A flicker of a nanosecond passes before he’s on top of me, using the weight of his dense, powerful body to crush me and render me immobile. He pushes against me, constricting my chest, thrusting the air out of me.
It takes me a moment to register how fast he just moved. Faster than he should. Faster than anyone should. But my thoughts are suddenly snagged by the intense surge of electricity that seems to be blasting through me. A hot white glow that explodes out of me like a superior sun. Ripping me apart. Rupturing me from the inside.
Everything is instantly on fire again—my skin, my hair, my bones, my muscles, my cells. Even the air around me is ablaze.
But this fire is different. It doesn’t burn. It doesn’t scald. It only awakens. Enlivens. Blooms luminous radiance from within.
I think he must feel it, too, because for the first time since he walked into this room, I see his face shift. I see something register. I see a reaction.
And it can only be described as surprise.
Pure, unexpected, unanticipated, unwelcomed surprise.
His gaze drifts slowly toward mine. It’s tentative. Almost afraid. As though he knows he shouldn’t—as though he’s fighting it every inch of the way—but eventually the choice is no longer his.
As soon as our eyes collide, it’s like I’m transported. Everything else seems to vanish. The room, the bed, my thundering, jagged breaths. It’s just me, pinned beneath him. But the weight of his crushing frame is gone. Like his body has lost gravity somehow.
I hear his heart pounding, reverberating through his chest cavity. The sound waves penetrate my skin, weave through my rib cage, find the hum of my own thudding pulse, and for a moment the entire world is nothing more than a harmonized
BA-BUMP
BA-BUMP
BA-BUMP
My brain is buzzing. I can’t make sense of what is happening.
But fortunately, I don’t have to.
A second later, he rockets off me, launching himself into the air and onto his feet. He reaches the far side of the room before I can blink. But from the perturbed expression pulling at his features, it’s evident he’d rather be on the far side of the world.
I struggle to my feet, catching his eye. He’s glaring at me. I recognize the look. It’s the same one I saw on a hundred different faces as they led me out of the court, as they marched me to the platform, as they prepared to watch me burn.
It’s a look of accusation.
Although I don’t, for the life of me, know what he could possibly be accusing me of. If anything, I’m the one who should be accusing him.
“W-w-what are you?” I manage to huff out, still winded from the effort and the constriction in my chest.
He hasn’t stopped glowering at me from across the room, looking completely rattled. But after three difficult inhales and exhales, he collects his composure. I watch his face slip back into that irritating neutral façade, as flat and uninspiring as an unplanted crop field. I watch the robot return.
“WHAT ARE YOU?” I demand again, this time screaming it, piercing my own eardrums with my angry roar.
“Sera”—he pronounces my name with that same arrogant, condescending heaviness—“do you really think Alixter would make the same mistake twice? Of sending a frail, ordinary human to deal with you?”
Whoosh!
My breath deserts me. Sucked out by a giant merciless vacuum placed against my lips.
“What are you talking about?” I choke out, even though I already know the answer. Even though I’ve already fallen to my knees and pressed my forehead against the soft carpet.
On my way down, I just manage to catch sight of it. The ultimate proof. Flashing in and out of view on his left wrist.
A black, razor-thin tattoo, slicing across his skin.
“I’m like you,” he says with chilling detachment. “Only better.”
19
IMPROVED
Slowly I lift my head and peer into his eyes. It’s suddenly like I’m seeing them for the first time.
Everything is different.
The light is different. The shadows are different. The world is different.
Because now there are two of us in it.
I should have realized it the moment I saw him. I should have seen it in his artfully chiseled face. His impeccable skin. His stunning stature.
I should have noticed it in the color of his eyes. That incandescent blue green.
A perfect color.
An unnatural color.
Just like my own.
Except for one thing. His eyes have a disquieting quality about them. A hollowness. A deadness. They are paradoxically radiant and barren at the same time.
And his voice. So mechanical. Cold. Inflectionless. Like his lips are forming words, his tongue is forming sounds, but there’s nothing behind them. No one there to form meaning. Zen once told me that when he first met me my speech was stilted and awkward. But I don’t think I ever sounded like that.