Lucien’s voice was low and dangerous. “What happened next?”
“I took her back inside and found the chain had snagged on the dress she’d been in the process of removing. The raindrop charm was under the bed.” Catching my eyes, he spoke to me, “I tried placing it on you without the chain and it did help. But the moment you started to come round, you’d roll over, knock it off, and start freezing all over again. I went to the hotel gift shop thesecond it opened and bought the strongest silver necklace they had. I fastened it back into place, waited almost an entire day for you to rouse, then passed out. When I woke, you were already gone.”
“I...I had no idea,” I whispered. “I don’t remember any of that.”
“Why would you?” Dillon said softly. “You were unconscious. And it’s not like I wanted to tell you. You didn’t seem to know what would happen if you stopped wearing that charm.”
“Sothat’swhy you don’t seem shocked about all of this,” Lucien muttered. “You’ve already seen what she can do.”
“Seen, yes. But I’m not comfortable.” Looking around as if afraid the walls had ears, he lowered his voice. “I...might’ve seen a few things in the labs when Rook was younger. Heard stories from other guards who didn’t last long after asking questions. Like I said, you don’t mess with what you don’t know and the less I knew the better.”
Lucien stared at him for a long time.
It grew awkward again and Whisper got up to prowl around Dillon’s chair.
“So you put the necklace back on her,” Lucien said coldly. “You sound quite proud about that fact.”
“Proud? No. I was just grateful I was able to help her.”
“But what if you didn’t?” Lucien needled. “What if you condemned her to yet more pain, nausea, and blackouts?”
“How could that be?” Genuine unhappiness filled Dillon’s face. “What’s he on about, Rook?”
I sighed with a wince. “It’s fine, Dil. I didn’t even know it myself until recently.”
“Know what?”
“That her necklace was the reason she was so sick,” Lucien so helpfully advised. “It wasn’t whatever disorder she called it—it was the pendant and some sort of frequency keeping her trapped. Her emotions became weapons against her.”
“But...when I found her that night, she was on the brink of death.” Dillon frowned. “She was hardly breathing. The necklacesavedher.”
“Oh God,” I gasped. “That...actually makes sense.”
“How?” Dillon asked. “What makes sense?”
“It didn’t save me, it...” I gulped, my mind racing with the past. “It might’ve been prolonging my death for as long as possible.”
Everything suddenly made horrific sense. Lucien’s vitalsync core, my necklace. Yes, they were traps but...without them, we would’ve been dead years ago.
Dillon stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“My parents’ experiments.” I dug through foggy memories, fighting to see if I was right. “The only animals that lasted any length of time were the ones they blocked from ascending, remember? They wore a frequency collar to stop the effects from accelerating too fast. It...stopped their bodies from breaking down.”
My heart sprinted as I turned to look at Lucien. “Remember what I told you? That the lab animals always died on the brink of evolution? What if that was us? What if the frequency wasn’t just designed to trap us but to hold us in stasis? You almost died when you reached critical level in the cave on your own. I almost died when I wasn’t wearing my necklace. But together...we were okay. We pulled through. What ifwe’rethe reason we were able to survive the transition?”
Dillon squeezed the back of his nape. “See? This is why I don’t want to know. This is way above my paygrade.”
Lucien and I ignored him. “Could that be possible?” His eyes flared wide. “Are you saying if you hadn’t been with me when Idefibbed the vitalsync core, I would’ve died when I burned up the first time?”
“Every single one of the animals my parents tested on never survived. Biological matter can’t withstand the kind of rewrite they were trying to achieve.”
Lucien’s fingers tightened on my hip. “Rewrite?”
“Cells aren’t built to last forever. They’re meant to replicate and decay. They’re literally programmed to die so new cells can take their place.” My throat tightened, remembering my mother’s teachings. “The fire inside you killed off the old cells in order to take their place but...human organs can’t cope with that level of power. The body goes into systemic collapse.”
“This is all based on the theory that we were tampered with.”
I sagged a little. “It is. But...it’s kind of proven now.”
