happened?"

"No problem," she assured him, immediately knowing what the man was referring to her, the memory coming back to her as clear as day. "My dad had been out of town on business. Like always my best friends Lance and Steff were staying over. You have to understand, the two absolutely hate each other, but deal with each other for my sake. We'd been horsing around in my bedroom, having a pillow fight. I'd never been one much for cleaning and slipping on clothes on the floor, I toppled over the desk and right out the window. I was lucky to be alive."

"Family?" he persisted.

She shook her head. "Don't have much in the way of one. My mother was orphaned as a child and was an only sibling. On my father's side, though he has a couple of family members still kicking, I never really got the chance to know any of them. Just my Uncle Kyle. He moved to Hawaii after he retired from the FBI ten years ago and opened up a resort. He seems to be doing real good, making quite a profit and fell in love with one of his waiters, who was a local girl there. Last I heard he was thinking of marrying her. Which I consider to be a little late in the game, since they already have two little boys together. Jeremiah and Legos. Four and one."

Just a heads up: Narugi.com is the only place to read the complete version of this book for free. Don't miss out on the next chapter-visit us now and continue your journey! "Favorite color?"

"Silver."

"Favorite holiday?"

She smiled tenderly. "My father's birthday. Yeah, I know, it's not exactly a holiday. At least, not one anyone else would care about, but it is to me. The chance to dote on him hand and foot and praise the man who had given me such a wonderful life. Nothing is more perfect than that. His birthday was a month before I disappeared. I managed to talk him into leaving town for the occasion. We traveled to New York. Ate at the original Spaghetti Factory. It's his favorite place. Then over dinner, I gave him his birthday present. A silver pocket watch. I'd a miniature of me and Mom built into it, with an inscription. Far and wide. A symbol that looks like an eight. Means forever and eternity. It was our little thing, something no one else in the world knew."

"One last thing," he said. "Who is Nate?"

The tears fell before she had the chance to stop them, lower lip trembling, his question dredging up memories long since buried. Dropping her head in the palm of her hands, Niyota sobbed into them. "My brother," she choked out, coughing as emotion took over her. Then she looked up at him, allowing him to see the grief and despair on her face, to witness that this wasn't some ploy to get him to believe her. "Nathaniel Iyne Y'Fell. He was my brother. My twin brother. We were three when one day we were playing in the living room, mama in the kitchen and Dada out of town, when Nate suddenly just fell to the ground. He just stopped breathing. Nothing Mama did could save him. He was rushed to the hospital, but there was nothing anyone could do. He was dead upon arrival."

"Thank you."

Aware that Detective Gerald intended to bring an end to their conversation, having one last thing to say, the only hope she had of convincing him. "One last thing detective," Niyota called after him as he started to climb to his feet. "Did she, this imposter who stole my life, tell you the real Niyota smoked cigarettes?"

Gerald jerked around. "What?"

Rising to her feet, Niyota bobbed her head and grinned smugly. "I may have acted like this perfect little angel, but the image was only surface deep. There were times when I didn't act exactly as my father would want me to. I was fourteen when I had my first cigarette, favorite brand is Marlboro. Mark took me to a party, where I drank and smoked pot for the first time. From then on out I had no less than one joint a month." "There's no record," he protested.

She shook her head sadly. "Not everything I did is on paper, detective. My father never found out about my habits, I was extra careful to maintain myself. If you don't believe me, go ask Lance Atkins and Steffani Barklo. Both of them can confirm my story."

"I'll do that."