Unforgotten(97)

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this the last time?”

“For many reasons,” Maxxer explains. “The most important being I knew you weren’t ready to hear it. I had to bring you into this gradually. Otherwise, I knew you’d become overwhelmed and possibly reject it completely. And I couldn’t afford for that to happen.”

Bring me into this?

I draw a heavy hand to my forehead and press my temple. “Wait,” I say, trying to process the flood of new information. “Why exactly did you lead me here?”

She kneels back down in front of me. “Because, Sera, I need you on my team. You are special. One of a kind. You can do things no one else can do. I’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice is quiet. Tentative. Desperate.

“You can help me defeat them.”





54

ORIGINS



What I really want to do is rise to my feet and stomp right out of this place. But first, although whatever Maxxer just injected into my bloodstream has allowed me to finally speak correctly, I still don’t have full capacity of my legs. And second, obviously there’s the problem of the fact that we’re currently hundreds of feet underwater.

“That’s why you brought me here?” I ask. “Because you want me to help you defeat Diotech?”

Maxxer looks taken aback. “I would think, after everything you’ve gone through, this would be top on your list of priorities.”

“Zen is my only priority,” I argue. “I came here to save his life.”

Maxxer stands up and backs away a few paces. I can’t help but notice the shift in her body language. Her shoulders sagging, her face registering what I can only interpret as remorse.

My hand immediately goes to my pocket. I’m horrified when I realize the vial I placed there is gone.

“Where is it?” I demand.

“Sera.” Maxxer tries to calm me. “There are some things I need to explain.”

“Where’s the gene repressor?!” I yell, causing the guards to step menacingly toward me. Maxxer calls them off with a subtle shake of her head.

“I had a hunch that Diotech might have gotten to you first. That a stimulated-response system might have been installed without your knowledge. I couldn’t take any risks. I had to—”

“GIVE ME THE CURE!”

Maxxer sighs. “Sera, I don’t have the cure.”

Ice. Suddenly every inch of my body is covered in ice. Tiny pricks of unbearable chill stab me over and over and over. I feel like I’m falling. Hurtling. Not in a vacuum. Not in the sea. But plummeting headfirst toward the hard, unforgiving ground.

The impact is inevitable.

I will hit.

It will crush me.

And yet, somehow I’ll survive. I’ll go on. And be forever haunted by the memory of my plunge. A permanent dent in my brain. A scar that cannot be healed. Regardless of what my DNA says.

“What was in the vial?” I say, my lips barely moving, the sound barely traveling.

Maxxer shakes her head, refusing to look at me. “Colored water,” she admits softly. “It was a decoy. I had to test you. To see if you had been manipulated.”

“You tricked me?” I shout, struggling to stand up but eventually collapsing back into the couch after much failed effort.

“Please calm down and listen to me,” Maxxer coaxes.

“Zen will die and it’s because of YOU! The gene will kill him!”

“Sera,” she says again. Each instance of my name on her lips reignites my rage. “You need to trust me.”

“TRUST YOU?!” I shriek so loudly my voice bounces off the thick glass and echoes back to me. “After you lied to me? Tricked me? Lured me here under false pretenses?”

“Now,” she replies in a sharp tone, “I didn’t give any indication in the memories that I was leading you here to give you the repressor.”

I open my mouth to reply but quickly shut it, my teeth snapping together, when I realize that she’s right. The memories just said, “Find me.” I made the assumption that Zen was the reason I needed to find her. Even so, her defense does nothing to quell my anger.

“That’s irrelevant,” I spit. “You knew he was going to get sick. You knew I’d be looking for a cure. And you knew I would blame Diotech for his illness. That’s probably why you didn’t tell me that he was going to get sick when we first met, even though you had to have known. You thought that if I was given enough time and enough motivation, I would come to despise them and that would only make it easier to recruit me.”

“That’s not true.” But she licks her lips and doesn’t meet my gaze when she says it, giving her away. “I care about you, Sera. And Zen.”