Tim about what actually happened. Otherwise, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“It’ll be our secret.”
He met my eyes, and I knew what he was thinking. Just another secret among the many we already shared.
We started south. Lucas’s gait was a little unsteadier than usual, but he didn’t stumble. I squatted to retrieve the gun from a patch of snow. The metal in my ungloved hand felt cold and slick.
Familiar.
Data Recovery Program: Initiated.
With the sudden zap of a data stream, everything came rushing back.
I saw Daniel first. Tied to a chair. Eyes pleading.
My arm lifted, as of its own accord.
“Mila?” I heard Lucas, but his voice sounded distant. The trees faded from my view, replaced by the inside of a room.
A TV played in the background. Voices.
Holland’s. Quinn’s.
A familiar numbness flowed through me. Quinn’s procedure, it had worked. All those depressing, upsetting emotions, gone. I’d felt . . . nothing. No fear, no love. No pain. Nothing except the bitter, acrid clutch of anger, urging me to follow Quinn’s commands.
I remembered staring into Daniel’s eyes. Arm outstretched, finger on the trigger. Getting ready to pull . . .
But from my memory came Lucas’s voice. Calling me back. Encouraging me to think of something powerful.
Whatever you do, just try to feel. . . .
Screams. A woman’s—Hunter’s mom. I recalled their frantic, terrified pitch, but they hadn’t touched me. They’d seemed so inconsequential. Like the screams of a stranger, coming from somewhere far away.
I remembered red words, flashing inside my head.
Security breach detected.
I remembered jerking my hand away at the last possible moment, making the bullet whiz harmlessly past Daniel’s ear.
“I —I tried to shoot Daniel?” I choked.
But there was more. The memories flooded me now, like water through a burst dam.
Hunter, trying to tell me the upgrades had been a mistake. Urgently pressing his lips to mine.
Me, pushing him away when I heard Holland’s voice, just as Quinn had planned.
Quinn, leading me to the room where Daniel and Hunter sat bound and gagged, along with Sophia and Peyton, Hunter’s parents.
Peyton . . .
I froze on the image of Hunter’s stepdad, something dark and ugly churning deep in my gut. Peyton had ambushed us at Daniel’s—he’d been working for the Vita Obscura all along. He was the one who’d convinced Hunter to approach me in the first place, back in Clearwater. Supposedly, Hunter hadn’t known what his parents were really up to, but at this point, that didn’t matter.
The image unfroze and played out in my head. I barely felt able to suck down air. I heard Quinn’s voice, droning on about what needed to be done, about government conspiracies. I saw Hunter thrash against his restraints, his eyes wide with dawning horror. I remembered the sensation of lifting my arm, and the smooth, easy feel of the gun in my hand as I aimed at Peyton.
I recalled the slight pressure of my finger on the trigger, and feeling calm and serene when the gun recoiled.
I saw the small red circle that bloomed like a flower in the center of Peyton’s forehead. Just before he jerked, his lifeless body slumping into the chair.
Realization was swift as a finger snap, sharp as a rusty spike.
I’d killed Hunter’s stepfather.
Murdered him in cold blood.
FOUR
My hand went limp; my legs buckled. My knees hit the ground. I didn’t move, even as an icy-wet chill seeped through my jeans and dampened my skin. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. There was no way I could have done such a thing.
The gunshot reverberated through my mind, loud and irrefutable.
“What is it? Are you okay?” Lucas dropped down beside me.
I couldn’t form words, or look him in the eye. I couldn’t even blink.
All I could do was absorb the impossible ache in my chest, the truth of what I’d done to Peyton. To Hunter. Meeting me had unleashed an avalanche of terror, and one thing was perfectly, utterly clear—the safest place for Hunter was as far away from me as possible.
“Peyton’s dead. I shot him,” I eventually murmured, with no idea how much time had passed.
I’d taken an innocent, unarmed life—something I never thought I was capable of doing. Yes, I had destroyed Three, my android counterpart, but that was different. She would have killed me first. Hunter’s stepfather had been tied up, defenseless. He’d been at my mercy.
My mercy. Right. On that day, my supply had clearly run dry.
“You’re going to be all right, Mila. Just breathe,” I heard Lucas say.