Just the thought of it makes my entire body glow with heat and my arms and legs start to prickle with that peculiar awareness again.
It’s the same sensation I felt outside in the forest earlier. It’s like a … need. A desperate, aching, burning need. Like my entire body is on fire and Zen is the only relief.
And then, I simply can’t take it anymore. I can’t control it. It controls me.
I roll toward him, push him onto his back, and climb on top of him. My lips crush against his. I kiss him so hard, it’s as though I’m trying to extract the very life out of him and unite it with mine.
He tastes like everything I’ve ever loved.
Zen shifts beneath me, obviously having woken up, and begins to move his mouth in rhythm with mine. Like a dance.
I feel everything in that moment. The curve of his chest, the rigidity of his hip bones, his legs between mine. It’s like my nerve endings are on fire. My senses are more alive than they’ve ever been.
With my lips still firmly secured against his, I start to pull my nightdress up. Desperately wanting to destroy it like an enemy. Rip it to shreds.
At that moment, Zen pulls away and everything comes crashing to a halt, knocking the world off balance. I feel like I’m plummeting through space with nothing to break my fall. I open my eyes to see Zen gazing at me, a confounded expression on his face.
“What are you doing?” he asks in a measured tone.
I shake my head, feeling hot and flustered and breathless for reasons I can’t explain. “I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I just feel this crazy … urge. Like a craving. But I don’t even know what it’s for.”
Zen studies me for a moment and then his mouth curves into a huge grin and he starts to laugh.
“What?” I ask, scooting off him. “What’s so funny?”
His laughter fades quickly. “Sorry. It’s not funny at all. I’ve just been waiting a long time for this.”
I squint at him. “For what?”
“For you to feel…” He looks uncomfortable. His face even flushes. “W-w-well,” he stammers. “For you to feel ready, I guess.”
“Ready for what?”
He glances away, fidgeting anxiously with the hem of the sheet. Then, as though he’s finally gathered the courage to look me in the eye, he meets my gaze and holds it tightly. “Something that will bring us closer together. As close together as we can be.”
Yes!
I immediately think.
That’s exactly what I want.
The internal heat starts to glow again but I’m still confused. “I don’t understand. What
is
it?”
He hesitates before answering. “That’s the thing. It’s not really something I can explain. I mean, I could—” The red tint of his skin is back. “But I think I’d rather just
show
you. It would be more meaningful that way.”
“If it would bring us closer together, then why haven’t we done it already?”
“Well, at first you weren’t ready. Mentally, emotionally…” He stops and averts his eyes again. “
Physically.
I mean, I had to teach you what a hug was. What a kiss was. What a soul mate was. You knew absolutely nothing about love or the emotions that went with it.”
I smile. “You’re a good teacher.”
He chuckles. “I don’t know about that. It’s not like I’m a professional or anything. Before I met you all I cared about was gadgets and computer hacking and food. I didn’t really think about girls.” He stops, his face reddening again. “I mean, I
thought
about girls, I just never … you know”—he clears his throat—“anyway, let’s just say I didn’t know about this stuff either.”
“So who taught
you
?”
His entire face softens. “You did.”
I sigh and bite my lip. “I’m confused.”
“Sorry. I’m not being very clear. The point is, I knew you weren’t ready to do what I wanted to do. And then by the time you
were
ready, I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Why not?”
He grazes his finger over my shoulder, sending tingles everywhere. “Because I knew they would just take it away from you. Like they took everything away. Once we figured out that they were erasing your memories, I knew if we did this, it would be gone, too. And I couldn’t bear to think about that. So I decided we should wait.” He paused, releasing a heavy breath. “Until we came here.”
I rest my chin on his chest. His heart is pounding. “Well, we’re here now.”
He looks more nervous than I’ve ever seen him. “Yes, we are.”
“So you can show it to me? Now?” The curiosity is devouring me.
“Tomorrow night,” he says softly, stroking my cheek. “In our woods.”
“Okay,” I reply, trying to hide my disappointment. I lay my head back down against the pillow. He turns to face me, the tips of our noses barely touching.
“Good night, Cinnamon,” he murmurs, and I watch his eyes droop and slowly close.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house. The ghostly creaking of the walls. The scurrying of mice under the floorboards. Owls calling to one another outside the window.
I reach down the front of my nightdress until I find my locket. I pull it out, pensively fingering the clasp.
It was the only thing I had with me when I woke up with no memories in that ocean full of broken airplane parts. The only evidence I had that someone—some
where
—cared about me.
I would later learn that Zen was the one who gave me the locket. He had designed it himself with my favorite symbol—the eternal knot—on the front, and a special engraving on the back.
S
+
Z
=
1609
Forever reminding me of our promise to be together in a time without technology. Without Diotech.
But it was me who would eventually discover the locket’s real secret.
The truth is, should anything happen to me, should they ever find me here, this necklace is my key to escape.
It is the device that activates my transession gene.
My ability to move through time and space.
If I want to transesse, the locket has to be open. Otherwise, my gene is dormant. Useless. And that’s the
real
reason I insist on keeping it on at all times.
As I start to drift to sleep with the small black heart clutched tightly in my hand, I allow myself to think about Rio.
The man who created me.
He and Jans Alixter were the founders of Diotech. They started the company together. But somewhere along the way their opinions and priorities diverged. After I was created, it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t the obedient, soulless robot they had expected me to be. Rather, I was a real person. With real emotions, real thoughts, a real ability to love. And most important, an ability to rebel.
Alixter considered that an error. A mistake that needed to be fixed.
Rio felt differently.
That’s why he helped me escape. He was the one who gave Zen and me the transession gene. He was the one who installed the special mechanism inside my locket that allowed the gene to be turned on and off. Because according to him, the gene was highly unstable. And not enough tests had been done to ensure its safety. He insisted I have the ability to deactivate the gene when I wasn’t using it. To protect me from any harm that it might do.
He saved my life when he gave me that gene.
And he tried to save it again in 2013 when Alixter found me. But he wasn’t as lucky that time. By then, Alixter had discovered that Rio had betrayed him. And Alixter killed him. Right in front of me.
I can still see Rio’s motionless body lying on the floor of that cave. His limbs tangled. His face contorted in anguish.
And me. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I simply sat there and watched it happen. After everything he’d done for me, I couldn’t return the favor. I couldn’t save
him.
One more detail I’m somehow expected to just magically forget.
One more memory I’m not supposed to let haunt me.
One more way I’ll surely fail.
7
STRIPPED
I run through the forest. Pine needles and sharp pebbles slice through the skin of my bare feet but the pain doesn’t stop me. I need to find it. I can hear it calling to me through the trees.
But no matter how hard I search, I can’t seem to locate it. No matter how far I run, the sound only gets farther and farther away.
I stop to catch my breath, wipe my brow, survey my surroundings. Then I hear it again. Closer this time. More desperate.
BA-BUMP!
BA-BUMP!
BA-BUMP!
I look down and finally see it. The sticky, pounding, juicy red heart lying only a few inches away. It’s buried in leaves but still beating. Still alive.
That’s when I notice the large gaping black hole in the center of my chest. The skin around it is ragged and frayed. As though someone ripped me open with a tree branch.
I reach down and gently scoop up the severed organ, hugging it close to me. Protecting it.
A shadow flickers ahead and there’s the snap of a twig. My head whips up and I come face-to-face with him. The man with the white-blond hair, sharp, angled features, steel-blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sera,” he says. “But I’m going to have to take that now.”
“Alixter, please,” I beg him. “Please let me keep it.”
His face remains impassive. Blank. “It doesn’t belong to you.” He pauses, extends his hand, effortlessly pries the slippery heart from my grip, leaving me with empty, red-stained fingers.
Then he smiles—that sickening slithery smile—as he lovingly strokes the still-beating heart. “It belongs to me.”
* * *
With a gasp, I sit up. Panting, choking, battling for air. I clutch my chest, feeling the skin for a fissure. A crack. A scar. I collapse in relief when I find that it’s fully intact.
It’s still dark outside.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and bury my head in my hands, attempting to catch my breath. When I open my eyes, my gaze lands directly on my left wrist. On the hideous razor-thin line that stretches across the crease. The mark that Mrs. Pattinson called Satan’s mark.
My brand.
An ink-black stain on my existence.
It might as well say
Property of Diotech.
I feel anger rising up inside me. Deep, uncontrollable rage.
I rise to my feet and march across the room, not caring about the cacophony of creaks and thumps I’m making along the sensitive floorboards. I yank open the door to the bedroom and hurry down the stairs.
Once in the kitchen, I sweep my gaze left and right until I find what I’m looking for. I move hurriedly over to what’s left of the two-day-old bread loaf and draw the serrated knife from its heel.
I exit the front door and head for the chopping block. I crouch down and lay my arm flat against the thick tree stump, palm up. Then I carefully place the tip of the knife against my wrist bone. Small droplets of crimson squeeze out as the blade drags across my skin. My scientifically perfected life force. I curve around the edge of the tattoo and continue up the other side, peeling my skin away in one long, gruesome strip.
The blood flows instantly. I press the hem of my nightdress to the wound, to stanch the bleeding.
I set the knife down, and with the ribbon of jagged flesh in my hand, I stride up the hill onto the knoll where I normally watch the sunrise. As hard as I can, I chuck the tainted, blackened strip into the valley, watching in the darkness as it flutters in the wind before landing by the edge of the wheat field.
Then I collapse to the ground and I wait.
The sun peeks above the horizon an hour later, just as it always does. As though nothing has changed. As though nothing will
ever
change.
The first glints of daylight illuminate the neatly plowed rows of the wheat field, showing off Zen and Mr. Pattinson’s hard work from the day before.
The sky is gray and overcast this morning, a sign of storms to come. Probably later in the afternoon. Chores around the farm are always more difficult in the rain. Wagon wheels catch in the mud. Thunder puts the animals on edge. Wet clothes are heavier and harder to move in. And they take forever to dry.
For the first time since I sat down, I take a deep breath and glance at my left wrist, still covered by the cloth of my nightdress, which is now stained red all along the hem. That will have to be explained to Mrs. Pattinson somehow.
I slowly peel back the fabric, cringing slightly at the way it sticks to my skin.
I let out a heavy, surrendering sigh when I see what’s underneath.
Fresh pink flesh has grown back over the wound, merging with the jagged edge of the cut. It will only be a matter of time before it will blend in seamlessly.
The most disconcerting part, however, is not how fast my body healed itself—I suppose that was to be expected based on all the other “enhancements” I’ve been given—but the sight of the thin, black line that looks freshly drawn across the pale new skin.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised. Or disappointed. Zen already told me that the tracking device was a permanent part of my DNA. Like my skin color, or the shape of my nose. No matter how many times I attempted to carve it out, burn it off, or scrape the skin clean, it would always grow back. Exactly the same.
But I suppose I just had to see it for myself.
I had to witness firsthand the one piece of Diotech that I will never be able to fully erase. That I will never be able to escape from.
I run my fingertip across the new tattoo. Now darker than ever.
A shiver runs through me and for the first time, I notice the brisk morning air. I hadn’t even realized how cold I was. Or how little this nightdress does to stave off the chill. Despite my body’s ability to protect itself from extreme weather better than any normal human being’s.
I glance up at the foreboding sky, watching the grayness gather and condense. If I hope to finish my work before the downpour starts, I should probably get moving. Plus, I’m going to have to figure out what to do with my bloodstained nightdress. How will I manage to wash it without Mrs. Pattinson noticing and throwing a fit?