Unforgotten(93)

She takes another sip of her drink. “Of course. It’s the reason you came, isn’t it?”

“The cure,” I say automatically.

She exhales, seemingly in relief. “Yes. I imagine Zen is very sick.” She sighs apologetically. “An unexpected side effect of DZ227, I’m afraid.”

“DZ227?”

“Sorry. It’s the official nomenclature of the transession gene. It would seem the way it was designed was simply too powerful for the human body to take in. It causes the natural immune system to attack itself, thinking it’s being infested by a virus. Anyone who has had the transplant, depending on their own chemical makeup and how often they transesse, would be dead within a year.”

“Including Alixter,” I verify, eager to finally have the confirmation that Kaelen would never give me.

Maxxer smiles. “Yes. I imagine that’s why he sent the agent to follow you. And why I had to take such precautions when I brought you here. He’s probably fairly ill. And fairly desperate. Which, of course, only makes you that much more valuable.”

“Me?” I repeat skeptically.

She cocks her head. “You have noticed that you are not affected by the gene?”

I quickly make a move for my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see Maxxer flinch at my sudden motion. I withdraw the locket on the broken chain. “That’s because Rio made me this. It activates my gene when it’s open. He was worried about what the gene would do if I couldn’t turn it off.”

“Wise man,” Maxxer commends. “But in reality, he had nothing to worry about. You’re not like the rest of us, Sera. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”

I look away. I think about the horrified look on the old Chinese man’s face when he held my wrists and declared my blood to be too strong. I think about Blackthorn, the horse on the Pattinsons’ farm, and the distrust I saw in his eyes every time I entered his stall. I think about the screams of rage directed at me as I was led through the streets of London. I think about my legs and how the fire ripped through them, shredded my skin, and gnawed at my muscle, and yet there’s not a single scar of evidence.

So yes, I’ve figured it out. But I’ve spent the last six months wishing it wasn’t true. Wishing I was like the rest of them.

“Your body, your mind, your genes, everything about you was perfected by science. I could transplant this gene into you a thousand times and it wouldn’t affect you.”

She may as well just say it. She may as well just tell me what I am. Or rather, what I’m not.

I’m not human.

“Which is probably why Alixter had to create another synthetic being,” she adds. “Because neither he nor his other goons can transesse anymore. Without that new agent he created, they’d have no hope of ever finding me. Or you.”

Once again, Kaelen’s face flits into my mind and my stomach wrenches with guilt.

That’s why he wasn’t sick.

Because he’s like me. He might very well be the only one ever to be like me. And yet I left him. I abandoned him.

“But Zen,” Maxxer goes on, oblivious to the torment in my mind, “Zen’s body didn’t stand a chance. It was too fragile. Like the rest of us.”

Fragile. It’s the exact right word to describe the way he looked when I left. Ready to crumble. Ready to shatter into a million pieces. On the brink of death.

He never deserved it.

He never deserved this atrocity.

He never deserved me.

Maxxer places her glass on the table with a clink and rises to her feet. “Which brings us to the reason you’re here.”

As I watch her walk across the room, I can feel my heartbeat accelerate. And that mysterious anger begins to resurface at the thought of what will happen next. My palms feel greasy and wet. I rub them anxiously against my wet pants and stand up, following her with my eyes. She ascends the stairs gracefully, disappearing into the loft only to reappear a moment later holding a small, clear vial filled with an electric-blue liquid. She pauses at the top of the stairs, seeming to study my expression.

“This,” she begins, “is a repressor for gene DZ227. When injected directly into the bloodstream it will permanently disable the transession gene. The immune system will cease its attacks against the body and the recipient will experience a full recovery, essentially reversing all negative effects of the gene transplant.”

My legs are aching with anticipation. My fists curl and uncurl involuntarily. I feel my muscles tightening. Like they’re preparing to pounce. Attack.

The inexplicable wrath is boiling up, threatening to spill out of my mouth, my ears, my eye sockets. My whole body is hot. Searing hot. On fire. Like lava is running through my veins.