Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(64)

‘Hey!’ Cody interjects, sounding offended. ‘I’ll have you know, I’m thirteen. I’m not a kid.’

‘OK,’ Maxxer amends. ‘Who’s the annoying thirteen-year-old?’

‘He’s my foster-brother,’ I tell him.

‘Right,’ she responds, slowing at a yellow light and obsessively checking her rear-view mirror again. ‘The good news is I don’t think they’re following us.’

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘Diotech,’ she replies, and I can almost hear her voice tremble at the mention of their name.

I shake my head. ‘They’re not. They’re waiting for me to come to them.’

‘Well, you can never be too careful,’ she muses.

‘Are you going to tell us where we’re going?’ I ask again.

The car comes to a stop at an intersection. ‘Like I said,’ she begins, reaching into a compartment in the driver’s-side door, ‘you can never be too careful. Especially in a world where not even your memories are safe.’

‘What does that mean?’ I ask suspiciously, straining to see what she’s holding in her hand.

‘It means, when you don’t want to be found, you better not leave behind any trails.’

She moves so swiftly I barely have time to process what’s happening. She turns around in her seat, lunging towards Cody. The concealed hand lashes out, touching the side of Cody’s head.

I watch in horror as Cody’s body slumps. The seat belt continues to hold him upright but his eyes close and his head droops forward. As if he simply fell asleep.

Or someone put him to sleep.

By the time I make the connection, it’s too late.

Dr Maxxer has already turned the Modifier on me. And I’m conscious only long enough to see the familiar device in her hand moving towards my neck. It makes contact directly under my jaw. I hear a faint sizzling sound and before I even have time to scream everything around me fades to black.





38


WINTER


The air outside is warm and dry. The sun has almost disappeared over the wall. I lie on the small patch of grass in front of my house, with my head in Zen’s lap. He strokes my hair. Beginning at the roots and gently weaving his fingers down to the tips before starting over again.

‘One more time,’ I say.

He stops to tickle behind my ears, his voice taking on a playful annoyance. ‘Again? But you must have it memorized by now.’

‘Of course I have it memorized,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve had it memorized since the first time you read it. But it sounds so much better when you say it.’

He laughs, removing his hand from my head. He picks up the tattered hardback book lying on the grass next to him and opens it to the earmarked page.

I reach up and affectionately touch the spine, loving the way the soft, aged cloth feels against my skin.

‘Where did you get this?’ I ask.

He peers down at me. ‘From the Diotech historical archives,’ he says tenderly. ‘Is this the first time you’ve seen a real book?’

I shake my head. ‘Rio collects them.’

I can feel the perceptible shift in Zen’s energy at the mention of his name. His face hardens and his smile vanishes. I change the subject quickly, before his reaction has a chance to stick.

‘So are you going to read it or not?’ I tease. ‘Because I don’t have all day, you know.’

He chuckles, taps my nose with his finger and focuses back on the book. Then he clears his throat and starts to read in a silly pompous accent. ‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”’

I reach up and swat his arm. ‘No! Not like that.’

He smiles down at me, our eyes connecting for a brief but intense moment. Then he returns to his coy, playful self. ‘What? You don’t like my British accent? I’m just trying to give you a real authentic experience. Shakespeare was British, you know, so that’s probably how it sounded in his own head.’

I swat at him again, unable to control my giggles. ‘No,’ I insist. ‘Read it your way.’

His expression turns serious as his gaze returns to the book. ‘OK,’ he concedes.

There’s a brief pause, and the anticipation of hearing the words on his lips is almost too much to handle. I feel flutters in my stomach. A longing on my lips. My breath becomes shallow.

When he finally speaks, his voice is soft and focused and powerful.

It sets the world around us on fire. Everything is ablaze. Nothing is safe. I listen to the entire poem in a state of expectation. That any minute, I might go up in flames too.

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.