“No.”
“And Hector?”
“I’m right here.”
Janet inhaled. “You’re both Zeph and Hector?”
“I’m both and neither, sweetheart. You see, when I was stuck on theOppressionwith nothing but corpses and my grief to keep me company, I relived an entire life. His memories became my own, and although I know who I started out as, I now can’t imagine being that man. I’m something entirely new.”
There was a whole other being inside him. There wasn't a sickness that plagued him, but discord. A mutation that was not meant to be trying to find harmony in one body.
Janet drew away from him, and he let her go. She straightened out the skirt of her small dress and stared down at the glittering green sparkles. “What…” she swallowed, but her mouth was dry. “What should I call you?”
“Hector when we’re alone, and Zeph when we’re near others. I’m still Zeph in all things. We’re the same being now.”
“And when you change?” she asked. “What happens?”
“The animals. The chameleon and the croc, they’re the only pieces of me that have never fully worked.”
“You’re a chameleon who became an entire other creature.”
“Nightheart saw it the same way.”
He took her hand, but she tugged it away. “He wants you dead.”
“Janet?” He cupped her chin and forced her to look at him.
“Does he want you dead because you took me? Or because you broke your agreement with him? Is Lily’s life in danger because of me?”
His face darkened. “Everything that has happened has been my fucking fault. He wants me dead because if it ever got out that he let me live in the first place, he’s as good as dead himself. Those who rule the Cyborg city, Ghost, would never let him live.” She tried to pull away from his grip, but he wouldn’t let her this time. “Don’t.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “You lied to me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t even know what to call you anymore. Zeph, Hector, nothing seems right.”
His jaw tightened. “Call me whatever you want, I’ll even take Asshole. Janet don’t pull away.”
She sniffled. “I can’t.”
“Nothing about me as changed.”
“Everything has changed!”
She thought she knew him, she thought she trusted him, but this, this was all too much. Two Cyborgs? Which one was she talking to? She didn’t even like Cyborgs, but now she’d unknowingly bargained with two? But it wasn’t only that, the realization that this would never end, that the EPED and the government would always be after him was the straw that broke her. They’d never be safe, her family, Zeph, herself... If she stayed with him, tried to help him, the people she loved the most would always be in danger. Tears fell down her cheeks and she wiped the back of her hand across her face.
“You’re my humanity,” he whispered, drawing her face closer to his. “You calm the storm that rages inside me.”
She didn’t want to hear it. “This will never end.”
“We have a ship now, I’ll take you back to Kepler as I promised.”
“But this,thiswill never end. Nightheart will never stop chasing you.”
When he didn’t respond, more tears fell. She jerked out of his grip and curled up against the side door, looking out the window. Even the flashy Elyrian landscape held little interest to her anymore. Her throat burned, and her heart hurt. Janet couldn’t keep a thought straight. She hated that she was already ready to forgive him, but he’d been right, what happened to him was beyond her.
“Janet—”
