Unforgotten(107)

“They’ll know the moment we arrive,” I tell him.

He nods. “What do we do?”

I think about that morning on the Pattinsons’ farm. When I slashed it out with a knife in a fit of rage. How fast it grew back.

“We can cut them out,” I say, my voice stern and decisive.

“They will grow back,” he replies immediately.

“Not right away. We’ll have less than an hour to figure out where the two doses are and get out before they’re scannable again.”

I’m already glancing around the disheveled room for a tool. Anything with a sharp edge. My eye falls on a broken shard of glass from one of the fallen pieces of artwork. I dart over to retrieve it. Kaelen scurries behind me.

Feeling my heart race and my throat go dry, I look up at him, our gazes colliding. Sparks flying. “I’ll remove yours if you’ll remove mine.”

He holds his arm out, wrist up. “Go deep,” he whispers. “It’ll give us more time.”

I nod, wincing, and take a shuddering breath before pressing the sharp edge of the glass to his flawless skin.





61

RETURN



I bite my lip and wince against the pain as Kaelen makes the last cut along my wrist, completing the rectangular gash where my tattoo once was. The blood is dripping down the side of my arm, staining the pristine white carpet beneath me, next to the small crimson splotch that Kaelen’s wound already created.

I press the palm of my hand against the cut, trying to stanch the blood.

“Don’t,” Kaelen says, pulling my hand away.

“It’s bleeding everywhere.”

“You’ll heal faster if the blood clots.”

Warily, I remove my hand and cringe at the feeling of the warm, sticky liquid oozing into my palm.

“Just keep it elevated,” Kaelen tells me, raising his own hand above his head. I do the same.

“Remember,” I tell him, “since we don’t know exactly when Alixter created you, we have to transesse to a time after you left.”

“I know.”

“Do you know when you were sent to 1609 to apprehend me?”

Kaelen nods.

“So a week later, to be safe?”

He agrees and grips my raised hand with his. I immediately feel our exposed blood blending. Our scientifically perfected life forces combining.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I take a deep breath, glancing around the room. My gaze lands on Maxxer, still lying unconscious on the couch. She told me I could decide. I could join her alliance, or say no.

I guess this is me … saying no.

But I never thought this would be the alternate option.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been running from Diotech and all the things they represent. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been doing whatever I could to evade them. Deceive them. Stay as far away from them as I can. And now I’m about to go back there. With one of them.

But Kaelen is different, isn’t he? He’s changed. He’s proved that he’s changed. He’s proved that he no longer holds allegiance to Alixter. That he’s no longer being controlled by his programming. He’s broken free. And made his own choice.

Just as I have.

But a nagging thought creeps its way into the front of my mind.

What if it’s been an act?

The cure. The kiss. Kaelen’s seeming change of heart.

What if this whole thing has been one giant trap designed to take me back there? To get me to come willingly?

No, I tell myself.

I refuse to believe that. I know Kaelen. We are one and the same. I can read him almost as well as I can read myself. We are linked somehow. We’ve both proved that already.

He wouldn’t deceive me. Not after everything that’s happened. Not after everything we’ve been through.

And even if it is a trap, even if he has been conning me this whole time, what other solution do I have? Rio knows where the last two doses of the repressor are. And that makes him the only option.

I look up, meeting his intense gaze, and whisper, “Yes,” with what little conviction I have left. “I’m ready.”

I close my eyes. Even though I’m not the one directing this transession. Even though my concentration is not needed. I can’t watch. I can’t look.

After everything Zen did to break me out, I’m about to step right back into the middle of my prison.

I’m about to willingly return to the one place I vowed I would never return to. Where I was created. Where I was manufactured. Where my life began.

I’m finally going home.





62

MESSY



The hospital room is white and sterile and filled with sleek, sophisticated machines unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. There are no wires anywhere. Every piece of equipment seems to be powered by an invisible source. The screens of the various computers and monitors are paper-thin, making me think they could be snapped in half with the slightest pressure.