Syria. I’m in Syria. I smell smoke and cordite. There’s sand in my eyes, grit in my teeth. Emma’s voice on the satellite phone, distorted by distance and static. “They know about the protest. Nate. They know. You have to?—”
The line goes dead.
Then, I’m running through rubble, weapon raised, someone screaming in Arabic. A child’s body in the street, too small, too still. My hands covered in blood that isn’t mine. The crack of a rifle and my shoulder exploding, spinning me around, and I’m falling?—
The operating room again, different this time. Older equipment, flickering lights. A man leans over me, grey mustache, white coat, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry. This wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Who are you?” My voice doesn’t sound right.
“I’m the one who made you.” His face blurs, shifts, becomes Julia’s face, then Marsh’s, then something without features at all—just a blank oval where a person should be.
The machines scream. The lights explode. And somewhere in the darkness, I hear my own voice saying words I don’t remember speaking:
“Integration complete. Awaiting directives.”
I open my mouth to scream?—
I wake up screaming.
The bedroom is dark, the only light the faint glow of the city through the windows. I’m drenched in sweat, my heart hammering so hard, it feels like it might crack my ribs, and Mia is already there, her hands on my face, her voice cutting through the panic.
“Nate. Nate, you’re okay. You’re here with me. You’re safe.”
I grab her. Pull her against me hard enough that she gasps, burying my face in her hair, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and her skin andher.
Real.
Solid.
Alive.
“It was a nightmare,” I manage. “Just a nightmare.”
“You were screaming.” Her voice is careful, steady. “What happened?”
The dreams fade, blowing away like dust.
“I don’t remember.”
I don’t know if I want to remember.
Her body is warm against mine. Soft. The T-shirt has ridden up, her bare thighs pressed against my legs, and despite everything—the nightmare, the terror, the questions circling like sharks—I feel myself responding. Warmth flooding my body. Blood rushing south.
I pull back enough to look at her face. She’s watching me with concern and calculation, and I want to drown in her. I want to lose myself so completely that the dream can’t follow. I need to feel real. I need to feel alive.
“Mia.” Her name comes out rough, desperate.
“I’m here.”
I kiss her. It’s sweet for one second before it twists and turns and becomes something hungry. Ravenous. She makes a small sound against my mouth, and I swallow it, rolling her beneath me, my weight pinning her to the mattress.
Mine. She’s mine.
“Oh, I?—”
I kiss her again, cutting off whatever she was going to say. My hands are everywhere—pulling up the shirt, palming her breasts, sliding between her thighs. She’s wet already, and the knowledge makes something feral unfurl in my chest.
