Chapter Twelve

Elena

I’ve never been any good at running. It isn’t fun—those people who say it is are lying—and I’m not fast. But now the phrase running for your life pierces my thoughts. It makes up for the parts where my athleticism lacks. For ten minutes, I only hear my heavy breathing and our feet crunching over fallen branches. On another day, the woodsy, earthy smell would make me smile, happy to be amongst nature. Today is not that day. The trees disappear, and I no longer have to duck and dodge the fury of branches. A wide, open hillside replaces the dense forest. It should be easier to run now—but harder to hide.

No, nothing is easy anymore.

My adrenaline disappears the way water stops flowing when you shut off the faucet. Fire burns through my muscles, spiraling up from my feet. Every step is heavier, every breath harder.

The cops are chasing us. We might not see them, but they’re out there somewhere. Aiden and I glance over our shoulders every few seconds, but neither of us spares the energy required to speak.

Until the pain becomes too much. “Aiden, I—” Gasping, I reach out to grab his arm. He’s a few inches too far away. “I need to stop.”

He slows, twisting around. “We can’t stop.”

“Some of us,” I say, sucking in a giant breath, “have to get oxygen in.” Grabbing my stomach, I bend over, lightheadedness swarming me.

“Elena.” He’s in front of me now, his hands stretching out. His skin burns against mine when he touches my cheek, lifting my face. “You’re still bleeding.”

“Oh…shit.” I follow his gaze to my left arm. The sleeve of my bright-teal shirt is torn. An equally bright crimson covers the spot, streaming down the length of my arm like thick, wet paint. He told me before, but it hadn’t hurt, so it didn’t matter. “I think,” I swallow, “one of the bullets…grazed my skin.” And the flood gates open, releasing the pain. It’s a sluggish inferno, building and burning its way through my veins. My arm pulses agonizingly every time my heart beats.

“We have to go,” he says, putting both hands on my face, pulling my gaze away from my own arm. He winces and swallows visibly as his eyes rake down my body. “That’s a lot of blood.”

The sight makes me dizzy, spiking my heart rate. “Let’s go.” He lowers his hand, and I take a few steps, stumbling. In an instant, Aiden grabs me and picks me up. I’m met with a brief feeling of vertigo, and then my eyes focus on his face. “Wh—what are you doing?”

“Carrying you.” His lips quirk into a half-hearted grin. “Running will only pump your blood faster.”

“We won’t make it very far like this.”

“Yes, we will. I don’t get winded, and you may as well weigh nothing.”

I shut my eyes and take in a slow breath, trying to calm my nausea. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.” My attempt at a joke falls flat.

When he starts to jog, I lay my head against his chest and shut my eyes, praying the pain will dissipate. But my prayers go unanswered, and the darkness behind my eyelids doesn’t help.

“Do you regret it yet?”

I peel my eyes open and stare at the curve of his jaw. “What, making a foolish deal with you? No. If I end up bleeding out, though, I might feel differently.” I give a small, hoarse laugh, but he doesn’t smile.

Aiden’s lips press together, and something unnamable sparks in his eyes. “I won’t let that happen.”

Silence stretches, and I focus on the warmth of his body against mine instead of the tearing and burning in my arm. He’s holding onto me so tightly, and oh…I might just burst into tears. Or pass out. “Just promise me you won’t give up.”

“I promise,” he whispers back.

He slows his step, and I see what’s in front of us—a deserted road. “Maybe this will lead us somewhere,” I say, twisting further to look around. The movement sends a fresh wave of stinging needles through my arm, and I inhale sharply. “Remind me not to move.”

“I don’t even know where we are.” Aiden comes to a complete stop. “We need to know how far away we are from Dr. Miller’s place. Do you still have your ComPad?”

“Of course.” I pull it from my pocket and start typing. “Now that we’re walking, it’ll take us about an hour to get there,” I say after inspecting the map I pull up. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” He holds up his hand. “This might be a brilliant idea if you weren’t hurt. You don’t need to be walking. You need medical attention.”

“We’re so close, though. And what happened back there will go public. It’s only a matter of time before both our faces are blasted across the news. This is our shot to find the psychologist and hope she has answers. I’m not going to let this”—I motion toward my injury with my good arm—“keep us from finding her.”

He eventually nods, and we continue walking. He keeps asking if I’m all right and I keep saying, “Yes, I’m fine.” He doesn’t believe me, though. I can tell because he spends more than half his time with his eyes focused on me. It’s not something I entirely hate, and in any other situation, I’d be flattered.

There’s silence between us aside from the rustling of grass beneath our feet. Momentarily, the quiet is nice, and I enjoy being inside it. Soon enough, though, my thoughts grow louder and louder until I need the distraction of noise.

“What’s the plan if Dr. Miller isn’t there?” I ask quietly. “It’s Saturday, and there’s a good chance no one will be in the office.”

“We look for a home address.” He says it with a confidence he almost pulls off.

“You really think she’d leave information like that just lying out?”

“Well, no.” He pauses. “But we have to try everything. Including getting into her computer system.”

“And then?”

Aiden wraps his hand around mine, looking anything but confident. “Then…then we get the hell out of there.”

…

We walk for about an hour. Aiden carries me for more than half of the journey, despite my protesting. The tingling pain has mingled with everything else, and I can no longer tell the difference. Is this shock? I hope not.

“We’re close.” He whispers as though there were anyone else around. “Just a few blocks away, we’ll make a right, then an immediate left.”

“How do you remember that?” Maps felt a lot more confusing to me.

“The whole I-remember-everything bit? That also applies to my photographic memory.”

Right. I must not be operating at full speed, because I should’ve known that. “Ah, so we’re not being followed. Not closely. We can’t have much more than a half-hour lead on anyone who might be trekking through the woods. Think that’s enough time to get what we need and get out?”

Aiden nods, though his face is tight. “Do you have a bobby pin?”

“Uh, what for?” Though my hand immediately goes to my hair, where I find no bobby pin.

“To pick the lock.” He says it like it’s as normal as asking about the weather.

“I thought people only knew how to pick locks in the movies?” I dig my hands into my back jeans pockets where I sometimes stash a bobby pin. We’re in luck. I hold it between my fingers out to him.

“Nah. It happens too quickly when they do it in movies. It’s something only a certain subgroup of people would be interested in. Guess I’m weird like that. After seeing it done on TV a dozen times, I got curious about it, so I’d ask for stuff like that to study with. I spent months learning how to do it. And I can do it well.”

“You are an interesting human being,” I say with a grin.

He grins, too. Then we cross the street, toward the large office building. I keep an eye out for cameras, though I’m not confident in my abilities to spot things like that. I also keep an eye out for people, though there are none to be seen. No cars in the front of the building. Around the side there are a few scattered cars, but nothing that implies a business that is open and running.

Aiden opens the door, and we duck inside. I breathe out, trying to maintain my calm. Can’t say it helps much.

“This way,” he says, pointing to a sign that has the name Zoe Miller on it, one that tells us her personal office is upstairs.

We get to the second level and still see no one. We’re in the clear for now. My heart rate increases all the same. Aiden kneels in front of the door, and I note that he’s snapped the bobby pin in two. He uses one side for the bottom of the lock, and he wiggles the other piece back and forth. It looks like he’s doing nothing for all I can tell. I guess that’s how it looks in the movies, right? Like someone doing something, but also nothing.

Click.

I blink, and by the time I open my mouth, Aiden has the door open. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“Ouch.” His lips quirk into half a smile.

“I’m impressed. That’s a compliment.”

He chuckles, then gently pulls me into the office. Quickly and quietly, he shuts the door.

Aiden pulls the chair away from the desk and surprises me by sitting in it. He starts pulling open drawers and searching through papers in various places.

“Are you going to hack her computer? Can you do that, too?”

Aiden blows out a heavy breath and shakes his limbs out, as if resetting himself. “Yes.”

“Wait, yes?” I wasn’t expecting that. I set both hands on the desk, looking from him to the computer. “There’s no way you—”

“There is a way,” he says, eyes widening with excitement, gesturing at all the hardware in front of us. “Physical access is total access.”

“What does that mean?”

Wordlessly, he shuts the computer down, and when it boots back up again, he hits a series of commands on the keyboard. The screen is mostly dark aside from the option to “repair computer” that appears on the display.

“There are plenty of ways to hack a password,” he says. “Especially if you have physical access to the computer itself.”

“So you’ve done this before?”

“No.”

“How do you know it will work, then?”

His lips curve upward. “You saw the way I picked those locks. Now you want to start doubting me? Don’t worry. I can force reset the system. Let’s make the new password…velveteen.” After a moment, Aiden continues, “I know this will work because there’s a bug within the system that causes the command processor to run with elevated privileges when the system repair process is invoked. It—” His hands fly to his head, and he groans in pain.

A sensation more real than déjà vu flattens me. My senses spin like tires stuck in the mud. “Aiden! Are you okay?” I scramble to the other side of the desk, though I’m at a loss for what to do next.

“Damn it.” He leans back, hands pulling at his hair, eyes squeezed shut.

“Tell me how to help.” It’s a plea I whisper, because watching him in so much pain is unbearable.

His hands relax slightly as they slide down the sides of his head. “You can’t. Not unless you have superpowers and…” He groans again, throwing out a few select words. “Unless you can stop these headaches, there’s nothing you can do.”

Could these headaches be a result of some surgery? Is this something that might do irreparable damage? Could these headaches kill him? Before I can voice my concerns, the computer boots up, showing us the home screen.

“We can discuss the possible causes of my headaches later. Right now, let’s focus and look for something useful inside her computer. Maybe we can get into her emails. We could send a message to herself, see if she opens it.”

My brain is still trying to catch up with the headache and the voodoo he seemed to do on the computer as he opens folders on the desktop, scanning the contents. I look with him, and the room is oddly silent for a few minutes. My heartbeat can be heard, and my palms are sweaty.

I clear my throat. “Maybe you should look for her email now.”

Aiden glances at me, then frowns at the computer. “There are so many folders and subfolders.” He scrolls through a few more before saying, “Is there any contact info for her?”

“Her email should. I’m going to dig into that now.”

“Wait, there!” I lean forward and point at a folder titled AIR. “Open that one. My dad works there.” He always refers to the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics lab by the acronym. As far as I know, everyone does.

Aiden’s features flicker from neutral to worried, and he hesitates before clicking on the folder. There’s only one subfolder, and it’s titled Project A.I.D.E.N. I gasp before I can stop myself, but other than that, neither of us moves or says anything. As my heart continues to thunder, my brain pulls all the pieces together—I remember seeing this title before.

Subject exhibits signs of non-compliance.

…it is my decision to deem Project A.I.D.E.N. a waste of further efforts and resources.

“Aiden,” I whisper. “This folder is about you. You’re…their project?”