the cabin any longer; he needed to get that cut examined.
It was only a short walk, but when we reached the cabin I felt like we’d been on foot for days. I couldn’t stop the stream of memories.
My arm lifting at Quinn’s command.
A frightened woman, begging me to stop.
My finger pulling the trigger anyway. Immune to any of the horror reflected at me from the eyes of the captives.
Peyton’s head jerking backward before he slumped in his chair.
Hunter’s traumatized expression . . .
As Lucas opened the front door, my heart felt like it might explode from the pressure. While before I’d possessed too few emotions, too many flooded me now.
Without a word to Lucas, I spun on my heel and sprinted away from him and the cabin, my arms pumping so hard I feared they might snap off. Lucas’s voice called after me, but I tuned it out, focusing instead on how the brisk air smelled of sap and rain.
My boots pounded through the snow as my legs steered me toward the cliffs. The stark, jagged rocks and steep hills would provide my body with distraction. Or punishment.
I pushed myself as hard as I could as I approached the first incline, my sensors warning me of the treacherous terrain ahead. But it was easy to block them out, given the images that kept flashing in front of my eyes.
The higher I ascended, the more the landscape seemed to drift away until nothing remained except me and the stone mountains the glaciers had left behind. Damaged, but seemingly indestructible.
Altitude level: 9000 ft.
Oxygen levels: Dropping.
I could almost taste the thinness of the air up here. I had to press on, keep moving, because if I stopped, I might collapse. I propelled myself upward, savagely clawing my way up through the mountains until an alert triggered my arms and feet to slow.
Warning: Canyon ahead.
Drop-off 5 ft. from current location.
I was close to the edge. The wind was forceful and choppy up here, blowing my hair away from my face. I closed my eyes and just stood there, knowing that there was one thing I could do to redeem myself for what I’d done.
Jump.
My death wouldn’t bring Peyton back, of course, but it would be justice, wouldn’t it? And a solution to a problem that Lucas was no closer to solving than he was yesterday. If I launched myself off this precipice, the bomb that was inside me would detonate here, far away from civilization.
I wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
My feet scooted forward, the tips of my boots just clearing the rock. The wind beat harder against my cheeks. Around me, other cliffs rose toward the sky like aging monoliths, watching silently. A strange melodic hum surrounded me as the air whipped through a stony path.
Another step and there would be nothing. Just air and a feeling of weightlessness until my body hit the bottom of the canyon, thousands of feet below. No worries about the damage I could do. No worries at all.
I thought about Daniel’s first email to Nicole. Maybe his instincts were right and I should never have existed in the first place. I pulled out the memory stick that Lucas had given me. Even though I knew there was more vital information on it, something compelled me to chuck it into the vast space below.
The object flew through the air in this beautiful, big arc, and then pitched downward, fluttering on the wind until it was out of sight. My sensors caught on to my intentions.
Distance: 9105 ft.
Chance of mechanical failure on impact: 92%.
Undecided, my arms slowly rose out to my sides, like I was a bird spreading out my wings. In the back of my head, I heard my mom’s voice.
If you want to help me, you know what you can do? Live.
A single tear slid down my cheek.
. . . the next time, we choose better . . .
Lucas’s words, from not more than an hour ago. Another tear joined the first.
And then my sensors triggered an alert, just a fraction of a second too late.
Environment unstable.
Imminent ground erosion.
The section of rock beneath my feet began to crumble and plummet into the ravine. Survival instinct, programming, something had me shoot out my arm and hook my fingers into a large crack in the cliff. Everything beneath my armpits dangled over the edge.
I could still let go. It would be all over if I just eased my elbow joints and lost my grip.