“Wait, what about your MIND?” I hadn’t thought about the chip once. Did Collin already know Hal was here?
“It’s taken care of,” Hal told me, his voice closer. I looked up to find him standing before me. He held up his wrist, where a metal cuff encircled it. “The Majors have secrets. We can make ourselves invisible. For a while.”
“How?” I asked, stepping closer.
“These scramble the chip and the Illum technology, not sure how exactly. Not my thing.” Hal shrugged. “But the Illum don’t watch us the way they watch you.”
“I’m s—”
“Don’t apologize,” Hal cut me off. “I’ll be fine. I am glad I was there.” His eyes met mine.
“Okay, um, there’s water from the sink. If you . . .” I had nothing else to offer him. “If you’re thirsty.”
“What, you finished all the chocolates?” Hal joked.
My cheeks flushed, my hands twisting the hem of my shirt. “I left the rest for you in my office.”
Hal went still. “Why?”
“A lapse in judgment,” I told him. I almost stumbled as those starburst eyes glittered at me in the dark.
I closed the bathroom door, blowing out a long breath. Hal was staying in my room tonight. I started the shower, grabbing my toothbrush as the water heated up. I brushed my teeth as I caught my reflection. I could just make out the smeared remains of Rose’s work. Hal said I was beautiful in the gown, but I looked like I had almost drowned.
I stepped into the shower. Slowly, the hot water warmed the bone-deep chill from my run. My body ached in a way I barely remembered, limbs too heavy, legs already succumbing to the lactic acid accumulating. The water stung my feet; tiny cuts peppered them. It was a miracle I hadn’t sliced them open. I lifted my face into the stream of water, washing it all away.
I pulled back quickly, but not fast enough, as the lens shifted before dislodging completely. I wiped my face, searching for it in the dark.
“Dammit,” I muttered, resting my forehead against the tiles as the water cascaded down my back. “Dammit.” I hammered my fist along the wet tile, the heaviness of the evening engulfing me. The water couldn’t wash away my birth father’s hatred or the Elite’s desire to murder everyone they deemed beneath them.
And you wanted to save her, Helen.
Helen had wanted to save me. I still breathed so she must have been successful. I must have meant something to her at some point. Enough to whisper warnings but nothing else.
The glow of my wrist was the only light. The implications of my Procreation Agreement with Collin slithered in, unlocking something I had never let myself consider. The desolate part of my soul that had watched other Minors embrace their birth mothers on visiting day, devoid of any memories of maternal love, swallowed me as viciously as my panic had. How could she not want me?
Tears prickled in my eyes. Even alone with the water to conceal them I did not let them fall. I had always been fearful of my role. Terrified to carry an offspring. What if they were like me, defective and cast down? I couldn’t let my offspring suffer as I had. I wouldn’t.
A soft knock sounded on the door. “You all right?”
“Fine,” I responded. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine. Not even close. My birth family hadn’t spent their whole lives isolated and alone. They were a family. Gregory’s confession replayed in my mind.I didn’t believe them when they told me the girl in the sheer white dress was my birth sister. That I had a sister.Members of my birth family hadn’t known I existed. My twenty-seven years of solitude and pain—they had lived blissfully unaware of my existence.
Someone had dressed me in Major Defect blue and left me in my family’s clutches. The only explanation was that it had been Collin. Despite my vehement declaration that I did not believe in happy endings, I had somehow allowed myself to become delusional. Thinking my Procreation Contract would somehow change my life. Allowing myself to believe my desperate dream was within my grasp. That that dream was enough. That the kiss and Collin’s kindness might have meant something.
The thoughts were crushing. I scrubbed my face and washed my hair quickly, then shut the water and toweled off. I threw my gray shirt and shorts on and wrapped my wet hair with my towel.
I glanced at my reflection and was startled to see one blue eye and one brown looking back. I had gotten used to the lens—to brown eyes. I understood why people gawked.
I padded back into my room and froze, my heart beginning to pound.
Hal perched on the edge of my bed, clad in nothing but a pair of boxers and his cuff.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ISTOPPED BEFORE HIM, STARING UNABASHEDLY AT HIS MUSCULARbody—his chiseled chest, broad shoulders, and strong legs. He was devastatingly handsome—and he looked at home on my bed. He was every bit as physically perfect as the Elite in the clouds, would blend in with their cohort beautifully. My chest tightened.
“So you really do like looking at me,” Hal teased, glancing up at me. His gaze found mine in the dark, lens-free, and he stared at my defect greedily. “It’s still mutual.”
