Page 227 of Damsel in Disguise

There has only ever been one unfinished equation.

The Crown laughs, the sound distorted even without the machinery that had hidden his identity for decades.

“I should have killed you alongside your mother.”

An interesting statement. For years, I believed the same thing.

I stop in front of him and look down at the body lying at my feet. The bullet entered his chest exactly where I intended it to.

“Your loss,” I step over him, making him let out another ugly cry as my shoe comes down forcefully on the wound I put there.

My body also protests with sharp, immediate agony from the movement.

I ignore it. Pain has always been a reflection of how you’re being affected. Nothing else.

Swallowing down the pain, I bend down and remove the mask from his face. For the first time in my existence, I look directly at my father.

The laboratory disappears.

I remember standing outside a locked room since I wasn’t permitted to see my father. Didn’t know who he was.

I remember doctors and scientists discussing mother’s death as though they were reviewing failed research.

I remember him telling me that love and attachment are a biological flaw.

I remember promising myself that one day I’d destroy every person responsible for her death.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot.

However, the conditioning continued. So did the experiments.

The Dominion stripped away every unnecessary part of me until revenge itself became an inefficient use of energy.

Eventually, I stopped being a child with a purpose and started to become exactly what they wanted me to become. A machine.

Machines do not grieve or mourn.

Machines do not love or hate.

Machines certainly do not throw themselves in front of bullets.

Then Ariella Keinston walked into my life and ruined years of careful engineering of my biological brain simply by existing.

The man beneath me smiles. Even now, he believes this is a victory.

“You were always meant to become me.”

Every wall inside me seems to crack as I study his face with disdain.

The face I spent years imagining.

The face I spent years hating.

“I am you,” I tell him quietly. “And that’s why I know how this ends,” I raise the handgun and lower the barrel until it’s pointing directly at his hideous face.

For a brief moment, I think of my mother.

Just the memory of someone who once held my hand before the Dominion decided that love was a defect requiring correction.