Hours had passed before they’d returned.
Hours spent lost in silence, of memories that had forced themselves to be remembered; an entire life that my thoughts wouldn’t allow me to forget.
They were going to take her from me again.
They were going to destroy the last living thing that I loved all over again.
And I couldn’t allow for that to happen.
The glass doors to the Pod opened up and my hard drive slid out of its slot in the back, freeing me of its hold. I wrestled with the idea of stepping outside the small confines of the Pod, when Janet’s voice caught me off guard.
“Scared are we, Forty-Six?” she teased. “I can assure you, child, no one is going to hurt you. You’re free to leave the Pod, if you wish.”
I turned to glare at her. “And why should I believe a single word from your mouth?”
“You’re not the only one with regrets, Hayden.”
I lifted my foot onto the tile below, easing myself out of the Pod. “Where is he?” I glanced around the room, expecting to find McVeigh waiting nearby, but he was nowhere to be found.
“He’s attending to other matters right now,” she answered with a shrug.
I looked around the room once more, this time turning my attention to the small cameras tucked away in the corners of the room. The red lights indicating that they were recording were off, but that hadn’t meant much of anything.
I’d worked for Vesta Corp.
I knew just as well as they had that it was easy to hack a camera; that it was easy to make people see what they wanted to see.
“They’re off,” Janet said. “I promise. I’d be risking far too much if I allowed them to record any of what I’m about to tell you.”
There was a part of me – a rather large part of me, frankly – that didn’t want to believe a single word that escaped from between her lips. After all, she was part of the reason that I’d lost everything that mattered in my life.
But there was also a part of me that wanted to believe her, because I knew just how desperate people could become when they allowed their selfish needs to drive them.
Her daughter’s selfishness had destroyed my family, but in the end, she had done everything that she could to try and fix the destruction that she’d caused.
Unfortunately, not everything was that simple.
There was no undoing death.
“Where’s Emile? Where is my sister?”
Janet leaned back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. “She’s fine,” she said. “She’s on her way here, which I’m sure you’ve already overheard, but Charles isn’t going to hurt her. You and I both know that.”
“That’s funny,” I snapped. “You know, given the fact that he killed her.”
A soft sigh escaped her lips as her eyes fell over me. “She’s his precious gem, Hayden. He won’t destroy her, not until he gets what he wants from her, at least.”
Before I could respond, she waved her hand at me to stop me from speaking. “I don’t have much time,” she said. “Look, we both know what goes on inside of these walls, Hayden. We both know how power hungry my brother is. But what you don’t realize is that everything I’ve done, it’s all been to protect myself. All of the pain I’ve caused my daughter? It’s been to keep us alive, Hayden. I’m not proud of the choices that I’ve made, but I can’t rewrite my past.”
“And why does any of that matter to me?” I asked.
“Because I can’t save you,” she answered. “But I can try and save your sister.”