Creators(77)

“You abandoned your sons,” I blurted out. I didn’t know where it came from or why I said it, but once out, I couldn’t stop myself from continuing. “That’s where you creators went wrong. You were the most brilliant men in the whole world, and you tried to will our problems away. To cook up some solution in a lab. But the easiest solution is not always the best one. Your sons needed you, and you abandoned them. I’ll never do that to my children.” He had inherited this trait from his mother. She had abandoned her children, too.

“That’s what all creators think.”

“No, just the terrible ones,” I countered.

Harper sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. Not like any of it matters now. I am sorry for what my son did to you. It’s odd; I almost understand what Abrams must have felt like when he created the fail-safe. It’s strangely comforting to know my disappointment is no longer running around this world.”

“What is the fail-safe?” I asked, the blood pumping too loudly in my ears.

“I really shouldn’t say, but considering there is a chosen one outside this door waiting for my command to rip your limbs from your body, I might as well. You did do me a favor. The fail-safe is a way to kill all the chosen ones.”

All the oxygen was sucked from the room. I staggered away from Harper, clawing at my skin. It felt too tight. My father was going to kill all the chosen ones. He was going to kill James. I pulled in air through my noise. I couldn’t fall apart. Not now.

“How? How the hell does one do it?” I knew I only had seconds. Seconds to know how to destroy the fail-safe, because there was no way I was going to let anyone kill James. No way.

Suddenly, the door to the observation room banged against the wall. James. He had come for me. We would always be there to save each other.

I took a step toward him, desperate to wrap my arms around him. To make sure, absolutely sure, he was still with me.

But Harper’s voice halted me. “I wouldn’t suggest you do anything rash here, James. You make a move toward me, and it won’t save her. They’ll find you, and then they’ll just kill you both.”

“He’s right. Just leave. You can’t help me here.” I needed him to survive. Even if I couldn’t.

“Let us go,” James said. “We’re only two people. We aren’t rebels. We just want to be free.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it? You want what I could never give you. None of us have ever been free,” Harper replied sadly.

And then James snapped his neck.

…

James slammed the door to the observation room shut, grabbing the wooden chair and bracing it against the handle to keep it closed. Once the momentary shock wore off, I rushed to James and threw myself in his arms.

“Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right,” James breathed into my neck, wrapping his arms tightly around me.

I brought my head back so I could look at him. Seeing my bruised and battered face, he clutched onto my arms. “I’ll kill every last one of them,” he growled.

“Sssh, I’m fine. Are you okay?” I asked. It was difficult to find my voice. He had just killed a man. The world I lived in made me increasingly immune to watching the death of others, but seeing the boy I loved kill, that was never something I would get used to.

James’s face paled, and it was only then that I realized he was trembling. He had committed murder for me. I knew what that meant for him. He had been created to be a killer, and he had done everything he could to run from that destiny. What he had always feared about himself had come true: he had become a monster.

I reached up and took his face in my hands. “It’s going to be okay. You’re still you.”

James shook his head. He was no longer looking at me but past me. Searching for something bright in what now felt like a dark and desperate future. “I’m not sorry I killed them,” he said.

My stomach tightened. “Them?”

“Harper and the chosen one waiting outside the door. I killed them both.” James had stopped shaking, his body rigid with the memories of what he had done. He swallowed. “I didn’t see it, Tess. Any of it. I think they messed with my gift. Re-wired it when they tortured me. I can’t see anything when it comes to you. I can’t protect you from them. I heard they had taken you, and I came here. I killed them,” he repeated.

“I killed someone, too. Terrance,” I replied, my voice frantic. We probably only had minutes before the army of chosen ones descended on us. They would kill me on the spot, but my mind reeled thinking of the torture they would put James through before ending his life.