“Careful.” Dresner’s tone stayed mild. “The subject is valuable.”
Subject.
Like Xavier wasn’t a person. Wasn’t someone who’d fought through hell to survive.
Rage flooded hot and vicious through my veins.
“Help him!” The words cracked as they left my throat. “You did this. Fix it!”
Dresner moved to stand between our tables, hands clasped behind his back. “The chip didn’t seem to have fully deactivated, Ms. Bolton. Another flaw from the chip? Residual damage to the neural pathways. The compound is still leaking.”
Horror crashed over me.
No. That couldn’t be true. We’d entered the codes. All three sequences. Havoc had confirmed shutdown. The seizures stopped. Xavier’s vitals stabilized.
“You’re lying.”
“I rarely lie. It’s inefficient. The truth serves me better.”
Dresner’s smile was small. Condescending.
I watched the guards strap Xavier’s wrists down. Chest restraint across ribs. Ankle cuffs locked tight.
He didn’t fight them. Could barely lift his head.
Another tremor seized him, worse than before. Spine arched off the table, muscles locked rigid for three heartbeats before releasing.
“Stop!” Vision blurred with heat. “Please, just help him!”
Xavier sought me through the fog. Pupils glassy. Unfocused. But searching for me through whatever was drowning him.
“Clare.” My name came out broken. Barely audible.
“I’m here.” I strained against my own restraints, trying to reach him. Our tables were maybe three feet apart, but it might as well have been miles. “Right here, Xavier. Stay with me.”
His fingers moved, slow, trembling, toward me. Stretching as though if he could touch me, everything would be okay.
The guards finished securing ankle restraints.
Xavier’s fingers dropped back to the table. Too weak to keep trying.
“He’s dying, Ms. Bolton.” Dresner moved to the monitoring equipment beside Xavier’s table, studying displays with clinical interest. “Slowly. Painfully. Complete system failure within...” He paused, consulting readouts. “I never could assist or record it before. It’s a unique opportunity. I need to time this too. It’s too late to bring a medical team, but...”
The devastation must have shown on my face because Dresner’s smile widened.
“There is, of course, a solution.”
Hope flared. Desperate, irrational hope that I hated myself for feeling.
“What solution?”
“Reactivation. The implant can be brought back online. Conditioning protocols restored. The chemical balance regulated properly this time.”
Dresner gestured to equipment being wheeled in by a third guard. Technical machinery I didn’t recognize. Cables. Monitoring devices.
Understanding hit like ice water.
“You want to recondition him.”
