Unforgotten(87)

I nod, imagining that I probably felt that way once, too.

“Why did you choose to do it?”

His question startles me. “Fall in love?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t.”

Three lines appear between his eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not something you choose. It’s something that simply happens to you.”

“Against your will?” Kaelen clarifies, and I definitely don’t miss the fact that he’s chosen to use the exact same words I used with him. When we first met and I asked if it bothered him that he was created without his permission.

“I suppose so.” I bite my lower lip, which has begun to tremble.

“I would refuse it,” Kaelen puts in confidently.

I shake my head. “I don’t think you can. Because once it’s happened, once you even realize it’s happened, it’s too late. It’s already changed you. And I don’t think you can go back.”

Kaelen turns to face me. I can feel his eyes on me. Burning my cheeks. I keep my gaze forward. “In our world,” he states defiantly, “you can always go back. You can unlove.”

A shiver runs through me as my mind dissects the variety of meanings that are so cleverly hidden in that sentence. I’m anxious to get off this topic and move on to the important one.

Finding Maxxer. Getting Zen’s cure.

I clear my throat. “So have you thought about how you want to do this?”

He stands rigidly next to the kitchen counter. “Dr. Maxxer is most likely in a submarine or other submerged vessel. We will transesse to the GPS coordinates together. And there we will wait until we receive further instruction or indication of subsequent steps.”

“In the middle of the ocean?” I ask. “That’s probably freezing?”

Kaelen doesn’t appear to be bothered by this detail. “Should it become clear that we are not in the right place, we will transesse back here and reevaluate our options.”

I wince and feel my body stiffen. The thought of transessing with him, letting him control my destination, makes my insides curl and twist. I’ve avoided it this long and I still have a nagging suspicion that this has all been one giant trick. A ploy to get me back to Diotech. That as soon as my locket is open and he touches me, I’ll be inside my prison cell with a scientist hovering above, ready to dissect my brain and make me “agreeable.”

Make me more like Kaelen.

But I quickly reassure myself that if Kaelen wanted to bring me back there, he would have done it already. He had countless opportunities while I was unconscious. While my wounds were healing. In fact, he didn’t have to take me to 2032 at all. He could have brought me to the compound straight from the fire.

Even still, as Kaelen stalks menacingly toward me, fishing the locket out from under his shirt, my breathing quickens. My heart races. I feel an itchy anxiety trickle down my back.

“Wait,” I say, holding out my hand. He stops. “I’m not sure we’ve thought this through properly.”

Kaelen’s head clicks ever so slightly to the side, indicating that he’s willing to hear me out.

“Maxxer left these clues for me. She’s expecting me to show up. Probably alone. What if we get there and she refuses to give us any further instruction because she sees I’m with you? I don’t think she’s going to like the fact that I showed up with a Diotech agent.”

“You’re not going alone,” Kaelen states blankly.

I had a feeling that was going to be his response.

“Well, what if that’s the only option?”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” I point out.

“I was given specific instructions to follow you until Dr. Maxxer’s location was disclosed and the antidote was obtained,” Kaelen argues, sounding slightly exasperated.

This is the first time he’s admitted any details of his mission. We both seem to realize it at the same time. Kaelen’s eye twitches faintly.

“Fine,” I say.

He eyes the space between us. I estimate it’s about seven steps. I can tell he’s calculating the same thing. But approaching me means getting close to me. Letting that peculiar magnetism draw us together. Touching me means electricity. Heat waves. Strange things that neither one of us seem to be able to explain or understand.

Intentionally getting this close, making skin-to-skin contact goes against all the unspoken rules we’ve established over the past two days.

But it’s the only way.

And we both know it.

He takes one step. Then another. I notice how his paces seem to slow, get smaller, as he nears me. But he keeps coming. The hum of energy begins. The dizzying spirals of air. I feel it heaving me toward it. Like a vortex. Like an unavoidable fall.