Page 241 of Damsel in Disguise

A lapse in judgment.

An irrational attachment that made intelligent people stupid and dangerous people predictable.

Every subject I ever studied, manipulated, or dismantled under the clinical eye of the Triarch Dominion possessed one fatal weakness. Someone they couldn’t afford to lose.

I looked at them with detached curiosity from behind the high walls of our compounds, secure in the knowledge that I was the engineered anomaly—the perfect biological creation devoid of such pathetic tethers.

Then Ariella Keinston lied to me.

The truly unfortunate thing is that I wanted her lie to become true.

The garden beyond our bedroom balcony glows beneath the Australian sunset, painted in deep shades of gold and amber.

A warm breeze stirs the climbing roses she insisted on planting herself, completely ignoring the fact that Keinston heiresses aren’t supposed to ruin their manicures with dirt.

She smiled and did it anyway.

I’m watching her through the open glass doors from my study desk, where the scattered, encrypted documents of CynoTech sit mostly ignored.

She’s sitting beneath the old jacaranda tree with a book resting on her lap, although she hasn’t turned a page in nearly twenty minutes.

One hand absentmindedly traces small circles over the very real, gentle curve of her stomach, carrying our child, while the other brushes through the fur of the enormous black cat stretched across her legs.

Little Kitty.

The ridiculous name somehow suits the equally ridiculous, oversized Kuromi plushy she named and kept in our room—the only thing I bought from England.

Surprisingly, I found out that Ariella also brought a similar one back when she was just a stalking student.

Now the name little kitty also belongs to the stray animal she took in the second we arrived in Sydney.

I hate that I have to share the nickname I have for my wife with such another creature.

The equally ridiculous woman.

The equally ridiculous life I somehow found myself living.

I once believed the world could be reduced to mathematical equations and frequency responses. People could be understood. Controlled. Predicted.

Then she walked into my lecture hall at Oxford wearing an oversized hoodie, carrying enough secrets and local tracking data to dismantle everything I thought I knew.

The very first time I noticed her spamming my channel, CoreCircuits, with comments from PhaseVariance on my videos, I thought she was just another crazy fan. Little did I know she’d take it too far to be a reckless girl on a motorcycle circling my perimeter.

The last time I looked at her in the wreckage of England, I realized she solved me instead.

And now, a soft giggle escapes her lips when the cat rolls over on its back, demanding more attention.

Then she glances toward the house.

Toward me.

Even from this distance, I recognize the sharp, knowing expression in her hazel eyes.

She knows I’m watching. She always knows.

Perhaps that was my first mistake. Believing I could ever hide the darkness of my history from the girl who spent months learning the rhythm of my breathing, tracing my lectures, and matching my steps.

The girl who knew exactly how I take my coffee. The girl who could identify every lie I told but somehow believed I wouldn’t recognize one of hers.