The Ones We're Meant to Find(74)

And it doesn’t last.

The tug starts at sunset. I ignore it at first, just like I ignore the stream of memories, and continue to sweep the porch alongside Hero. But the pull in my gut intensifies. Black splotches eat at my vision. My heart feels too big and my lungs too small; there’s not enough space inside me for blood and air and memories to circulate.

I tell Hero I’ll be back, then rush to the pier and empty out my stomach. The waves whisk the worst bits of me out of sight. No one will know that I, Cee, puked up my guts in the sea. And no one will know that somewhere in the deep, a girl named Kay is dying in a pod.

Her stunned gaze rears in my mind again. It’s always this moment I can’t get past. The moment she forgot I wasn’t her sister. The moment I remembered.

You never saw her die, I said. Her, not me. Celia, not Cee.

Because I am Cee. I’m alive, and Celia is dead. I’m Cee, I think fiercely, shedding off the last of my denial. Not Celia. Not … human. That’s the paradox: To believe in myself, I must also accept who I am. What I am.

A bot.

As a bot, maybe I don’t deserve to live as much as a human.

No. I won’t think that. The sun will set. The moon will rise. And then it’ll be the sun’s turn to rise, and it’ll be over. It’ll all be over, I think, trembling in equal parts apprehension and anticipation, nauseated at the enormity of what will happen—must happen—and so lost in my thoughts that I don’t hear him approach. Arms slide around my waist, and my heart jumps, then slows, beating in tandem with his.

“You’re shivering.”

“Just cold,” I say, and Hero hugs me tighter. Together we stand, listening to the sea around us and beneath us, licking at the pier planks. The sky ripens, brilliantly orange.

“What are you thinking about?” I murmur.

“You,” he says. I place my hands over his. “And how it feels like I might still lose you.”

To? But the answer lies before us. The pier is a peninsula between two worlds, and I know exactly which one Hero is referring to. My grip tightens over his knuckles. “She’s not out there.”

He doesn’t say anything to that.

“Tell me this is stupid.”

No reply.

“Say it!” I spin around and pound a fist against his chest. He lets me. “Say it, dammit!”

“She’ll always be out there,” Hero finally says, exactly the opposite of what I needed to hear. “As long as you exist, your hope will, too.”

Hope? I’ve got dread and panic and guilt and fear, but no hope. None whatsoever. Hero wouldn’t know, though. He still thinks I want to find Kay. He doesn’t know that finding Kay would mean losing myself. Now, I don’t think my life is worth a billion, but unlike Celia, I don’t care what the masses think. Don’t need to please my friends. I’ve survived three years marooned on an abandoned island, for fuck’s sake. I have me. U-me.

And him. I lift my fist from Hero’s chest, lift my gaze next. “What do you want?” Hero doesn’t answer. “Do you want me to go?”

He sucks in a breath. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Too late. I already have.”

A shadow passes over his eyes. “I want you to stay,” he finally admits. “I want to make you stay, in every way I can. But—” I wince at the word, even though I saw it coming. “I don’t want to be the thing keeping you on this island.” He takes a step back from me. “I know it’s not much, but principles are all I have.”

And he doesn’t need more. How do I tell him? That he’s no less of a human being than me just because he doesn’t have memories, a past, or other people? “Look, love—”

I break off as Hero suddenly stiffens. His jaw flexes.

His hand shoots for my throat.

I dodge—barely. I retreat and Hero whirls on me, his back to the sea, and I stumble, adrenaline coursing through my veins, but not fear. He’s not actually trying to kill me. And I can’t even die. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s—

“What—” Hero chokes off as his hand surges again. His nails scratch my neck, and the pain focuses my gaze, fixing it on his face—

His face, misshapen with horror and confusion.

The bottom of my stomach falls out. He’s trying to kill me, just like the other times. But unlike the other times, he’s 100% aware of it.

“Hero—”

He jerks out of my reach, pinning down his twitching right arm with his left one. It’s like there are two people warring in his body, and it’s terrifying to watch. When he finally gets his limbs under control, mine are petrified with dread.

“What was that?” he gasps, a sheen of sweat on his brow.

The lie springs to the tip of my tongue. I’ll tell him I’ve never seen this happen before, then gather him close and hold him until the incident fades from his mind and mine.

But his expression is so haunted, and I no longer have the heart to keep on lying to him.

So I tell him the truth.





44


“YOU.”

An accusation. A question. He hadn’t expected to see her. Why would he have? Since returning to the eco-city four days ago, their stay in Territory 4 truncated as delegates withdrew and the failure of Operation Reset seemed all but imminent, they hadn’t spoken or come face-to-face. The hand mark on Actinium’s cheek had faded, but the pain Kasey had inflicted was real.