Two weeks later
For the second time Jinx sat in a chair, his mind eerily silent and his senses paralyzed. The drugs coursing through his system kept his brain isolated, the wires cut off from those they craved to tangle with. But this time, there was no panic. The isolation was only in his mind.
His lover, his everything, his Aurelia sat right beside him, her hand entwined with his.
And his mother’s hands were in his head, giving him life much the way she had in a past he still couldn’t remember, but which he now believed.
“Almost there,” Isabel said.
Aurelia nodded and smiled. It was, in theory, a simple procedure, and Isabel was one of the best. Now that he knew more about these kinds of connections, he was shocked Aurelia had managed to pull off the kind of sever she had without surgical intervention, simply by hacking into the wires in his head. There had been stray strands, though, latent vulnerabilities, and after careful consideration, the three of them had decided it was worth the risk to close them up. To make his mind safe for himself and for the ones he loved.
In that way, he was part of a trio again, he and his mother and Aurelia forming a unit that stood as one against the world. But it was a group he’d chosen, one bound by love and family instead of by command. That lone distinction had made all the difference. He had the opportunity to start his life anew.
No way he was wasting his second chance.
While Aurelia threw herself back into her work, poring through the data she’d been able to collect with the remnants of two liberated Threes banging around her safe house, Jinx had turned his gaze toward his future.
He was starting on as a grunt with an ambulance squad next week. Turned out what his hands remembered from his medical training was enough to get him through the door, and he was itching for it. Ready to get his boots on the ground, ready to get right into the thick of it.
He was ready to help—to stitch lives back together instead of tearing them apart.
Just as soon as his own cranium was back in one piece.
Aurelia squeezed his hand, and through the fog, there was a clink. Keeping his head absolutely still within the brace that held it steady, Jinx glanced down to see a little green nub of plastic attached to a wire hit the metal basin next to Isabel’s instruments. Unlit and dull, it looked so unassuming but for the blood still clinging to the edges of it.
There was a strange tugging in the numb skin beneath his ear as Isabel closed the incision. When it healed, she’d promised there wouldn’t even be a scar to show where the LED had been taken from.
“That’s the last of it,” Isabel said, her words swimming up to him, as if spoken from underwater. “Just sewing you up now.”
A few minutes later, the last of her tools fell to the tray as well, followed by her gloves.
“Aurelia?”
“I got it.” Aurelia took her hand from his. The emptiness at the lack of contact was a hollow sound in the back of his still-dull mind. She snapped on gloves of her own and stood. “You’ll feel pins and needles, at first.”
Jinx fought the instinct to nod.
It began as a pinprick of warmth at the base of his skull. Within seconds, it spread, bringing the tingling Aurelia had promised. His hands twitched, wanting to scratch at the itch, but he kept them balled in fists. Pain followed, a dim throbbing, still muted by anesthetic. But the skin was alive again. His nerves were alive again.
The haze and static lifted in slow waves. Stripping off her gloves, Aurelia sat back down beside him, eyes level with his as she ran her fingers over his knuckles. Each glancing brush was a low fire.
He was alive again.
“Can you hear me?”
There was no relief like that of Aurelia’s voice inside his mind after he’d been robbed of it, even for a fraction of a second. After hours of silence, even the faint whisper of her thoughts was like falling into cool water. His eyes burned, and his smile cracked his face.
“I can,” he answered.
She took his hands in hers and held them tightly, grinning back. “I missed you.”
“Not as much as I missed you.”
But he knew. Improbable as it always seemed, she felt him just as keenly. Felt his absence just as hard.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me.” Isabel moved to where Jinx could see her. “Give yourself about half an hour to get fully up to speed again. Aurelia has something for the pain, when you need it. Every eight hours for the first few days. Keep the incisions clean, and you should be fine.”
“Thank you,” he said, throat tight, hesitating for just a few seconds before adding, “Mom.”
She faltered in her step, but caught herself quickly. “You’re welcome.”
Once they were alone together, Aurelia slid one hand up Jinx’s arm to his shoulder, gentle fingers touching the side of his neck. “It looks so strange without it.”
“Can I see?”
She nodded, then rose and got a mirror. “Isabel did a great job.”
Jinx took the glass from her, bracing himself before looking. The most striking thing right off the bat was the sight of his own shaved head. He ran a palm over the smooth top of it, well away from the incision site. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“It’ll grow back soon enough.” In her head, she was half wishing it wouldn’t, though. “You’re sexy bald.”
He filed that away for future reference, smirking before refocusing. He shifted the angle of the mirror lower, to his ear and then to the skin just below. Sure enough, the green LED that had glowed at him from the day he’d first opened his eyes to this life was gone, the only sign of it a single black X of stitching.
For a few seconds, all he could do was stare. Aurelia’s fingertips against his shoulder brought him back to himself.
“What do you think?” A nervous edge underlay her thoughts.
Placing his hand over hers, he gazed at the excision site, then lifted his eyes to connect with hers over his shoulder in the glass. “They really can’t get back in my head now, right? All the gaps are closed up?”
“All of them. You’re safe.”
“You’re mine,” her thoughts echoed.
“Entirely.”
He studied the stitching again, wanting to touch it, to run his hands over the skin to prove to himself that it was really gone. “It’s strange.”
Her confidence was still wavering, her lip tucking itself between her teeth as she reached out for reassurance. “Good strange or bad strange?”
“Good.” He summoned all his conviction. “It’s good.”
It was more than good; it was what he’d wanted for so long. And yet, somewhere deep beneath rational thought, it felt like another thing he’d lost. Only he hadn’t. Not entirely.
Shifting the mirror, he steadied himself with the reflection of the two tattoos gracing the side of his throat. The pentacle that symbolized his time as a Three. And then the tight line of runic symbols beneath it, spelling out the word trust. Following his thread of thought, Aurelia pressed her fingers to the matching characters on the side of her own neck, sweeping her hair out of the way so he could see them.
He’d lost, but he had gained. He had gained so, so much, and the unit he was part of now was one he’d chosen. One that wasn’t killing him. One he’d keep.
With Aurelia’s hand in his, he’d pushed through the static. And into the life he was meant to lead.