by Tara Brown
That and the sandwich landing in my stomach makes me grin.
“I know.” He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “Leah. She’s too damned smart.” He sits back, resting on his hands suggesting he’s enjoying the sun. “I will say, the direction they were going, west, was strange. Then it dawned on me, you must have told them to go to the old town that way and hide there.”
I feign a bit of worry, since I never told them to go west at all.
“I burned the town to the ground, didn’t find one of them. No trace of them.”
“Guess Leah is smarter than you after all.”
“I never disputed her being smarter than me,” he says defensively. “But now I need you to answer some questions. Or I will put you back in that hole and leave you there.”
“You can’t.” I smirk.
“What?” He scoffs. “I could kill you easily.”
“Try.” I realize we are now on even ground. I am his equal in importance. It’s the sneaky part of Dr. Jacquard’s plan I didn't notice before.
“Why would I kill you? I need answers from you.”
“Just see if you can.” I press my cracked lips together, feeling the skin break and a small bleed start. “For shits and giggles,” I taunt him.
His gaze lowers to my bleeding lips and he makes a face as though he’s thinking. It takes him a whole minute to comprehend what has happened. He’s also smarter than I gave him credit for. “Are you kidding me right now?” He sits up, leaning toward me. “Is this a joke?”
I shake my head, not saying a word, letting the humor in my eyes answer for me.
“That son of a bitch!” he shouts, getting up and kicking the dirt. It lifts into the air like a cloud and showers us both with the breeze. “He gave you his knowledge and now the only person who can complete my plan is you?” He laughs bitterly but his rage is so real, I taste it in the air.
“Maybe he just wanted us to be friends,” I joke.
“Oh, we’ll be more than friends, Lou!” He rushes me, grabbing me off the ground and throwing me over his shoulder with a thud. The force of my landing there causes an instant reaction in my stomach. I puke down the back of him, violently, but he doesn't stop. He doesn’t seem to notice. He storms toward the castle, which was behind the lid of the cistern all along.
I struggle to free myself from his grip, but he’s holding me so tightly I can barely breathe. He bursts through a set of doors I’ve never seen before and starts up a massive flight of stairs. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them before. The bots replay the moment in my head, confirming indeed I ran down them once.
“Liam, put me down!” I flail. As he flings open a door, he obliges. He throws me down on a rug-covered spot on the wooden floor. I grunt with the impact and take a second to assess the damage. Not that there’s any need. My body begins to heal whatever he has injured.
“You want to be my equal? You want to play this little game? Fine! Then you can stay here and you’ll never leave,” he seethes and turns, leaving the room. The door slams behind him followed by a series of locks clicking.
Once I have my breath again and it feels like whatever he might have injured is close to healed, I get up. Still sore from the cistern and the rope, I limp to the windows. They’re barred with heavy wrought iron and they don't open. I hit a windowpane with my fist, wincing at the bulletproof glass.
“He really thought of everything,” I say and stare out at the calm waters of the lake in the distance.
I’m not alone a minute before something rustles out in the hallway.
“Lou?” Lee whispers through the crack in the door.
“Lee!” I turn to the door and walk over. “You have to help me.”
“Why did you have to murder Dr. Jacquard?”
Taking in a deep breath, I pinch the bridge of my nose—likely in the exact same way my father did when my mother drove him insane—and take another large inhale.
“That was so stupid! He’s going to kill you and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Lee, help me out of here, please.”
“I can’t. I don’t want him to kill me too.” Her footsteps walking away are the next thing I hear. She leaves me here, something I honestly didn't think she would do. I figured if my life was actually on the line, she would protect me. The way I would her. But I was wrong.
That fact is hard to swallow.
And not just because it means I may end up having to kill her, but because I believed my love for her would be stronger than his brainwashing. If that’s not the case, what will become of me? Will he brainwash me too? Will I forget how much I love everyone important in my life like she has?
Feeling defeated, I turn to the large bed in the room and decide to lie down and try to figure out a solution to everything. But when I lie down, my body decides sleep is more important. Rest and healing and conservation.
I fall asleep with no say in the matter. Which is fine, the bots know better than I do anyway.
21
I wake in the dark to an idea.
It’s brilliant, though I don't know how I will find everything I need to do it. It’s the perfect escape plan.
My body is rested and I’m calm again. The bots were right, I needed rest.
Regardless of being a prisoner, I’m confident I will get away from him.
A sound triggers my ears, a breath, and I realize I’m not alone. There’s a heartbeat here too. I think I recognize it.
I can’t see anything for a second and then I catch a glimpse of movement. He’s sitting in a chair that wasn't there before, watching me from the darkest shadow in the room.
“That’s creepy,” I mutter, knowing he can hear me across the massive room. “Watching someone sleep.”
“I’m creepy,” Liam admits indifferently. “I always have been.”
“You were born creepy?” I ask, sitting up, startled by the confession.
“No.” He stands and walks to the end of my bed. I wonder for a moment if he’s going to kill me, but I remember he can’t. He needs me. “Do you want to know me, Lou? The real me?”
“Yes,” I answer before I think about it.
“Then take my hand. I’ll show you everything.” He reaches for me, offering his hand.
“Where are we going?” Plans start to formulate, escape and rescue and murder.
“You’re going somewhere, not me.” He pulls a knife from his back pocket. It flashes in the dull light coming in the windows when he opens it.
Panic hits like a fist until he pricks the tip of his own finger. “There’s something you have to see if you’re ever going to understand.” He holds the bloody droplet at me.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” I ask as his finger begins to glow.
“Take it. See. I think it’s the only way to explain. I can’t tell the story. I don’t really remember it. They don’t want me to.”
I’m confused about what he’s saying, but also nervous this is some kind of trap. There’s a whisper of fear in the back of my mind suggesting this is about to happen whether I want it to or not. It can happen one of two ways: nicely or forcefully. Admitting I’m curious enough to do it, I opt for nicely and allow him to smear the glowing blood on my finger.
It’s like holding phosphorescence. I stare at it, entranced by the beautiful blue glow.
Despite being a bit disgusted at the notion, I place his glowing blood into my mouth and let the lights flash in my eyes.
The bots hold his stories and before I know it, I’m taking a journey I couldn't have expected.
There’s mist and a long driveway lined with enormous trees. He’s there, he’s with me. But he’s little, a small boy in the driveway of a mansion. It’s one of those houses where you’re sure you see ghosts in the windows staring down at you. There one minute and gone the next.
I walk, noting the crispy leaves on the ground and a hint of autumn in the air. The sky is cloudy as though it just rained, and there’s a man. He makes
my stomach ache and my chest pound and leaves my mouth completely dry. He’s a shadow man, that’s what Liam—small, fragile, and sweet Liam—calls him. He tells us to follow him. He has a treat.
I’m terrified regardless of the bots inside me, as the shadow man leads Liam down some stairs. There’s a room. It’s dark and the door locks, the treats mentioned again if Liam will play again. I want to block it out. A tear slips from my eyes as I force myself to look away, but the picture keeps playing. I’m screaming for it to stop and it does, or rather it fades away.
The scene changes. I’m still at the mansion, I feel trapped here. Liam is a little older. He’s aged in way you can’t see. He feels different. Broken and pieced back together the wrong way. That's how he describes it. He’s been fitted into a body that isn’t his. But he can’t find his body. He’s lost.
We’re with his family. I feel something for each of them and know them better than they know themselves. I hate them in a way I have never experienced before. Even the creeps back in Laurel, I didn't hate them the way I hate this group of wealthy people. I want these people to die screaming. They all know and they look the other way.
Liam’s in the hall, he’s watching them eat. He refuses to eat. It’s one of the things he’s done to protest. He’s so hungry and so small but it’s all he can control.
His mother’s eyes don't meet his anymore. They dart to the shadow man and she lowers her head. She obeys. Liam, though still a little boy, is aware that she knows about the shadow man. She always did.
Liam makes a choice then and there.
He forms a plan.
He’s not going to starve himself anymore.
He begins to execute it, execute them.
He kills them in brilliant accidents, and with him, I want the bloodshed. I want them dead. I want his face to be the last thing they see.
There are funerals and his mother is screaming. She hits him. She knows.
Men come and take him away.
He’s in the mental institute. They hurt him. The electricity burns. The medication numbs. He’s still not in his body.
He’s alone and cold and when he’s old enough to fight back, he rages. He has become a shadow man too, just not the same kind. What he does in the shadows is driven by vengeance. Payment for sins. He escapes and kills more of them. Always letting himself be caught and dragged back.
He carves the wall with seven marks, one for each of them.
He has been alone his whole life. Completely alone.
Until them, the bots.
He’s attacked and bitten and left for dead.
But when he wakes, a miracle has occurred.
He’s himself.
For the first time in as long as he can remember, he’s in his body. The right one.
Then there’s Grace.
She becomes the only thing in his life that makes sense. Her and the bots. The bots heal him, they make him better and she loves him back. They make him loveable.
And in return he trusts them completely.
He loves them in a way I don’t understand and yet I am beginning to. I see why he’s loyal to them and not humans. Why he loves and needs and respects the bots. Why he wants them to be part of the future. It’s cleaner. The bots fill in the cracks and light up the shadows and cleanse the world. The programming to judge the soul, the religious connotations that were added by Dr. Arsenault, makes sense to Liam. And the bots understand him the same way he understands them. Why he believes my father was a hero.
This is a world Liam can control.
We are a people he can protect.
All his drive comes from a place of love, twisted and messed up and disturbing love.
The very end of this journey is my face.
The first time he sees me, he makes a silent wish. He wishes I could see him. Instead, I see myself the way he does. My eyes glowing with ferocity as I fight for things, people I love.
When he looks at me, he feels something again for the first time in a long time. There’s a connection he’s wants me to see, wants me to feel, but I couldn't. I fought too hard against the bots to ever see it or let them and him in.
But here, his blood swirling and mixing with mine, I see it for the first time. He sees me for me. For my potential. For my love and devotion. He sees me as strength.
I gasp as my eyes open like I am breathing air for the first time in too long and my body is desperate for some. The room is dark and the shadow man in front of me becomes a small boy in my eyes. He’s not creepy. He’s a survivor and what he lived through has changed him. His mother turning a blind eye destroyed him. Of course he had to destroy them. It all makes sense. All his behavior does.
My plans fall away.
My judgments die.
We lock eyes. His glisten like perhaps he cried a little. Maybe he took the journey with me. Maybe he was the guide. Or maybe, for a second time, he was a hostage in those terrible events.
We don't speak.
I don't honestly know what to say.
Except maybe that he’s right. Maybe the world shouldn't be left to the humans. Maybe we are the intended evolution. I open my arms and he crawls across the bed to me. I lie back and he rests his head on my shoulder and I stroke his hair. He smells like home.
For the first time regarding him, I agree with the bots. I let them have something they want. The connection of our skin, the warmth of his hand over my ribs, is electric.
We don't speak.
I hold him, he clings to me, and I feel my heart open. I am open. The bots pulsate through me. My heartbeat matches his. He lifts his face and even in the darkness I see something in his eyes, something I mistook for cold cruelty. It’s desperation. He’s desperate for me. He moves so he’s on all fours, over top of me. His face hovers above mine. His lips part and I am filled with a need I have never felt before.
He lowers, about to press his mouth to mine when—
“Lou?”
I blink, my mouth is moving like maybe I’m kissing, but nothing is there. Just air.
“Lou!”
I blink again and it’s bright, as if someone turned on the lights. But it’s the sun coming in the window and I’m alone.
Whose voice was that? Mom?
I sit up, noticing the fire still writhing inside me.
Was that real?
Did that happen?
There’s no indent on the pillow next to me. I’m lying on the bed, alone in the room where I’ve been since he put me here.
No Liam.
No darkness.
No kiss.
“What the hell?” I whisper and stare at the empty space. Why did I hear my mom’s voice?
My body is on fire, desperate from his touch. His imaginary touch.
“That asshole,” I say to no one in particular. “How did he do it?” I scan the floor for bloody snail trails where his dirty little bots might have snuck in but there’s nothing. Was it a lie or did that all happen to him?
I’m silently cursing his name when I’ve searched the entire room and found absolutely nothing. There is no evidence that his bots came into this room.
Did he sneak in and did that all actually happen?
My cheeks flush at the thought. Him in my bed, hovering over me like that, smelling like—well—sex. He smelled like attraction and desire and everything I had only smelled on Kyle.
My entire body blushes at the realization there’s a chance it was all a dream, based on the fact that I find Liam unbearably attractive. But how could I have known about his childhood? Would I have made that up? Am I making up causes for his craziness?
I’m like some Stockholm victim.
I bite my lip, contemplating all of it as I sink down the wall and sit on the floor, far from the bed.
Dr. Jacquard’s common sense flutters in with a small dose of what-if.
What if Liam and I are so meshed and so meant to be, so compatible, that I am picking up what he is giving off? I’m able to read him?
&nbs
p; What if our bots are communicating without contact? Is that possible? I have to admit it might be. The reaction of humans and nanobots varies according to the receptors in each subject.
I wave my hand at my own thoughts. “Too much nerdy talk, Dr. Jacquard.”
A knock at the door interrupts my discussion with my multiple personalities. I stand from where I’m sitting against the wall under one of the windows and walk over, wondering if I have to answer the knock or if it’s a warning someone is coming in.
The door opens, answering my question.
It’s him.
I inhale sharply, bothered by just the sight of him.
“Morning, Lou.” He smiles, sounding normal, innocent. His eyes dart around the room, maybe checking to see if I’m alone, as if anyone else would be here.
His cheeks are flushed, suggesting he’s recently exerted himself. His hair is a bit messy in a boy band sort of way. His eyes are dark and consuming. My gaze lowers to his hands, and I can’t help but wonder how they feel. In my dream, they were warm and enticing and—
What the hell is happening to me?
I take a step back, trying to gather my senses.
“We brought you something to eat.” He steps to the side and Lester enters with a tray.
“Good morning, Miss Stoddard. How are you today? I hope you slept well.” Lester is cheerful, as always. He places the tray on the bed and bows to Liam. “My king.” He offers me a grin full of spit before leaving quickly. He closes the door and we are alone. In my room. Where I had a dirty sex dream. About us.
I gulp.
“You look tense. Are you still angry with me for yesterday?”
“Yesterday?” Does he mean the dream or the weird water cistern or locking me in here? “Which part of yesterday?” I’m genuinely confused about everything. He’s being so normal and I’m lost in a storm of emotions.