The Ones We're Meant to Find(50)

Just not all of her.

After submitting herself to the science sanctions, her biomonitor tweaked and her Intraface modified with trackers, she’d returned home to find Celia waiting for her. The relief on her sister’s face convinced Kasey she’d made the right choice. Without science, her heart was hollow, but Celia’s could beat for the two of them.

How naive she’d been.

Condition two: Lift the sanctions on me.

Her request for a partner had been granted easily. This one, not so much.

“She’s extorting us!” Barry had cried, one raised voice among many in the P2C conference room. “I knew it! Why else would you withhold the solution until now?”

“Because it violates international law,” Kasey had deadpanned. And explained how. And after some debate for the sake of debate, laws, people seemed to realize, would have to be bent. Red tape snipped, regulations loosened. Drastic times called for drastic measures. Kasey didn’t know how to feel about it—that it took the world ending for five years of her life to be returned to her. But what was done was done.

She had much left to accomplish in the days ahead.

It’d start on this stage, with Actinium.

“One moment,” she said to her audience. She wouldn’t explain how they’d accounted for any loopholes in the barometers. She’d show them, just as she had shown Celia.

She stepped behind the stage.





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HE SIDESTEPS MY THRUST AND grabs the oar. The paddle pops out of my hands and into my chin. My head snaps back, light exploding behind my eyes. A splash. It’s me, I think. I’ve fallen overboard.

But I’m still on Genevie when his hands close around my throat. He lifts me right off my toes and squeezes until his lifeless blue eyes are all I can see.

“H-H-H—” Hero. If I could just cover his mouth with my own and breathe his name into him, if I could just—bring—him—back—

My vision flickers. Goes. Kay. Her face—every detail of it startlingly bright, as if there’s a projector behind my retina, beaming her straight onto my brain.

Cee.

Find me.

My eyes fly open. My legs are already drawn up. I kick out, feet slamming into Hero’s abdomen. He rocks back but doesn’t let go, taking me with him.

Into the sea we fall.





24


THE DARKNESS DEEPENED AS THE duct whisked Kasey to the storage unit beneath the stage. Recessed lights in the high ceiling flickered on as Kasey walked past several stasis-pod prototypes and tanks of solution. She came to a pod in the very back and stood still for the retina scanner.

USER CLEARED.

The doors hissed open.





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THE SEA RUSHES BETWEEN US as we plunge, ripping us apart. But the moment we resurface, he’s swimming for me again. My back bumps into Genevie. I try to hoist myself up by the elbows, but he’s too fast and yanks me under. Bubbles bulge from my mouth like jellyfish, swimming up to freedom as we go down, into darker and darker blue.

Cee. Find me.

Strength returns to my limbs. I fight him off and swim for the light above, head whacking into something as I break the surface.

The oar—the first thing that went overboard. I grab it before it bobs by and whip around, swinging it with everything I’ve got.

Smack. The ugly sound of wood against wet skin. And bone. Skin and bone, splitting. Scarlet, spilling down half his face.

The impact is still vibrating in my arm when his whole body goes slack. He sinks, water closing over the top of his head, and he’s gone.

Just like that.

I stare at that spot of sea, expecting him to resurface. I wait and wait, treading water until my legs burn.

“Hero?”

My voice is broken, my vocal cords crushed. I’m still seeing Kay’s face, clearer than ever, and it’s compelling me to get back onto Genevie, to find her, to sail away from the boy who just tried to kill me but Joules dammit, fuck me, fuck reason, fuck everything—

I dive.

I don’t know how long it is before I see him, suspended like a specimen in the middle of the deep. I pull him to me and swim us both back up, gasping for breath as I grab one of the ropes I tied along Genevie’s side. I push him on first, then clamber on after, trembling.

“Hero?” His skin’s almost sheer, his eyelids purpling like his lips. The sea water has washed away the blood, but the gash in his temple unzips to the bone.

“Hero.” I clutch his face. “Hero. Wake up, love.”

He doesn’t wake up.

And after an eternity of begging, I finally check—

He’s not breathing.

His heart’s not beating.

Rain falls, silver needles melting into the sea, washing the salt out of my hair, bringing it down my temples and cheeks as I stare at the boy in my lap.

The boy I killed.

The rain stops. The sun rises. Sets. It’s night when I finally wrap my hand around the oar.

I row.

Back to the island. I try to carry him to the house. Buckle.

We fall into the sand, just like we did that night beneath the stars.

I drag myself over to him and lay my head on his chest. We lie there. How long, I don’t know. Maybe hours. Maybe days. I lose track of time.