He had betrayed everything he was created for.
The battle between creator and created. Had it always existed?
James placed a hand under my chin and lifted my face so his eyes could dance with mine. Perhaps for the last time. “You did what you had to do, and I am glad you did.”
“You did what you had to do, too,” I said weakly.
James merely nodded, and I knew he would never see it that way. He had done the one thing he had promised himself he would never do. He had killed—and killed mercilessly. I stood on the tips of my toes and pressed my desperate lips against his. It took a moment before he responded, but when he did, his anxiousness matched my own.
James sighed, pressing his forehead against mine. “What kind of world does this? Makes us into these things?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wish there was a way to fix it, go back, but that’s not possible.”
Hadn’t Abrams said these very things to me? Hadn’t the world, a dark and twisted place, made her into a mirror image? She had found a way to go back and fix it—to simply let it die out.
James didn’t speak or move. He simply stared at me. His eyes were darkened by the thoughts that lived inside of him. I hesitantly walked closer and pressed my lips against the scar on his chin. “We’re not just this,” I whispered.
His eyes began to water. “Not just this,” he repeated. He took my head into his hands and kissed me softly on the forehead.
The door wailed and moaned. They had come for us.
James managed a simple smile. He leaned forward and lightly brushed his lips against mine. Despite the way my heart thrashed about my chest, every cell in my body lit up at his touch.
James walked to the door and removed the chair. His shoulders squared and his hands in fists by his sides, he readied himself for whatever would come next. He opened the door.
“There you two are! We got a damn battle going on out here, and you’re in here making out.”
My mouth fell open. Standing before me was Henry.
The air rushed from my lungs and my eyes grew wide. How was it possible?
“Henry!” I screamed, running to my best friend and embracing him.
“Easy there, Tess! I did get impaled with a stick in the neck.” He laughed.
I untangled myself from his arms and reached up gingerly to touch the bandage at his neck. “But how? They killed Thomas and Harry. Everyone from the compound was dead. Who helped you?”
“I definitely deserve to win the friend of the year award,” boasted a gun-toting Lockwood as he entered the room behind Henry.
My lips pulled into a grin at the sight of him. Lockwood hugged me. “Louisa sends her love,” he said.
“Is she okay?”
“Demanding as ever but doing well.”
“Being demanding is a family trait,” Henry joked.
“I still don’t understand. Were you following us?” I asked Lockwood.
“Yep. Seems your sister didn’t trust your father either. I was an hour behind you. When I found Henry here nearly bled out, I used some of the things Sharon taught me and stitched him up. He’s the biggest baby in the world, by the way.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I believe it.”
“As much as I’d love to sit and watch this happy little reunion , we have a revolution to start,” a third new voice said as he entered the room.
My father.
Chapter 30
“I can’t believe Charlie trusts the bastard,” Henry told me as I led him down to the basement where the incubating chosen ones were kept. My father had sent the two of us to guard the room, to make sure that once the council found out we had infiltrated their headquarters, they wouldn’t send someone to wake them.
So far, my father’s arrival, along with that of several of his soldiers, had gone undetected. George had set up a rendezvous point several miles outside of the headquarters. After putting into motion his plan to have Terrance attack me, George met with my father, using his knowledge of secrets, codes, and pathways to sneak in my father, his men, and Henry and Lockwood. I couldn’t figure why George would convince Terrance to attack me…except that it had turned James into a killer. And maybe that’s what he needed him to be for his plan to work. He was a genius when it came to manipulating people.
“I don’t think my father trusts anybody. He just doesn’t pass up an opportunity for destruction when he sees one,” I replied, constantly looking back over my shoulder as we walked down the corridor to the basement.
“You’re being too hard on him,” Henry countered.
I stopped and spun around to face him. “He almost got you killed. He knew those chosen ones wouldn’t take you to the headquarters. He used you to make the story believable.”