“I didn’t think the genetically engineeredcouldlook terrible.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“Don’t remember. Doesn’t matter. I don’t need it. Genetically engineered, remember.”
“Nate—”
“Please stop.” I hold up a hand. “Stop calling me Nate. Stop pretending you care. Stop pretending last night meant anything other than…”
“Two people who can’t figure out how to stop wanting each other?” She raises an eyebrow. “That’s exactly what it was. But that doesn’t mean I want to watch you fall apart.”
“I’m not falling apart.”
I’m falling apart.
And the look she gives me says she doesn’t believe it either. She can see it, she can see me unraveling at the seams in real time and she’s the one holding the thread.
“I know there’s something wrong with you. Something more than just—this. Us. The way you’ve been losing time. The headaches. The voice you mutter to when you think I can’t hear.”
I go still. “What voice?”
“I can hear you through the walls sometimes. Telling someone to shut up. Telling them to stop. It’s bloody disturbing.” Her eyes search my face. “Who are you talking to?”
Eliminate the threat.
She’s fishing for intelligence.
Don’t tell her anything.
But something cracks inside me. Some last defense crumbling under the weight of too many sleepless nights and too many questions and the memory of her body beneath mine and the voice in my head that won’t stopwhispering.
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice sounding hollow. “I don’t know who it is or what it wants. I just know it’s getting louder. And it keeps telling me to…”
“To what?”
I weigh the truth in my mind. It’s not lost on me that I’m supposed to be interrogating her and yet she has me confessing.
“To hurt you,” I finally say. “It keeps telling me to hurt you. To…kill you.”
She nods slowly, like this confirms something she already suspected.
“But you haven’t.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because I love you.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it, and I shove it back down so hard it feels like it’s tearing a hole right through me.
“Because I’m not a monster,” I say instead. “Whatever they made me—whatever I am—I’m stillme. I still get to choose.”
She’s quiet for a long moment.
“Yeah,” she says finally. “You do.”
