by Nicole Sobon
Part of me knew that he was right, but the other part still believed this was entirely my fault. “Maybe I should just go back, then everyone can go back to living their lives,” I suggested, turning to go to my room.
“And what good will that do, Emile?” Colton was screaming, trying to keep me from running away from the conversation. “The second you go back there, that’s it. You’re done. What about me? What about your family? Do we not mean a damn thing to you?”
His voice was breaking as he struggled to hold back the pain he was in.
“You know that isn’t the case, Colton.” I turned to face him, standing beside my bedroom door. “In fact, if I didn’t care about all of you, I wouldn’t have even suggested that I go back to Vesta Corp.”
“That is where you’re wrong.”
I didn’t bother to argue with him. He wasn’t going to listen to a word I had to say.
Not like this.
“The girl I’ve spent the past few days with, she wouldn’t give up so easily. Just remember that,” he said, storming off to the guest room. The door slammed shut behind him.
Yes, but that girl was slowly dying more and more each day. Soon there’d be nothing left of her but a shell of what she used to be. Thirteen would eventually come back.
I walked back into the living room, watching as Tommy’s photo flashed on the screen once more. In order for them to have found Tommy, they would’ve needed to study me for some time before my death. They would have needed to plan every detail, track my every move, and become familiar with my daily schedule. They would have needed to stalk me as if I was their prey, and I was, I had been.
Colton was right; even if I went back they wouldn’t stop.
They were only just beginning.
Who was to say that they wouldn’t find some other girl, some other person that they’d turn into a Program? No one was safe, not my family, my friends, no one. And there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t save them all. The thought scared me more than it should have.
Annoyed, I stormed off to Colton’s room and banged on the door until he finally decided to let me in.
“What do you want, Emile? Have you come to tell me that you’re giving up?”
His voice was cold and full of anger.
“Actually, no, I’m here to tell you that I’m going to stay. My going back there won’t do a bit of good. It won’t stop them.”
He smiled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Come here,” he said as he walked over to his bed, motioning for me to sit beside him. I walked over slowly, unsure of what it was that he wanted to speak about. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “Wait, let me rephrase that. I meant every word I said earlier, but I probably could have said it a bit nicer.”
I put my hand up to stop him from going any further. “Colton, as much as your words stung, I needed to hear them. Seeing Tommy’s face on the screen, I was letting them win, letting them tear down what was left of me. Everything you said, it was true.”
He looked up at me curiously. “Even still, Emile, I’m sorry. I won’t ever speak to you that way again. You didn’t deserve it.”
I laughed before grabbing hold of his hands. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope,’ he replied, a smile forming on his lips. “I suppose I learned from the best.” He jerked his head at me. I looked at him and smiled, lowering my head as I did.
“You loved him, huh?”
“I’m not sure, honestly.” I raised my head to meet Colton’s curious eyes. “I don’t think I had enough time to with him to know if it was love or just a strong attraction. I cared for him deeply, though.”
Colton nodded. “And knowing that he’ll become like you hurts you because you cared for him.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
“Yes,” I whispered, trying to block the image from my mind.
“You’re a strong person. You do know that, right?”
“Person may be pushing it, don’t you think?” I responded, gesturing toward my body.
“I don’t care about what’s on the inside.” All signs of joking pushed aside. His voice was calm, yet forceful. “You are Emile Reed, and you are a person as far as I’m concerned. You have feelings, family, and a heart, even if it doesn’t beat.”
“Colton…” I tried stopping him, but he wouldn’t let up.
“Look, Emile, you can argue with me all you want, but you won’t be able change my mind.”
“I’m aware of that,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder.
We sat like that for hours, the television still blaring from the living room. Tommy’s death was still airing on the news, my own death occasionally airing in between. I could feel myself flinch. Colton placed his hand on my mine, trying to help me relax.
I was more thankful for him in this moment than I ever was before.
22 THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED
“What do you think they’ll do next?” Colton asked. His eyes were fixated on the television. They were providing information on the funeral services for Tommy and me, Vesta Corp’s way of covering up. We weren’t dead. I knew that by now Tommy was in the process of becoming like me.
Upon arrival at Vesta Corp, his body would be inspected for any flaws, all of which would be noted and fixed, if needed. He’d then be brought into a room, where he’d be strapped to a chair while McVeigh stood behind a glass speaking to him. McVeigh liked to study his prey – every movement, the way they spoke, the way they reacted to pain. The final step would be surgery, which I was sure he’d be in by now. They’d slowly begin to build his Program, using his body as a shell for the computer. There’d be nothing left of him, as they would use a hard drive to remove every trace of Tommy. The hard drive would be placed aside for later use in studies by the scientists, but otherwise it’d have no use.
“They’ll come for me.” I sighed. Colton had to know that, he had to know that eventually they’d find me. It was just a matter of time.
“But if Thirteen isn’t active, how will they locate you?”
“McVeigh won’t stop until he finds me, no matter how much I run. Sooner or later, he will catch me.” I looked down at my arm, focusing on the barcode still imprinted on my skin. I tried my best to cover it, to try to remove my past, but no amount of clothing or makeup could remove what I was.
“What is that? I’ve never seen it before.” Colton pressed his finger against the design, worry in his voice. “It’s how they tracked my whereabouts in the building,” I replied, pulling on my shirt to cover it.
“Would they be able to use it outside of Vesta Corp?” he asked, something I’d never bothered to think of.
“I hope not.”
There was no erasing the barcode from my body. If McVeigh were to use it to find me, he’d have the advantage. I wouldn’t have enough time to get away or get Colton to a safe location far away from me.
“Colton, I think we should part ways.” I was struggling to say the words, knowing that it wasn’t what I truly wanted. I enjoyed his company. At times I even craved it, because it helped me feel alive. But his safety was more important than that. I couldn’t afford to be selfish when it came to his life. “Hayden gave me money and a debit card to get by, but seeing as I don’t think I’ll be able to make use of either, maybe you can.”
He started pacing the room, his hands behind his back, his head lowered. “You honestly think I’m going to leave you here?”
“If you were sane, yes, you would,” I replied harshly.
“Well, then I guess I’m not sane, because there is no way in hell I’m leaving.”
I reached for my purse, grabbing the cash and debit card Hayden had given me to start over. I threw them at Colton and made my way to the front door. “Don’t follow me, please.”
I struggled to open the door. I knew what I was doing was right, but it still felt incredibly wrong. Closing my eyes briefly, I twisted the knob and stepped outside. Silence filled the living room as Colton struggled to speak. It was better t
his way, I told myself. Wasn’t it?
The second I was outside I slammed the door behind me. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I didn’t care. One foot in front of the other, I continued down the endless trail. Watching as strangers ran past me, headphones in their ears, dogs dragging them down the pathway. Not one of them noticed me.
It was as if I blended in.
Like I belonged.
In the midst of my anger, I forgot that I wouldn’t get terribly far without my Pod. Maybe that was why Colton didn’t come chasing after me. He knew I’d have to return to the house eventually. “Great,” I muttered.
“Yes, great indeed,” a voice called out behind me.
Standing under the arching trees was a man in a black suit, the moonlight glistening off his pitch black hair. He was fiddling with his cufflinks, a sly smile planted firmly on his lips. “It’s nice to see you again, Emile.”
I wanted to run, but I couldn’t, something was keeping me from moving. Something was forcing my feet to stay planted firmly where they were.
“You know, Charles has been looking for you.” Douglas Todd swaggered towards me with some sort of controller in his hands. “I think he’d be glad to know I’ve found you, wouldn’t you agree?”
Volts surged through every wire. It was as if I was being electrocuted. I wanted to scream, but my lips were too dry to part. How did he find me and what did he want? Was Colton safe? Was it too late for me to try and save him?
“Ah, sorry about that.” He gestured towards me. “I forgot that you’re unable to speak or even move thanks to this lovely device.” He raised the controller in his hand, his thumb pressing down on the oval-shaped blue button.
“Here, let me explain this a bit better, shall I? You see, I ran into your friend, Tina, earlier today. She’d brought back Howard, which seemed odd since we didn’t have her on the list of people involved with your case. After all, she’d formed some sort of bond with you. We couldn’t trust her to actually harm you.”
Douglas Todd moved in closer to me. There was no one around to save me. I knew I wasn’t getting out of here alive. “Well, once I saw that she brought him back, I knew that she followed him and that she was trying to protect you. So, naturally I went through her GPS and found that she’d been to the last location we had on file for you before you destroyed Thirteen.”
Oh no, Tina. She was only trying to help me, and all I did was put her in danger.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what happened to her, am I right? No worries. Tina has been taken care of.” Todd pointed at the water surrounding the trail. “Now if only I could find a way to get rid of you.”
She was dead, and he had killed her.
I pulled every ounce of energy I had in my body and tried to fight off the control of the device in Todd’s hand. I could feel my arm begin to fight back as I began to regain control of it. It took everything in me, but I was able to fend off his pull.
“What the hell?” He shook the device in his hand, pushing down on the blue button desperately.
“You came alone.” I looked at him and smiled. I’d never seen him so vulnerable before, so fragile – like a child in need of a parent’s protection. His eyes, wide with horror, reflected under the light of the moon. His body shook in fear. I had become his worst nightmare. “That’s good to know. It’ll make your death much easier to cover up.”
I thought back to the night of my death, the night when McVeigh and Todd took away my life without the slightest hint of regret. How they followed me down the alleyway, knowing that there would be no witnesses to report the “accident.” I remembered how my body lay there on the gravel, the tread of the tires imprinted on my clothing.
Then I remembered their faces when they picked up my body and placed it in the trunk of the car. They were both smiling, satisfied with my death. They looked like two hunters that took down their prey successfully. They finally caught their prize. They finally took me down.
And now I would take Douglas Todd down. I would become the hunter, and he would become the hunted. There was no one around to help him. He was defenseless, just as I had been that fateful night. There was no one around to alert the cops. For that, I was entirely thankful. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect setting.
He was backing away from me slowly. Douglas Todd tripped over a branch that sent him flat on his back into the dirt road. Tears filled his eyes as he realized that there was no escape.
I walked over to him and lifted him up with one hand. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end this time?” I whispered, before throwing his body against a nearby tree. A popping noise echoed as his body crashed into the oak tree.
“Emile,” Colton cried out from behind me. “What are you doing?”
I stared at Todd who was propped up against the tree now, gasping for air. “I’m doing to him what he did to me.”
“But you’re acting like one of them. You’re allowing yourself to become a monster, and for what?” Colton was pleading. “Yes, I know that you want to kill him like he killed you, but what will that do? That won’t stop them from hurting others. It won’t do a damn thing.”
But it would, it would allow me to take back a part of me.
“Colton, please just go back to the house. I need to do this.”
He was grabbing my arms now, trying to pull me back, but there was no way he could stop me. I was determined to finish what I had started, and I wasn’t going to let him hinder that. I reached down and picked up Todd up from against the tree, locking my eyes with his. Fear overtook his body as I held his life in my hands.
“You took something from me that I’ll never fully get back. You took away my life,” I whispered into his ear. “You took my life, and now it’s only fair that I take yours. If I don’t, you’ll run back to McVeigh and he’ll deploy his men to come find me and my loved ones. I won’t chance that.”
I wrapped my left hand around his neck, squeezing until I heard a snap.
Then I dropped him, letting his limp body fall to the ground.
He was gone. He would never be able to hurt me again.
“Emile.” Colton grabbed my arm, trying his best to grab my attention. He moved in front of me, cupping my face. His beseeching eyes locked with mine. “Please, Emile let’s go back to the house now.”
I lowered my head, not bothering to respond.
He looked over at Douglas Todd and shook his head. “I’ll take care of that, okay? Just go back to the house. I think it’s time you go to the Pod.”
I nodded in response and started to walk back up the trail, reclaiming a part of my life as I did. Douglas Todd was dead. He wouldn’t be able to hunt another human again. He wouldn’t be able to murder another person and turn them into a machine again. I took that away from him.
I could hear Colton struggling to lift his body. I wanted to turn back around to help, but I was already half-way up the trail and I wasn’t sure my body could handle a second trip. I’d been traveling for a while now. We had to be pretty far out. How was it that I didn’t hear him following behind me? Why hadn’t I seen him?
I listened as Colton dragged Todd’s body towards the water, a splash following seconds later. I decided to stop and wait for him, taking a seat on a nearby log. I wasn’t entirely sure he’d bother coming to find me, not when he had just watched me kill someone, but I hoped he understood.
He came running up the trail, his eyes searching in the dark for me.
“Colton,” I yelled, waving my hands so that he’d be able to see me.
Without a word, he ran and took a seat beside me on the log.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
He nodded, fidgeting with his hands.
“It’s just that you don’t understand what it felt like, Colton. He killed me. He’s the reason I became this.” I gestured at myself. “Looking into his eyes, I just couldn’t stand the idea of letting him run back there just so he could come back and kill me again.”
“You don�
��t need to apologize, Emile.”
“But you didn’t want me to kill him, and I did.”
“Yes, you did.” Colton turned to face me, his hands gripping mine. “I understand now why you needed to kill him. I didn’t before. So please, don’t apologize. I’m not going anywhere if that is what you’re worried about. Now, more than ever, I think we need to stick together.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed. “Maybe it’s time to get out of here. I mean, if it was that easy for him to find me, then chances are the others can find me just as easily, right?”
He nodded, running his fingers through my hair. “We should get out of here, but we can’t.”
“My Pod,” I uttered.
“Exactly! We can’t leave here no matter how much we should.”
23 DECISIONS
Colton and I walked back to the house, his hand entangled with mine. In the short time I’d known him, he’d become family to me. He’d become a pivotal part of my life, and I’d become the worst part of his.
I looked over at him, his eyes fixated on the dirt trail beneath our feet. His fate was sealed the moment we met. He had no chance at a life now, I took that away from him. He was forced to live in my hell, and for what reason?
Why should someone who had nothing to do with any of this have to face the idea that he could die at any given moment because of a stranger? To die because of a Program? There was nothing worth saving when it came to me, but him, his entire life was worth saving. And I couldn’t help but think, by me being here, me being alive, I was taking all of that away from him.
Colton tightened his hold on my hand as we got closer to the house. His body was trembling with fear. It was as though he’d sensed a lurking danger in the shadows. “Is everything okay?” I asked, making sure to keep my voice low just in case.
“Well, I didn’t want to tell you but…” He turned to face me, grabbing both of my hands between his. “A few of McVeigh’s men showed up at the house while you were gone.”