Why can’t I hate him? The way I want to hate him. The way I yearn to hate him.
I feel my feet tingling. Commanding me to him. As if the path between us now—the measly ten steps—has been carved in stone. As if there is no other way. No other road.
But I won’t.
I won’t.
I won’t.
I finally compel myself to look away, breaking the bind. Snapping the invisible wire strung between us, leaving me with the distinct sensation of falling.
I can hear his breathing. And not just because my hearing is exceptional. But because his breath is labored. He is struggling, too. And yet I didn’t need to hear it to know it.
Part of me already knows.
Part of me reads his emotions as easily as I read my own.
“Cody’s right, isn’t he?” I demand of him, finding my voice. “Alixter gave himself the gene when he came to get me in 2013. He’s sick, too.”
Kaelen remains stoically silent.
“That’s why he sent you,” I go on, undeterred. “That’s why your orders weren’t to bring me back right away. Alixter needs the cure, too. You lied,” I accuse him. “You told me you had it.”
“I told you I knew where it was,” Kaelen corrects. He still hasn’t confirmed my theory but he doesn’t need to. I know it’s the truth. I can sense it from his body language. From his energy. The same way I knew what he was feeling that first time we touched.
And it doesn’t matter if I’m right or not.
If Maxxer can help Zen then I have to find her. I have to go to her. Just like she wanted me to. She’s been calling to me since the beginning.
And now there’s only one thing standing in my way.
Or one person, rather.
I glower at Kaelen. “How did you find me?”
“Sera,” he says. And there it is again. My name on his lips. “You should understand by now, I will always find you.”
His tone is sinister. Full of warning. It’s something Alixter would say. And that makes perfect sense. He’s following his orders. Responding to his programming.
And yet, in Kaelen’s words, spoken by Kaelen’s mouth, I hear something else. Something far less sinister. Something reassuring.
“I will always find you.”
And I feel that rebellious half—that half that I despise—silently rejoice.
My mind is reeling. How did he find me? There were no documents. No records. I left no trail. Did someone take my picture without me realizing it? But something is telling me that there’s still a piece to the puzzle I don’t have. That there’s more to this. That it’s much bigger, much more complicated, than simply scrounging through historical records.
And that’s when the other part of me—the sane, rational part that knows Kaelen is an enemy who shouldn’t be trusted—starts to panic.
He takes a slow purposeful step toward me and I feel it start all over again. That pull. That energy. Like the molecules in the space between us are being spun into a frenzy.
I close my eyes, attempting to fight it.
And then I feel them. His fingertips. Grazing my forehead. Pressing against me. Showering me with tingles. My whole body is alive. I never want his hands to leave. I never want him to stop.
But then he does.
It’s over too soon and all I’m left with is the fading glow of his touch. Like the glorious pinks and grays that the sun leaves behind after it disappears over the horizon. And the sorrow of knowing why he really touched me, what he was really after.
The memory.
He took it. Those magic hands that somehow are able to caress my spirit also stole a piece of my mind.
And when I open my eyes, I see that he’s taken something else as well.
My locket is dangling from the tip of his finger, binding my fate with his for the remainder of this journey. He swings it up and catches it deftly in his hand, bringing his clenched fist close to my face. “I would strongly advise against trying to escape again.”
This time, the menacing quality of his voice is not lost. It’s not muffled by some confusing filter and made to seem dreamy and heartening. It’s a clear message. A warning from his creator. Our creator.
I can almost hear Alixter’s voice crossing time and space to speak through Kaelen.
He falls still for a moment, seemingly lost in deep contemplation. When he speaks again, he looks angry. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
I look to Cody for the first time since Kaelen’s surprise arrival, taking in his paralyzed expression. I imagine after everything he’s seen in my memories, everything he knows about Diotech, the sight of Kaelen in his lab is terrifying.
“I was just trying to save him,” I defend, assuming he’s still referring to my thwarted escape effort.