“Hold onto those feelings, Milo… in case… in case the procedure doesn’t work. I just… I wanted you to at least see them.”
“Wait… wh-whatprocedure?”
“The only person getting a procedure today will be you, Jay.” Sebastian’s calm, angry voice interrupted whatever the hell was happening between The Forgotten and me.
We both spun around to find Seb standing behind us, pointing a handgun of his own at my captor’s head.
“For fuck’s sake,” The Forgotten rumbled, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was rolling his eyes.
“You gonna shoot me, Sebastian?” The Forgotten asked, stepping fearlessly toward the armed man. He was acting as if Seb weren’t sighting down at us through the barrel of a freaking gun.
There was a slight tremor in Seb’s hand, and I caught the roll of his throat as he swallowed. He looked scared.
“I will if I have to.”
The Forgotten laughed.
“Do it then, Seb. Fuckingshootme. Hell, I wish you’d done it ages ago. Would have saved me a lot of fucking pain and trauma.”
Sebastian looked like the other man had physically struck him, and his gaze darted back to me before returning to the masked man who was still walking toward him as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I never wanted—Jay, you know I couldn’t do anything with the chip…”
“Well, you’re not fucking chipped now, are you? He swapped it for the original model so you could fucking seduceMilo, didn’t he?”
“Jay—”
Before my mind could catch up to what was happening, The Forgotten was pressing his chest directly into the muzzle of Sebastian’s gun.
“You want to shoot me!? THEN FUCKING SHOOT ME!” he bellowed, and a large tear spilled down Sebastian’s cheek. It didn’t take long for him to crumble.
He dropped the gun to his side, and before I could blink, The Forgotten had disarmed him.
Now, it was Seb who had a gun pressed to his head, and I gasped in horror as the memory of Melanie’s brains exploding out the back of her skull assaulted me.
“Can’t do it, Seb? Then maybe I should shootyou. Put you out of your fucking misery.”
Sebastian was staring into the glowing blue ring in The Forgotten’s mask, and he looked so fucking broken and lost that I couldn’t bear it.
“I never wanted it to be like this,” Sebastian whispered, and something in his voice made my heart crack.
“Stop!” I cried, coming forward and tugging on The Forgotten’s harness. “Let him go!Please!Look at him! He’s clearly…broken…” I didn’t have another word for what Sebastian was. Something was super messed up inside him, and I’d been sure of it long before this moment, but I didn’t think he deserved to die for that.
“Thirty seconds,” NOVA chimed, and The Forgotten let out a low growl.
He threw Sebastian away from him and holstered the gun.
“You’re fuckinglucky.You owe Milo your miserable,patheticlife. I’d tell you to say thank you, but that’s worth just as little as you are.”
He said the words with such venom that I thought for sure if he hadn’t been wearing a mask, he would have spit on him. Seb stared up at him like the man would never know happiness again, and I couldn’t help but feel some level of sympathy for him.
I was about to lightly chastise my captor for being so ruthless when he abruptly spun around and grabbed me.
“Wait, what?—?”
“Sorry, baby, but it’s time for a nap,” he murmured in my ear.
There was a prick in my neck, followed by a cold rush, then everything went dark.
