“I’m glad too,” I say, tears welling in my eyes at the reminder.
“See? I’m not dead to you. I’ll never be dead to you, Jade.”
Despite Ilya’s assertion that Blake isn’t on drugs, she isn’t talking naturally. There’s something wrong.
“Blake, I need you to concentrate.” I glance up at Ilya, expecting him to shut down the conversation at any moment. “Tell me where you are.”
“I’m with you. I’m wherever you want me to be.”
I keep my gaze on Ilya. “What have you done to my sister?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Blake says, having assumed I’m still talking to her. “Do we have another sister?”
Ilya’s mouth curls wickedly, and he doesn’t resist when I take the phone from him.
“Blake, why would you–?”
My question turns to ash on my tongue when I see the screen. There’s no active call, just a chat box that’s converting our conversation to text.
For one more blissful moment, I don’t understand what’s happening. Then the truth hits me like a punch to the chest that steals my breath. I’ve been around Strider long enough to know how AI technology works. It has the power to trick us in ways that are only limited by humanity’s wicked imagination.
I grip Ilya’s phone as tightly as I might a ledge, and I cling on because the fall might just destroy me. “Blake, please tell me you’re real.”
Blake laughs. “And you accuse me of taking drugs! You’re not making sense.”
My throat burns with the tears I’m holding back. “Tell me you’re real!”
“Yes, Jade, I’m real,” she says soothingly.
“I don’t believe you,” I gasp out, and my body convulses as the first sob escapes. “You’re only saying what you’ve been prompted to say.”
Ilya peels the phone from my frozen fingers and ends the chat. “It’s usually so much better when we set up the parameters for each conversation, but at this point, I think it’s outlived its usefulness, much like what happened with your sister.”
“No! You didn’t…” My words fail as I grasp the full extent of Ilya’s deceit. All of my conversations with Blake had been faked. The confirmation that she was still alive. The chance to say sorry for our argument last year. The memories we’d shared. Her little dog. “It was all AI.”
Ilya puts away his phone and crouches at my side so we’re at eye level. He takes hold of my wrists, expecting me to lash out once the icy shock shatters and I’m able to move again.
“It’s so difficult these days to distinguish reality from fantasy,” he croons. “Like the fantasy that your boyfriend could ever keep you safe. I’m your reality now, Quinn. I’m all you and your baby have, and even I have my limitations. I can only keep you alive if the Griffins agree to collaborate with us. So do your fucking job and tell them… No,begthem to comply. You can’t save Blake now. But you can save your baby.”
I can hear the words Ilya speaks, but I can’t process them beneath the glare of the spotlight as they film my descent into hell. I was so close to being reunitedwith Blake. I thought she’d just walk through the door and everything would be OK. All I had to do was keep hold of her until help came. I thought I was getting my sister back. I thought she’d forgiven me.
No.
Please god, no.
A sob claws at my throat. “Tell me she’s still alive,” I plead. “Somewhere.” Anywhere.
“Stop sniveling!” Ilya snaps, rising quickly to his feet. “Blake is gone, Quinn. Get over it. If you’re a good girl, Mikhail might show you where she’s buried.”
The monster behind the camera laughs. “If I can remember. There are so many graves out there in the desert,” he says, tipping his head to the window.
I try to swallow, but my throat is constricted. I can barely breathe. “That’s what you meant when you said she was here.”
“Well, look at you,” Ilya says, raising his hands as if in praise. “You’re not as stupid as your sister after all. What a waste it would have been just to use you to spy on Barrett. You’re the little prize that just keeps giving.”
“Are we finished here?” Mikhail asks, hand resting on the camera. “Can I turn it off?”
“We’re done.”
