“That’s cute.”
I scowl at him. “No need to be sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t.”
“And I’ve been to the markets again, once with Tippy, and once by myself.” I pause. “I was there the day before yesterday, I thought I saw you on your bike.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Tippy said it was likely a fae.”
“Yeah, probably. I bought my bike off a fae.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about your life here, Jax,” I huff, and then Otis enters with cookies and steaming mugs of tea, which we both dive on with grateful thanks.
Otis says quietly, “I’ll leave you two to talk. Let me know when you’re done.”
Once the door closes behind him, Jax stares at his booted foot, picking at a buckle.
“Okay, fire away,” I say. “What do you want to tell me?”
Jax slouches lower in the chair, bites on his cookie takes a loud slurp of tea. Then he puts the mug and cookie down on the occasional table next to him, and sighs.
“What has Otis told you already?” he says finally.
“That you had a device in your neck that the humans controlled you with. That it’s not there anymore.”
“Yep. It’s been removed.”
“Otis said it was wolves that mauled you, too.”
Jax nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this when it happened—about the device and all?”
“I needed to protect you. You didn’t need to carry more secrets.”
“Well there’s no need to protect me now. I’m never going back to Sparkle.”
“Dead set. I wouldn’t let you,” Jax says.
“So tell me everything.”
He nods, sucks on his vape and exhales. He’s never been one for awkward conversations.
“Start at the beginning,” I encourage gently. “When did the authorities put a device in you?”
“After reform school. Clearly, I wasn’t reformed enough for their liking. They gave me a choice: be vaporized or serve the cause as a peripheral. If it wasn’t for you Clem, I’d have happily been vaporized. I know I’ve been a shit useless brother, but I couldn’t do that to you. Not after Mom disappeared, and then Dad died. You couldn’t lose your brother as well.”
“Oh, Jax.” Tears gather in my eyes as I realize how much he cares about me, despite his bluff and bluster. “What was it like, being programmed?”
“Utter shit. I was peripheral number 101, allocated to bring products from the Labyrinth to Sparkle. With that thing inside you, you lose all curiosity, all purpose, your autonomy is gone. And yet…” He drags on his vape, “Yourememberyou were more than a zombie once, that you had free will, but… but you can’t access it. It’s like you’re swimming around in a bucket of mud.You keep swimming because you remember that youwere so much more. Hoping that one day you’ll find a way out of the fucking mud, that you’ll escape. Except you never do.”
A tear trickles down my face. “I wish I’d known.”
He huffs a sigh. “We were unable to talk about it with our loved ones. That was programmed into us too.”
“But if I’d known I would have saved you somehow.”
