“Sirena,” he said again, coming closer with it, weaving precariously back and forth again.
Then he tapped the button on the screen that opened the door.
“Don’t run. Yet. Please,” he said, only after it was open. “I’m not him.”
He fell to his knees.
Another test.
One I didn’t understand.
Trying to weaponize my kindness against me?
Luckily for me, where Marek was concerned, I didn’t have any.
I stood and bolted, running for the laboratory door—which opened for me.
I stopped in the doorway, stunned.
The yacht was still moving. I could feel it, so we weren’t at port, which meant none of my escape calculations from my last encounter had changed. As long as I had the box bolted into my skull, I would have to take everyone I met on the ship down by hand.
I was good, but I wasn’tthatgood, especially against Hollows, who had no concern for their own safety.
“Sirena,” Marek called weakly after me. “Wait.”
I walked back to him and stood a wary distance away, listening to the laboratory door hiss shut behind me. “What’s your game?”
“Currently, control the human,” he gritted out as I glared. “Not you. Never you.” He moved to lie down on the floor entirely, and held his hand above him like he was mystified by it—like a college freshman on drugs for the first time. “Everything burns. How do you survive? No one talks about the fire.”
I squatted down, tucking my gown up beneath me so that I wasn’t giving him a free show. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
“I’m Nex,” he said while staring straight ahead, then nervously darting his gaze to where I was. “This...is me. The new me.”
I bolted upright again and took three steps back. “You’re not funny.”
“I know,” he said. “No one knows that better than me. This—is awful. So much living and dying in one place, all at once. I should’ve been lying down this whole time, until I’d recalibrated, but I had to find you.” He rolled himself onto his side so he was facing me. “To see you. To...touch you.”
He reached toward me with one hand.
If my eyes got any bigger, they’d fall out of my head.
“But there’s so much data. Too much. And I’m having a hard time holding it—I don’t know what’s important and what’s not.” He gave a soft laugh. “I never knew being a human was this complicated.” He put his empty hand back down on the laboratory’s floor and closed his eyes.
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
“I know. I mean—of course you would think that. You have every reason.” He bit his lips and pushed himself up to sitting again, then kicked back so that he was leaning against the glass, giving him another layer of stability. “But I’ve been here with you all along, Sirena. First in your pendant,” he said, giving the pendant a nod. I’d tied the chain around my neck, because I’d broken the clasp yanking it off of the woman. “And then, here, inthe walls, in the data. Seeing everything. I know what he’s done to you. What this body’s done.” He turned his palms up to look at them again. “But he wanted your power for his own—so he put in a portal.” Marek tilted his head and lifted the hair at the nape of his neck. “And I took it.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. It was too wild to be believed, and of course they’d have inspected the necklace before they gave it to the “new” me—this was another elaborate test.
“I don’t think I’m actually dying—but I certainlyfeellike I’m dying. Mostly because I’m not used to feeling anything,” he mused to himself—just like the real Marek would. “In case Iamdying—can I touch you? First?” He offered his hand again and gave me a pained but hopeful look. When I didn’t come forward, his hand slowly lowered, and he nodded. “I know these hands hurt you. It doesn’t matter. I’ll cut them off and build myself new ones. Then you’ll see.”
29 /NEX
“I thinkI need to lie down again,” I announced and moved back to the ground.
Marek’s clothing on me itched. Or burned. Or ached. Or a combination of all three. Solid contact, however, calmed my overexcited nerves.
I knew humans were absolutely riddled with the things, but I had no idea how they learned to ignore ninety percent of the input their body was giving them at any moment. I was sorting data as fast as I could, allocating it into useful and non-useful buckets, but the second I had finished one routine, another swarm of...of...feelings...appeared.
