Unforgotten (37 page)

She is too weak to do this.

She waited too long to return.

But she knows she has to reach the house. She has to get there.

If he dies, it will be her fault.

She takes the long way, knowing there will be fewer sensors to dodge. But she knows that means more time on her feet. More opportunities for everything to fail and for her to become food for the foxes.

She stumbles along the rough dirt terrain. One particularly large divot sends her smashing to her knees. The impact of the fall crushing her like a thousand horses galloping across her organs. She gasps for breath. Her stomach convulses, attempting to vomit up empty air. She gags and expels more blood onto the desert floor.

She wills herself back onto her feet.

GET UP!

Another chill rocks her ailing body but finally she’s able to push herself up and stagger forward.

She reaches the concrete wall that separates the house from the rest of the compound. Knowing her fingerprint will never open the gate, she has no choice but to go over it.

Her feet scrape ineffectually against the façade as she fights to get traction up the side. The rough concrete rips at her palms, shredding her skin.

She crashes onto the other side, biting her lip to keep from screaming in agony.

A light shines down from above, blinding her. She squints into the sky, barely managing to make out the sharp silent blades of the hovercopter circling above.

“Stop,” booms an emotionless voice. Not human. “Don’t move.”

With the vials tucked safely in her pocket, she struggles to her feet and runs. Her legs threatening to give out with every painful step.

She reaches the front door of the house and yanks it open, tumbling inside.

He’s asleep when she reaches him. Looking peaceful. His soft red beard rippling with each breath. She digs into her pocket and pulls out two of the three vials, thrusting them into his palm and tightening his fingers around them.

He wakes at her touch, his eyes heaving open. A smile appearing.

“You’re here,” he says, his voice thick with sleep.

But the joy fades as soon as he’s able to focus on her haggard, diseased face.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“The gene,” she manages to squeak, the oxygen barely able to fuel the words.

The light from the hovercopter blasts through the window, lowering steadily as the craft comes in for a landing. Her time is coming to an end.

“You have to find him,” she whimpers as she squeezes his fingers tighter around the two vials. “You have to find him.”

She gathers whatever energy she has left and focuses it all on her final destination. Knowing this is the last time she will ever see him.

The front door of the house bursts open just as the feel of his touch dissolves against her skin and the first tear treks down her face.

She lands huddled on the floor of the submarine’s command center, trembling. She drifts in and out of consciousness as Trestin covers her with a blanket, tugs on her pants to remove the vial from her pocket. He works quickly, inserting the needle and drawing out the fluid.

She feels the prick in her arm as he locates the vein.

The heavy, clear, cleansing liquid chugs through her bloodstream. Reversing the past. Healing the pain.

Trapping her in time forever.

59

BATTLE

Maxxer’s memory fades to an end and I open my eyes and take in the mess that we’ve created.

Furniture has been overturned. Framed artwork has fallen from the walls and shattered. Breakfast food and broken dishes are scattered across the white rug. Maxxer’s two guards lie in a heap at the base of the stairs, looking like a lumpy pile of snow in their crisp white uniforms. One’s nose bleeds from where it came into contact with the heel of my hand. The other sports a swollen lip from Kaelen’s elbow.

And Maxxer. She is unconscious on the couch. Sitting upright with her head slumped forward. Kaelen’s fingertips are still resting against her forehead. Sending her memories directly to the receptors he removed from his own head and placed on mine.

I blink and study my surroundings. Recognizing the room from the memory. I eye the section of carpet at the base of the dining table where Trestin injected Maxxer with the clear liquid from the vial.

The repressor.

The cure.

Disabling her gene permanently. Reversing the effects of the illness. Keeping her here forever. She will never transesse again.

“What did you see?” Kaelen asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I blink up at him. “There were three doses,” I explain.

Kaelen nods, as though he already knew this. “When it was believed that Dr. Maxxer returned to the compound, Dr. Alixter confirmed that the molecule accelerator in Maxxer’s lab had been used to manufacture three doses of a serum. But they could never be found. He assumed she came back to produce an antidote to reverse the effects of the gene. But when he attempted to re-create it, he was unsuccessful. Dr. Maxxer made sure no one could replicate her process.”

I nod. “I didn’t see how the antidote was manufactured. The memory started after the vials were already created.”

“She most likely erased it.”

I gaze at Maxxer’s sleeping face. She’s been so careful to guard so many secrets. And yet I feel like there are still some that have yet to be uncovered.

What did she mean when she said,
“You have to find him.”

“Did you see what happened to the three doses?” Kaelen asks.

I bite my lip. “Maxxer used one of them on herself.”

“What about the other two?”

Maxxer’s memories may have been fuzzier and harder to decipher than my own, but I recognized the man she gave them to. I know exactly who it is.

And this is where the road seems to come to a dead end. Yet again. Just further evidence proving that the forces of the universe have banded together to fight against me. To keep me from Zen.

“She gave them to Rio,” I tell Kaelen with a crestfallen sigh, feeling the stab of another hope disintegrating into nothing. “And he’s dead.”

Kaelen falls eerily quiet and I glance over to see his bottom lip is twitching. As though his body is having an epic battle with his brain. The outcome of which will determine whether or not his mouth moves and words emerge.

It’s the old Kaelen—the brainwashed, programmed, order-abiding version of himself—declaring war against this new, unfamiliar rebellious one. Attempting to regain control.

I stare in stunned silence as the internal battle wages on. As his eyes squeeze tightly shut. As his face contorts into what I can only describe as torment.

“Kaelen,” I finally say, gently placing my hand on his. He jumps at the contact and his eyes flicker open. “Are you all right?”

With visible effort, his mouth moves. His fingers curl into a tight ball underneath my hand. And for a minute I think he’s going to let out a scream.

“It’s okay,” I assure him, rubbing his tense, white knuckles. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”

For some reason, my comforting seems to work. After minutes of brutal combat, a victor emerges. The old Kaelen is shoved back down into the dark corners of his mind. And the new Kaelen speaks. His voice breathless and weary. His words choppy and clipped.

“Dr.… Rio…”

“What about him?” I ask, my eyebrows pinched together.

“He’s … not … dead.”

60

INCISED

I saw him.

I saw him fall. I saw him shake and shake and shake until he was deathly still. I saw the life fade from his eyes. Right in front of me. In that cave.

I saw him die.

The memory has haunted me since that day.

“But the Modifier.” I stumble through the words. “Alixter turned it all the way up.”

“It’s a destructive setting, yes,” Kaelen admits. “But it’s not fatal on its own.”

“What does it do, then?” I ask, my voice trembling as I remember Alixter describing the setting as something he called scramble.

“His brain has been severely damaged,” Kaelen explains. “Dr. Alixter brought him back to the compound after your escape. The lack of brain activity will eventually cause his body to shut down permanently. But Dr. Alixter has been keeping him alive. Artificially. He’s in a guarded room at the compound’s medical facility.”

Bombs are exploding in my head. Tiny detonations of joy. Of relief. Of hope.

“How do you know this?” I ask, a small shadow of my former distrust resurfacing.

“It was part of my intelligence briefing before I was sent on this mission. And”—Kaelen hesitates, his eyes shifting—“I’ve seen him.”

“We have to go there,” I say immediately, surprising myself with my own eagerness.

This is Diotech I’m referring to.

The place where I was made. Where I was imprisoned. The place Zen fought so hard to help me escape from.

But if that’s where Rio is, if that’s the only clue to finding Zen’s cure, then there is no hesitation.

“You have to take me there,” I tell Kaelen. “Rio knows where the other two doses of the repressor are.”

Kaelen’s head is already swinging back and forth before I’ve even finished speaking. “His brain is in an indecipherable state. He’s not even conscious. He’ll never be able to tell you where it is. He won’t even know you’re there.”

But I’m not deterred. Not when this is my last chance. “We have to try,” I vow. “
I
have to try. For him.”

Kaelen looks away, refusing to meet my eye. “Are you sure you want to go back there? If you’re caught—”

“I know the risks,” I say quickly, before he can finish the thought. I fear that if I hear the consequences aloud, I’ll lose my nerve.

I don’t have to guess what Alixter will do if he finds me there. If I’m apprehended. He’s already made his intentions for me perfectly clear.

I won’t lie. The thought of returning to the Diotech compound nearly paralyzes me. But there’s only one thing I’m sure of. And that is my desire to save Zen. Even if someone told me I had to go to the moon to do it, I would say yes.

Always yes.

“You said Rio’s room was guarded,” I say.

“From the
outside
,” Kaelen clarifies.

“Can you get us directly
inside
then?”

He nods. “Yes.”

Then there’s nothing else to debate. The decision is made.

I reach for the locket that’s still dangling from my wrist and ease open its door. Then I slide my hand into Kaelen’s and he closes his eyes, focusing.

I wait, staring down at our intertwined fingers. And that’s when I see it.

Peeking out from underneath the sleeve of his shirt.

His tattoo. His black scar. His tracking device.

I quickly fling his hand away. “Wait!”

Kaelen’s eyes snap open. “What?”

I flip over my own wrist and show him my matching mark. I can see the comprehension flashing over his face.

“They’ll know the moment we arrive,” I tell him.

He nods. “What do we do?”

I think about that morning on the Pattinsons’ farm. When I slashed it out with a knife in a fit of rage. How fast it grew back.

“We can cut them out,” I say, my voice stern and decisive.

“They will grow back,” he replies immediately.

“Not right away. We’ll have less than an hour to figure out where the two doses are and get out before they’re scannable again.”

I’m already glancing around the disheveled room for a tool. Anything with a sharp edge. My eye falls on a broken shard of glass from one of the fallen pieces of artwork. I dart over to retrieve it. Kaelen scurries behind me.

Feeling my heart race and my throat go dry, I look up at him, our gazes colliding. Sparks flying. “I’ll remove yours if you’ll remove mine.”

He holds his arm out, wrist up. “Go deep,” he whispers. “It’ll give us more time.”

I nod, wincing, and take a shuddering breath before pressing the sharp edge of the glass to his flawless skin.

61

RETURN

I bite my lip and wince against the pain as Kaelen makes the last cut along my wrist, completing the rectangular gash where my tattoo once was. The blood is dripping down the side of my arm, staining the pristine white carpet beneath me, next to the small crimson splotch that Kaelen’s wound already created.

I press the palm of my hand against the cut, trying to stanch the blood.

“Don’t,” Kaelen says, pulling my hand away.

“It’s bleeding everywhere.”

“You’ll heal faster if the blood clots.”

Warily, I remove my hand and cringe at the feeling of the warm, sticky liquid oozing into my palm.

“Just keep it elevated,” Kaelen tells me, raising his own hand above his head. I do the same.

“Remember,” I tell him, “since we don’t know exactly when Alixter created you, we have to transesse to a time
after
you left.”

“I know.”

“Do you know when you were sent to 1609 to apprehend me?”

Kaelen nods.

“So a week later, to be safe?”

He agrees and grips my raised hand with his. I immediately feel our exposed blood blending. Our scientifically perfected life forces combining.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I take a deep breath, glancing around the room. My gaze lands on Maxxer, still lying unconscious on the couch. She told me I could decide. I could join her alliance, or say no.

I guess this is me … saying no.

But I never thought this would be the alternate option.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been running
from
Diotech and all the things they represent. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been doing whatever I could to evade them. Deceive them. Stay as far away from them as I can. And now I’m about to go back there.
With
one of them.