Chapter Forty-Two

September 20X6, Stanford

My heart rate plummets and I gasp. My first thought is an EMP knocked out the grid, but the lights flicker back on a second later.

Dr. Nasif turns to a computer and swipes at the air. “I’m checking the campus security system for alerts.” Her face turns ashen. “Oh…”

“What happened?” Garrett grasps his wrist where his screen should be, before seeming to remember Dr. Nasif confiscated our devices.

“There’s been a break-in.” Dr. Nasif flips through information on the holographic screen. “The entire campus is on lockdown.”

Bile rises in my throat. Fearing for Stewart and Rayelle and Sophia, that they’ve been caught stealing my Book of Secrets, I swallow the burning sickness.

She whips around. “Ella, you need to hide, and Garrett, you cannot go with her.”

Ella? My name echoes in my ears and the room spins. “How do you know—”

“I can’t leave her alone,” Garrett says at the same time. “I promised to protect—”

“We don’t have time.” Dr. Nasif cuts us both off. “This is important. If you go near her, Garrett, you sacrifice everything.”

I inhale sharply as she takes me by the shoulders. “Ella, I have to make this fast, but I need you to understand. Because your instincts are so fast and so accurate you were able to overcome what your brain was being ordered to do in the Simulation. But I wanted to make it difficult for you, to slow you down so I could see the reaction on your brain scan. That’s where Garrett came in. Your brain lights up around him. I suspected it might with your similarities, with you two being two halves of a whole—it’s like it recognizes its perfect match, and that relationship has to be impossible to overcome. It’s rare. This sort of connection doesn’t happen, like, ever. What you have is special.”

My cheeks burn that Garrett knows my true feelings—that my brain lights up around him, ugh—but Dr. Nasif apparently has no regard for teenage crushes.

“At the end of the Simulation I was sending intense messaging to your brain, asking you to do what Garrett wanted.” Her gaze locked intently on mine, a thin sheen of sweat forms on her forehead. “And when it came down to it, you listened to yourself no matter what. You did what you believed was right—not what Garrett wanted you to do—which is even more remarkable given the link between you two. Despite your intense feelings for him, your desire to please him, you listened to your instincts when he said something out of character. You listened to your will. You made a choice and I saw it in your brain—an electrical current around the perimeter, an energy, a new plane of connectivity that nobody has seen before. Everyone has it, but it exists on a quantum level that isn’t scannable in most brains because they don’t function at that speed for extended periods of time like the two of your brains do. I believe you just proved free will.”

I blink to make sure I heard her correctly, my knees going weak.

Tears roll freely down her cheeks and her hands tremble. “But President Madden will be on her way here. A security breach of the Super Brain will require answers and she’ll bring her best and brightest to find them. This place is going to be crawling with her agents and a full investigation into the break-in will be underway. She must not find you. Either of you.” Letting go of one of my shoulders, she grips Garrett’s arm. “Together your brains complete the quantum circle, the full energy required to map free will. Together you make the Super Brain work. The only way to protect Ella, Garrett, is to stay away from her. Starting now.”

Garrett’s jaw twitches and he balls his fingers into fists, but he doesn’t move.

“Ella, you come with me.” She takes my hand. “We have to get you out of here. We have to take you far from here and Garrett can’t know where you’re going.”

“What? No.” Every ounce of me wants to stay with him, but she drags me away.

“Can I at least say goodbye?” His eyes never leave my face.

I raise my eyebrows, annoyed he could so easily let me go.

“You have to make it quick.” Dr. Nasif releases me and backs away, giving us space.

Garrett comes forward until he’s standing inches from me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, hugging me to his chest, and his heat envelops me, disorienting me. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But she’s right,” he says into my hair.

Tears prick my eyes and I melt against him, wanting to tell him I love him, wanting to beg him to stay, but the words won’t come. Instead, my defenses rise up. “So much for our unbreakable bond.”

“This won’t break us. Promise. I’ve hated having to lie to you all this time, but everything that happened just now in the Simulation was real.” His lips graze my cheek, sending a tremor through me. “The truth is I’ve—”

“Garrett. There’s no time,” Dr. Nasif warns.

Groaning, he straightens. He releases me from his embrace but tilts my chin up. “You have to go with her. Do what she says. She’ll protect you. She always has.”

Before I can think, he lowers his face to mine and kisses me. My eyes widen as his full lips connect with mine, but then I’m so dizzy I close them. The kiss is soft before becoming urgent and a kaleidoscope of color explodes behind my eyelids. For a moment time stands still. We’re the only two people who exist and I kiss him back, surrendering to the fuzzy warmth spreading through me, making me tingle all the way to my toes. I savor the pressure of his mouth as he teases mine open and I’m floating in another realm where everything is at peace. Everything is right.

But too soon he breaks the kiss. “Always say die,” he whispers before brushing his lips over my forehead.

Reality descends, reinstating its frenetic pace.

With his hand over his heart, he turns his back on me and disappears out the door, leaving me to stare after him in a daze.

“This way, Ella. I’ll explain everything, I promise.” Dr. Nasif tugs on my arm. “But we need to move.”

With a parting glance at the door that closed behind Garrett, I let her lead me into a cramped storage closet full of brooms, mops, and buckets. She shuts the door behind us.

Will I ever see him again? My instinct is yes and my spirits lift.

“I don’t allow bots into my secret lab to clean,” she explains, pushing aside a dirty yellow broom. “But I’m a Laborer. I’m used to doing things myself.” She presses a button on the wall and the entire room moves downward. “Welcome to my escape hatch.”

I openly stare at her. “You have all kinds of secrets.”

“Just you wait.” Dabbing at her cheeks to dry her tears with the hem of her lab coat, she forces a smile.

The elevator comes to a halt and she opens the door. After peering outside, she gestures me forward. “Just one last thing.” She throws her arm out to block me from exiting as she presses a button on a palm-sized handle that opens into a scrambrella. “I assume you’ve seen one of these before.”

My jaw drops. “Who are you?”

“Soon, Ella. I’ll tell you everything very soon.”