“What are you talking about?” Riley narrows her eyes in confusion. “Of course you want it.”
I don’t know how to answer. I’m not entirely sure if I can make sense of it in my head, but I don’t want to change the way I am now.
“I’m afraid.” I barely get the words out.
Riley turns to face me as she runs her hand up my arm. I’m shaking, but I hadn’t realized it before she touched me, calmed me.
“Of what?” she asks.
“A lot of things.” I take another deep breath and try to find the right words. “If I’m not one of your super-soldiers anymore, what am I? How am I supposed to protect you?”
“You don’t need to protect me, Galen.”
“Of course I do.”
“I spent nearly thirty years without a protector.” She raises an eyebrow at me.
“That was before you defected. Even if they think you are a hostage now, eventually they’ll figure it all out. It’s not like you’d be able to ever go back there and do the same work again.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“And your knowledge of the project makes you a target. My guess is, you also have enemies here. Some will think you’re a spy. Others might not like your participation in Project Mindstorm, and there will be some who will only see you as your father’s daughter. You won’t be safe if I can’t protect you.”
“That isn’t a reason for you to have to…to stay like this forever.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You don’t owe that to me, Galen,” she says. “You should…well, you should be angry with me, not feel indebted.”
“It’s not a matter of obligation.” I’m not explaining myself well, and I’m growing frustrated. “I’m not angry—not at you and not because of what you did. I’m angry that my memories were stolen from me, but I have those back now. I want to protect you. I want to be with you.”
“We would still be together,” Riley says. “But you shouldn’t have to rely on drug treatments for the rest of your life.”
I’m not getting through to her, and I need to make her understand. I don’t trust what Donald Cross and the others may have planned for me, and I will need someone on my side if they insist on altering me. If it turns into a fight, where would I take Riley to keep her safe?
I run my fingers up and down her arm, searching for the words.
“There are thousands of things going through my head all the time,” I tell her. “Every second of every minute of every hour, information about whatever is around me, tactical plans regarding what to do if someone comes in the room and threatens you, or escape routes if I need to flee quickly all run through my head. It’s all there, all the time. There’s only one thing that stops it and gives me a little mental peace.”
“What’s that?”
“You.” I coil my arm around her waist and pull her closer to me and stare into her eyes. “Everything is worth it because of you. I don’t want that to change.”
“Why would that change?”
“What if…what if…” I can’t bring myself to say the words.
Riley tightens her grip on my arm and shifts on the bed to better look me in the face.
“What is it?” she asks.
“What if Errol can break the connections, and I don’t need all those drugs anymore? What if all that works out perfectly, but in the end…”
I stop, and my gut clenches. The thought feels as if it’s burning through my skull.
“Just say it, Galen.” She strokes my face gently with her fingertips.
“I don’t want the feelings I have for you to go away.” I keep my gaze on her, pleading.
There are tears in the corners of her eyes. The conflict there is evident—she doesn’t want it to change, either, and she has the same fear. She knows if I revert to the way I was, there is no telling how I will react to her. I feel pressure behind my own eyes as she bites her lip and glances away from me.
“I don’t want the feelings you have to be based on a chemical reaction.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“I don’t care how they got there. I just don’t want them to go away. I can’t risk that—I won’t.”
“We took your life away,” Riley says. She reaches up and wipes the back of her hand over her cheek. “I was a part of that.”
“What life?”
“Everything you had…everything you were.”
“Riley…” I sigh hard, still unable to find the right words to make her understand. “My parents had been gone a long time. The land my family had farmed for generations was desolate. My sister was dead. What kind of life did I have?”