The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die

“I don’t know anything. What’s wrong with me, where I am, who they are. And when I try to think about who I am, what I get is: nothing. A big gray hole. All I know for sure is that I must be in trouble.” 

The protagonist has no recollection of who she is or of what’s going on, further adding to the plot and the immediate trouble she’s in. Not only is she in dire circumstances, she doesn’t know why she is in trouble.

“Someone was obviously looking for something, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know if they found it.”

This quote is forewarning for the rest of the narrative, as the reader comes to learn that the men are indeed looking for something that they think the narrator has. This is central to the plot of the narrative.

“He’ll finish me off. Kill me.”

The insane conclusion of the chapter comes to a reality when the narrator realizes that she is in fact being dragged to a place where she’ll be killed, even though she has no idea why.

“Don’t act. Be.” 

The narrator first hears this motif as a voice whispering in her head. The motif allows her to remain calm in times of extreme duress and is later revealed to be tied to her past as an actress.

“All my moves were automatic. I didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to remember anything. Whoever I am, I already know how to do this.” 

The narrator realizes that even though she doesn’t know who she is, she has muscle memory, and this allows her to injure her attacker and flee, thus adding to the plot of who she really is.

“I kick through the mess on the floor, push the coat aside, and stare at myself. At me. At who I must be. Only it’s a face I don’t recognize.” 

The narrator is traumatized to see her bruised face in a mirror and initially raises a gun to the image, thinking it someone else, but she’s even more traumatized that she has no recollection of herself or what she looks like.

“I am that girl. I look in the mirror again and back down. Even though I think I’m a little older than the girl in the photo, it’s clearly me. I have no idea who the rest of them are.” 

The photo is the narrator’s first glimpse at her family and a past that she doesn’t remember. The photo will become instrumental to the narrator as she pieces together her life and where her family is.

“Put that way, it sounds kind of crazy.”

Cady realizes that, due to not knowing who she is, her story sounds entirely crazy to the police officer. This adds complexity to the plot in that the narrator learns shortly after this that she’s allegedly escaped from a mental institution.

“You’re an inpatient at Sagebrush. You attacked a counselor there—Michael Brenner—and fled in his car.” 

Officer Dillow tells Cady this after he gets off the phone with Kirk Nowell, who is posing as a psychiatric doctor. The stakes are raised now as new information indicates that the narrator is an escaped mental patient. This information proves problematic, however, in that the narrator has very real memories of awaking tortured and being dragged to her would-be death.

“Would I believe Ty if he were telling me the same story? The scary thing is I don’t think I would.”

Cady again realizes that while she desperately wants someone to believe her and trust her, if the roles were reversed, she probably wouldn’t believe the story she’s been telling people either. Even though her account is the truth, she knows she has no evidence to support her story.

“I want so badly to be that girl again. The girl I sued to be. The girl I don’t remember. The girl who smiled and had something to celebrate.”

Cady wants to go back to a life she doesn’t remember, but in that life, she seems happy and safe. More than anything, she wants to feel safe and comfortable.

“I need so much I can’t even name it. But Ty has given me what I need most. A feeling of safety, if only for a little while.”

Even though Ty has just met “Katie,” he’s been able to give her the one thing that’s been missing since she fled from the cabin: safety. He’s taken her in, even though he doesn’t know much about her.

“The few facts I know shift and fall into a different perspective, like twisting a kaleidoscope.” 

This is a perfect description of how Cady’s mind has been working while trying to uncover the truth about her past. She has different pieces that she must try and move together to make a bigger, more complete picture.

“If I never remember them and they’re already dead—as I am beginning to fear they must be—will it be as if they were never alive?” 

Cady’s fear of her parents being dead speaks at a more horrible fear: if she can’t remember them, what will grieving be like, and what will the revelation be like if they really are dead? Although her family is more of an abstract idea, Cady is still bound by an unseen familial bond.

“It’s already clear that something bad happened to me. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to push restart on my brain.” 

Cady and Ty discover that she has something called a fugue amnesia state, meaning that she in fact has experienced something so traumatic that her brain has blocked all memory of the past to try and protect her. Cady also learns that she should eventually get her memory back.

“As I pull on my sock and shoe, I turn to the doctor, wishing I could tell her everything. Wishing an adult could be in charge.” 

Although Cady is playing a role to distract everyone, she wants nothing more than to confide in the woman helping her because the female doctor is an adult. This highlights that Cady wants a family-like figure to take charge and make her feel safe.

“The reason my brain shut down? It’s because the person I love most in the world is dead.” 

The actual reason for Cady’s fugue state amnesia, which has been a major plot in the narrative, is finally revealed: Z-Biotech has killed her 3-year-old brother, or so she thinks, which has resulted in her memory block.

“The human mind is very suggestible.”

Elizabeth Tanzir reveals that Cady has been duped this entire time by Z-Biotech. They used a chimp to make her think her brother had been killed, thus causing the fugue state amnesia she’s been victim to.

“Sometimes the ends do justify the means. And in this case, our end goal is to make a lot of money.” 

Elizabeth blatantly admits that Z-Biotech’s ruthless tactics—and their purpose in trying to obtain the vaccine—is to make money by selling it as a bioweapon. Z-Biotech workers uses greed to rationalize their crimes.

“She said my parents didn’t come to the cabin because they didn’t care. That can’t be true, can it? But what if the real reason they didn’t come is even worse?” 

Elizabeth has been planting seeds of doubt in Cady’s mind, suggesting that her parents didn’t care for her safety. Even this close to figuring out the truth, Cady still has doubts about the reality of things.

“But this time I know I’m safe.”

Cady’s life has come far from the beginning of the narrative when she had no idea who she was or where she was. She hasn’t felt safe for some time now but lying in bed with her mother next to her, she can finally feel safe.

“It’s amazing to think each one [snowflake] is different […] ‘Just like people.” 

Ty and Cady ruminate on the differences in snowflakes and compare them to how unique human beings are. They’re able to have such a contemplative conversation now that they are out of danger.

“The government is now making a new batch of the hantavirus vaccine.”

The Scotts find relief in knowing that the hantavirus and vaccine has fallen into the right hands. The government is helping farmers now to combat the hantavirus. Essentially, good has overcome evil, and the virus will not be used as a weapon, like Z-Biotech intended.