Chapter Nineteen

Sera

Maybe if I hadn’t frozen the moment I saw him… If I’d just ducked back into the room and quietly closed the door… Of course, that hadn’t happened. I’d stopped dead in my tracks, giving Dylan ample time to take in the sights, turn around, and spot me standing there with my mouth hanging open like an idiot.

G was right behind me, Karl pulling up the rear. For the longest moment none of us moved. No one spoke or breathed. Of course, I’d spent enough time with Dylan to know the silence never lasted as long as I wanted it to. Eventually he reacted—and everyone paid the price.

He came closer, stopping five or so feet from where we stood. A cruel laugh, followed by two quick pats of his jacket pocket, and he grinned. “Miss me, baby?”

“Not even a little bit, asshole.”

G came up beside me. “So what’s the plan, Dylan? Gonna rush all three of us? Pretty sure that might go badly for you.”

“Gotta say, man, I’m really disappointed to see you’re still alive and kicking.” Dylan’s grin got even bigger. He patted his jacket pocket again. “I don’t think it’s gonna be an issue too much longer, though.”

G laughed. “That right?”

“Feel like handing Karl over? I promise to make the rest of this quick. You know… Kill you, steal the girl. Yada, yada.”

“Think we’ll pass. You understand. But, if you feel like making things easier on yourself, you can hand over the antidote.”

Dylan fished into his pocket and pulled out an odd-looking weapon. “I don’t think you’ll need it.”

The next few seconds were a complete blur. G grabbed my hand, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Karl’s fingers knot into the material of his shirt. He jerked up his wrist, waking the chip and skipped us to a random frequency—but not before Dylan launched himself at me. The contact wasn’t much. His fingers brushed the toe of my shoe—but it was enough. We all skipped together.

The second we landed, they were at it. Dylan lifted the weapon, and G let out a horrible roar. Karl backed away, lingering on the edge of the fray. We were still in a hallway—it looked like the hotel we’d just left, except the walls were painted deep blue instead of the hideous floral wallpaper. The carpet, which had been bright yellow, was now a neutral beige.

“I’m done waiting for that shit to kill you slowly.” Dylan took aim at G. “Time to be done with it.”

I rushed him, taking us both to the ground. We hit hard, and he immediately swung out. The blow caught me in the gut, and I coughed, rolling off him and gasping to catch my breath. I wasn’t a fighter like G was. I was fairly sure I never had been. In fact, I had watery memories of being weak. That me, whoever she’d been, was dead, though. This girl, Sera, she was strong. She was able to stand on her own and do what needed to be done.

G roared and charged again. He bent seconds before impact, jamming his shoulder into Dylan’s stomach and lifting him off the ground as he barreled past me like a freight train.

As they fought, Karl dragged me away from the fray. “Probably best to steer clear. A man battling himself is a dangerous thing.”

I watched them, riveted by the scene, the ferocity of it. It was something out of a nightmare. Two versions—one dark, the other, well, darker—squaring off against each other. Dylan swung with a roar. His attacks were ruthless and bold with a clear statement: death and destruction. G pivoted, ducking with ease and retaliating with an expertly placed jab of his own. His moves, while just as brutal, screamed not of devastation but of defense. Of survival. Dylan fought to harm. G fought to survive. They were both in so much pain, but for as many ways as they were the same, they were vastly different. And in that moment, I realized what the biggest difference was.

Dylan had been hiding behind his anger, lashing out ever since he’d lost his Ava. He’d hurt anyone he could just to feel something. G had embraced his anger so that he didn’t have to dwell on the pain Cora had inflicted. Despite the fact that he kept denying it, the only one he continuously hurt was himself. But, it’d always been that way.

…

They’d brought him back a while ago. I’d managed to mark the passing days, but we had no way to measure the hours and minutes as they ticked away. Maybe it’d been an hour. Or maybe it’d been ten minutes. Who knew?

I was about to call to him, to ask if he was okay, but he let out an enraged howl. For a second, I thought they had come back. That they were trying to drag him away again. It took a moment to realize that we were alone.

He thrashed. Incoherent screams and random sounds of chaos. I heard the ping of the metal bowl they sometimes gave us water in. It clattered and clanged as it whipped around the cell, at the mercy of G’s rage. The metal springs on the cot groaned and creaked, followed by something—presumably the metal frame—crashing against the wall. It wasn’t until I heard a rhythmic dull thump that I tried to stop him.

“G,” I said carefully. When he got like this, it was so hard to talk him down. “G, please. Listen to me. Hear me…”

He let out one last roar. There was a thud as something hit the floor, then…nothing.

I went to the far end of my cell, the one closest to his, and slid down the wall. “When they bring me upstairs, when they’re…” I swallowed and tried to keep my tone even. “When they’re doing their work… I picture myself fighting back. I imagine getting free and attacking them. I punch, and I kick, and I use whatever I can get my hands on with the sole intention of watching them bleed.” I expelled a shaky breath. “Sometimes I feel guilty about it. Like I’m a bad person or something. For getting angry. But I’m not. It’s okay to be angry, G.”

“It’s so easy, isn’t it?” Material rustled softly. “When there’s nothing but pain and you can’t feel anything but helpless. Anger is easier. It’s more comfortable than pain.”

“I think it’s okay to be angry to block out the pain, but only if it’s a temporary thing, ya know? Like, we’re using it now. To survive.”

…

A red light flashed in the hall. It was followed by a shrieking sound. The chaos caught the attention of the boys, who had just climbed from the ground and were faced off and catching their breath.

“What do you suppose the law is like here?” I heard G say. His grin was wicked, almost inviting Dylan to make a move. “Come at me again so we can find out.”

Dylan hesitated. There was fury in his eyes. His gaze flickered to Karl. “We’re not done.” His attention swiveled to G for a second before ultimately landing on me. “None of us.”

Without another word he disappeared around the corner. G nodded in the other direction. “Right now, that seems like a good plan. Go!”

We managed to wind our way through the chaos of the main lobby—people had come pouring from their rooms when the alarm sounded—and out the front door without anyone stopping us. After the scene the fight caused, we decided it was a good idea to keep a low profile. The timer was up, so we were stuck here for the next twenty-three hours or so. I didn’t have any desire to spend them in a jail cell.

After wandering around a bit, we finally settled on a low-budget motel on the far side of town. Neither G nor I questioned it when Karl whipped out his wallet and slapped the currency of the land down on the clerk’s desk. There was more to Karl than outward appearances—and I wanted no part of any of it.

“So,” Karl said, flopping onto the first bed. “How are you two enjoying your freedom? Shall we trade war stories?”

G braced his boot against Karl’s hip and gave a violent shove. The older man slid from the bed and landed on the floor in an overly satisfying thud. G grabbed one of the pillows and yanked off the comforter, throwing them down beside him. “First, you’ll be sleeping on the damn floor. Second, this isn’t a friendly vacation. The only reason I haven’t killed you is because we need you. Otherwise, you’d be dead. I haven’t forgotten the time we spent in your basement.”

Karl grabbed the edge of the other bed and hauled himself off the floor, making a great show of his struggle. “As I said, Infinity was Cora’s baby. I had a hand in it now and again, but all the sub-level projects were her ball of wax. I handled mostly the public face of the company.”

“That doesn’t make you any less responsible,” I said. I understood G’s anger because I felt it, too. “You knew what she was doing to us. You didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. That makes you just as guilty.”

His expression soured. “I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty that I regret not stepping in. Things got out of control, and by the time I made the decision to do something, it was already too late.”

“So instead you decided to steal from her and run away when you could have acted?” I sank onto the edge of my bed. “Classy.”

“You haven’t said yet…” G narrowed his eyes. “Why did you run? Weren’t you and your batshit wife blissfully happy?”

Karl frowned, and even though I hated to humanize him in any way, there was sadness in his eyes. Regret. “I loved my wife. I still do. But she is out of control.”

“So what was the actual plan? I mean, you had to know she’d follow you, right?”

“Honestly? I’d hoped she’d be arrested and I could leave without her realizing. At least not right away.” He sighed. “Like I said, I love my wife. My plan was to simply leave and find her again. To start over.”

I stared at him, sure I must have heard wrong. “Find her again? As in, you were going to, what, hunt down another version of Cora?” Just like Dylan… What the hell was wrong with these people?

“That’s the gist of it, yes.” He lowered his head, almost like he was ashamed. “I want to be with Cora, but my Cora had taken her interest in science way too far. It overshadowed everything in our lives.”

“Too far?” I got the feeling we were talking about something other than stashing teens away in a jail cell and wiping their memories. Suddenly I was very curious about the thing Cora was desperate to get back. “What was on the flash drive you stole?”

He hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “I guess you could call it a recipe.”

“A recipe,” G repeated. “We’re not talking about chicken noodle soup, are we…”

Pulling out the chair beside the small desk in the corner, he settled heavily. In that moment he looked so much older. Tired and world worn. It made me wonder what the other versions of him were like. The ones Cade insisted were so different. “The recipe on the flash drive I stole is for the virus.”

“The virus—” I couldn’t help it. I gasped. “The one she put in G’s pod?”

“A slightly different version, but yes. She plans on releasing a contagious strain of it, then selling the antidote only to upper-class families and making it impossible for those lower on the food chain, so to speak, to afford the medicine. Cora was desperate to destroy the second and third tier citizens on our world.” He let out a noise that sounded vaguely like a snicker. “My Cora is a bit of an elitist…”

My mouth fell open, and when I looked over at G, he had the same reaction. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he roared.

Karl cleared his throat. “Now her desire is to find it and go home to release the virus, then offer the antidote as a way to get back into the president’s good graces—as well as make a fortune and be rid of society’s rubbish. As I said, this is Cora’s plan. One I couldn’t condone—which is why I left and took the recipe with me.”

“Because that made so much more sense than handing her over to the cops?” G bolted off the bed and stalked the few feet to where Karl stood. He loomed over the older man, and even though a part of me knew I should stop him from doing whatever it was he might do in a fit of rage, another part wanted to let things play out. Karl deserved whatever he got. That, and then some.

Karl shrugged, though it was obvious he was uncomfortable with G’s proximity. “There was no reason for me to turn her in. Ashlyn had given the authorities all the ammunition they needed to know about Cora’s illegal activities. I simply hedged my bets on the off chance she managed to talk her way out of things.” He snickered, a faraway look in his eyes. “My Cora could talk herself out of almost anything…”

Thankfully, G kept his cool. His shoulders rose and fell before his fists curled tight for a minute. He backed away slowly, then settled on the bed beside me.

“This is a problem,” I said, refusing to look at him. “Now that we know what’s on that flash drive…”

“We weren’t handing it over to Cora, anyway,” came his clipped response. “But when Anderson gets what he wants, he’s handing it over to us.” G’s gaze swiveled toward Karl. “That clear?”

We had a plan that involved us getting what we wanted and the bad guys getting, well, nothing. But things could go wrong. The plan, or at least parts of it, could fail.

Karl nodded and smiled. It was the kind of smile that screamed I have a secret. “Absolutely. Trust me when I tell you, I will do whatever it takes to keep Cora from producing that virus. Anything.”

I swallowed back the growing unease, extremely uncomfortable with the way he was looking at me. At the way he said, Trust me.

He folded his hands in his lap and relaxed his shoulders. “Anything…”