“You could have asked me for a steak a minute ago,” Roberto chided, spearing a cube of meat with his fork.
“It’s different,” I replied, reaching out and touching his shoulder lightly. “You’ll come to understand that parents’ food always tastes better than your own.”
“Is that so?” Roberto asked, holding the fork out to me. I snatched it from him and stuck it in my mouth, ignoring the possibility that it was made from poison. If Roberto had wanted to kill me, let’s just say he’d had his chance. Many times.
The steak was perfectly cooked and damn near melted in my mouth as I chewed. “I need one of these machines,” I said a moment later. “Is there a backpack version?”
“Unfortunately, no. This is the only one in existence,” Troy said, and the sound of his voice startled me. I’d totally forgotten he was there. Great, he must think I’m a total bitch. “Tom likes to make things to deal with the mundane life details. It’s also why he always wears the same thing even though it makes him look like a slob.” Troy shrugged. “He actually owns sixteen outfits that look exactly the same.”
I was about to make a snide remark, but Roberto chose that moment to offer me my pie. My snark melted away as I took the pie and attacked it with my fork. Let’s just say it was the best pie ever.
Because it was.
13
Troy stood, and a strange smile that didn’t quite fit his face spread across his lips. He looked around as though taking in the scene before loping over to my couch and holding out one hand. “Care to dance?” he asked.
My mouth must have fallen open because I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Me? Dance? Here? That was crazy, right? I was about to look at Roberto for help when Troy snapped his fingers and music filtered through the air in a slowly rising tide. It filled up the room like a summer’s breeze, sweeping me off the couch and onto my feet before I even knew what hit me.
“Wha?” was all I managed to say before he pressed one slender finger to my lips, his other hand snaking around my waist and pulling me toward him. How had this happened? What was going on? Why was Roberto letting him do this to me?
He spun, shifting on his heels and swinging himself around so I had no choice but to twirl. I did. The little room flashed by me, and I spied Roberto sitting glassy eyed on the couch, head tilted toward us, but even that momentary glimpse told me he wasn’t paying much attention to us.
“If you’re waiting for someone to save you from me,” Troy whispered, pulling me against his body so his warmth seeped into me. “It’s simply not possible.” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be cute or not, but it was coming off mostly creepy. I was about to tell him so when he stepped back. The sudden coldness of the distance between our bodies made me shiver.
He raised one arm, jerking me up onto my tiptoes as he slid around me, pressing his chest against my back and wrapping our still entwined hands around my tummy. He leaned in close so his breath was hot on my cheek.
“How does it feel, Abby?” He breathed into my neck before his lips pressed down on my skin. My heart slammed in my chest like a battering ram, and the room sort of spun. Had he just kissed me? Seriously? Had that just happened?
“What are you doing?” I squeaked. His kisses ran up my neck, making my traitorous knees go weak. “How does what feel?”
“To kiss?” He swallowed, and the sound was so loud in my ears I could barely think. He spun me around and stared at me. I tried to look away, tried to turn my head, but instead, I stood there utterly transfixed by his eyes, drowning in them. “I’d like to try it, Abby… before I go.” He swallowed again and pressed one of my hands to his chest. His heart was beating so hard I could feel it like a rumbling jet beneath his flesh. “I’d like to try it with you…”
I licked my lips unconsciously, not sure what to say or do. Could I really kiss him? As the thought rippled across my brain guilt filled me. Of course I couldn’t kiss him. What kind of girl would that make me? Even if Stephen was evil, was I really the type of girl to go around kissing random boys? I didn’t think I was.
Besides, could this really be happening right now? It seemed so out of the blue. While I didn’t know Troy well enough to gauge what was normal, I was reasonably certain this was decidedly un-Troy-like behavior. It had to be. It just had to be.
“Look…” I started to say, but he cut me off by pressing his lips against mine. His teeth scraped against mine as he pressed me backward against the couch, his tongue slipping into my mouth and exploring.
When we were both on the couch, his right hand released me and trailed up my arm before coming to rest just below my throat. His fingertips rested there, and it was sort of creepy. I reached out, trying to push him off of me, but admittedly, it wasn’t with as much force as it should have been. It was surprise, surely.
His hand slipped down the front of my shirt and grabbed my breast. He kneaded my flesh like he’d never even touched a girl before, which was crazy, right? Surely… Then again, he’d said he’d never kissed a girl before. Maybe he really hadn’t…
Either way, I wasn’t going to let some random boy grab my tit without so much as a date. I wasn’t that kind of girl, and besides, Troy wasn’t hot enough. And as shallow as that was, it meant he’d have to try a hell of a lot harder to get any more out of me.
He broke the kiss and sucked in a breath. “You taste unlike anything I could have imagined.” His eyes went down to my shirt as he pulled his hand free of my clothing and stared it. “You feel even better.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked, shoving at his chest with my hands, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. “That’s not how you treat a girl.” I leveled my best planet-ending-stare at him. “You need to get off me right now before I do something horribly painful to you.”
“You mean like trying to kill me?” he asked, sitting back so that he was straddling my torso with his long spindly legs. “Again?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confusion melting away part of my fury. “I just met you a few minutes ago. How could I have tried to kill you?”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” he asked, licking his lips in one slow deliberate movement that sent a tremor running down my spine.
“Um no, should I?” I asked, trying to remember him from somewhere, anywhere. I wasn’t exactly great with faces mind you, but ever since the experiment, I’d been able to place way more faces than I had before. If I’d met him at all recently, I’d remember, and besides, the chances of me trying to kill him before I’d left Folsom seemed a tad unlikely. I mean we didn’t even serve seafood at my mom’s restaurant, so I couldn’t have even given him some bad clams.
“They rebuilt me, Abby. But, evidently, there’s something intrinsically wrong with me. The scientists didn’t realize it until they put me on your trail. The problem is I’m not human enough to anticipate what you’ll do.” Troy’s eyes sparkled. “So they’ve dumped pretty much every moment of human existence into me. They want me to feel, Abby.”
I stared at him, unsure of what he meant by that. “What are you talking about?”
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine. “I think I’m in love with you.” One hand snaked out and brushed the hair from my face. “I still have my orders so I’ll bring you in, but know I feel bad about it. I actually feel bad about it. I wish there was another way.”
I drove my knee into his crotch, and while the blow should have done something, it didn’t. Instead, Troy just looked at me strangely. “You don’t understand, do you?” As he said the words a horrible thought pulsed through my addled, sleep-deprived brain. Maybe, maybe Troy was afflicted by the flit… but that was impossible right?
“No… it can’t be,” I whispered when an errant thought made me tremble from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. He had said they had rebuilt him…
“That’s right, Abby.” Troy licked me, his tongue scraping along my cheek. “I’m back.”
“You’re
not an ‘I,’ flit,” I snapped, trying to throw him off of me, but he held me down with that strange machine-like strength he always had. He pressed his forearm down on my throat, but not hard enough to choke me.
“There are so many things I want to try with you, Abby.” He moved his mouth down my neck, trailing kisses that made my stomach turn into a tight ball of revulsion and hatred.
“Awesome,” I murmured when a strange thought struck me. If this was the flit, and it was just learning to be ‘human’ then maybe, just maybe, it was vulnerable to it.
I reached out with my hand and trailed my fingers along his face, a forced smile on my lips. “Oh… that feels so good,” I whispered, throwing my head back. “But maybe we should get rid of some of these clothes. If you think this is good, imagine what it will feel like with our naked bodies pressed together.”
“I do imagine it will be quite different, but your body language doesn’t suggest you are ready for something like that.” Troy raised up and looked at me, his fingers lingering above the band of my camouflage pants. “Are you trying to fool me, Abby?”
I kissed him. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I threw myself into the kiss, only I wasn’t even sure how to kiss. I’d only kissed Stephen a couple times, and while he’d never complained, he kissed like it was an Olympic sport, and he was a world champion. When I’d commented about it, he’d said he’d had a lot of training. I, on the other hand, didn’t have any sort of training because prior to the few stolen kisses Stephen and I had shared, I’d mostly just made kissy faces at my mirror.
Troy pressed himself against me, his tongue battling to get inside my mouth and down my throat. He was so heavy on top of me I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do this before I fainted form lack of oxygen. Still as my hands slipped down his chest and grabbed the zipper on the front of his jumpsuit he shivered, actually shivered.
Maybe I was doing something right after all. Then again, how hard could it be to impress a virgin robot? The thought made me a little sad though I don’t know why. I unzipped the jumpsuit, pulling it down. As it slipped off his shoulders, he sat up so he could pull his arms out of the sleeves.
What I could see of his chest told me Troy worked out, but didn’t diet well enough to actually form muscle. There was a lot of definition but not enough bulk on his chest so it just made him look sort of odd.
Either way, as his hands were caught in the sleeves, I bucked my body while swinging my arms against the side of his head with all my might. We toppled off the couch, and he landed on his back, arms popping at obscene angles under the force of his own bodyweight.
I landed hard on top of him, but not hard enough for me to actually get hurt, though that was mostly because I’d known what was going to happen. And, well, his body cushioned most of the blow.
Troy reached for me, but between the entangling clothing and his dislocated shoulders, he couldn’t do anything to stop me from getting to my feet and backing away from him. The look that filled his face as he watched made left me feeling cold and scared. It wasn’t just hate there, that I could have understood, but something darker and more… depraved, I guess? It was a look that told me this wasn’t over, and in the end, he would have me, even if he had to beat me over the head and take my comatose body into his lair.
I spun, trying to suppress the dread swelling in my stomach and grabbed Roberto by the shoulder and shook him. He was staring off into space, eyes gazing at some distant point far beyond the walls of the room.
“Roberto!” I screamed, but he didn’t even blink at me. God what the hell was wrong with him? I looked around and grabbed Troy’s coke. It was still half full. Good. I threw it in Roberto’s face. He turned his head toward me, but his eyes remained unfocused.
“Uh…” he mumbled, lips moving languidly as he formed the word.
“Roberto! Wake up!” I pointed at Troy, still struggling to get to his feet despite not being able to use his arms. I spun back to Roberto and slapped him as hard as I could. His head jerked back. “Dad!” I screamed, barely resisting the urge to shake him as tears welled in my eyes.
If I waited any longer, Troy would be on me again, and now he was some sort of psycho rapist in addition to a soulless un-killing machine. It was like the worst of two possible worlds.
When Roberto didn’t respond, I reached out and grabbed his steak knife. Just holding it in my hands made me feel a lot better.
Troy lunged for me, his shoulder catching me in the knees and sweeping them out from under me. I tumbled, smacking my jaw hard on the couch as we collapsed into a heap. He wormed his way on top of me, disjointed fingers clutching at my shirt and pulling me down toward him.
“Abby,” his words sprayed across my throat as he spoke. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” I drove the knife into the side of his neck, spilling his hot, sticky blood over my face and chest. He didn’t react, just blinked at me for a moment.
Troy collapsed on top of me, a gurgle of surprise rippling from his ruined throat as his eyes went as wide as dinner plates. He tried to move, to grasp his throat, but he couldn’t. His eyes met mine, and I knew one thing. The flit was gone. This last torturous moment would be experienced by Troy… alone.
I reached out, stroking his face with my fingers as blood pooled on me, seeping through my clothing and making my stomach turn. I didn’t look away as the light faded from his eyes. I wanted to, I really did, but somehow, that didn’t seem fair, didn’t seem right.
I had killed him after all, and he was innocent. I deserved to watch him die, to share this moment with him so he wouldn’t die alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as the door behind us burst open. I craned my head, looking away for a split second to see Tom rushing into the room. He pulled Troy away from me and cradled him against his chest. Crimson stained Tom’s white t-shirt as he mewled softly to Troy.
Troy spasmed, the last breath of life fleeing from him, and as it did so, Tom fixed me with a hard, level stare. “Why?” he asked.
I stared at him, unable to respond as his eyes shifted from me to the doorway behind me. I turned my head slowly, already knowing who was standing there. Lisa stared at me, her lips slightly parted as she took a single step into the room. Her face was blank and unreadable, but there was something strange in her eyes. It wasn’t anger or grief per se. It was something more, something deeper.
“Because he was taken by the flit,” Lisa said, crossing the room and taking one of my bloody hands in hers. “Isn’t that true, Abby?”
I nodded dumbly as Lisa pulled me to my feet, ignoring the blood, and her father, as he held the lifeless body of Troy.
“The only way to stop the flit is death. That’s what I was trying to tell you, Dad!” She spat the last word at him, and he flinched. “The Agency doesn’t understand anything but power.” Lisa waved her hand at Troy. “They don’t care how many pieces they break because they are convinced they are right, that they can do no wrong. They don’t realize they are the wrong.”
“There could have been another way,” Tom said as Lisa led me from the room. “Troy didn’t need to die.”
She glanced back over her shoulder and shook her head, lips compressed into a hard line. “I’ve been controlled by the flit before. There’s no way to really describe it. Let’s just say that while it’s in the driver’s seat, not only can it do whatever it wants, but you want it to do whatever it wants. Everything in you screams that the flit is doing what should be done. It’s like a drug.” She paused and squeezed my bloodstained hands. “And when it’s gone, you feel the residue of it in your mind, feel it like slime on your skin. Only instead of wanting to wash it off, you wish there was more. You wish it would pull you down into the murk along with it.”
She smiled, and it was creepy enough to make a chill run down the back of my spine. “The flit is the darkness that beckons you in with candy, sex, and drugs. The sad thing is, when it leaves, you think to yourself, how can I get more?” She shook her head. “Come on, Abby. We
came to tell you we’ve arrived at your mother’s base.” She pulled me from the room. “Let’s find a way off of this bus.”
14
“I think Lisa has gone dark side,” Donovan said as he walked backward in front of us. He wasn’t looking where he was going, but he wasn’t real, so I wasn’t quite sure why I kept expecting him to act like a person. “Look inside you and know it to be true,” he added, raising one hand in the air and clenching his fingers into a fist.
“Quiet,” I said even though part of me was worried he might be right. Lisa had been acting a little off ever since the flit had taken her over, and okay, I’d trusted her because she had been my friend forever, but what if something inside her had changed? For all I knew, maybe the flit was still controlling her… That thought made my blood run cold.
Lisa shot me a look. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Huh?” I looked at her innocently as heat spread across my cheeks. “What are you talking about?”
Lisa stared at me, a thought knitting across her brow as she pursed her lips. “Nothing,” she said, turning back toward the large empty room. Well, that wasn’t true exactly. The room was filled with wooden crates and a bunch of other junk, but it was so large it seemed empty. Hell, even the ginormous semi-truck seemed tiny and insignificant by comparison.
I tossed one last glance at the weird tanker truck that had brought us here, somewhat hoping Roberto would come running out after us. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted him to come help me so much. Okay yeah, he was my father technically, but it wasn’t like he’d taken me to the park or propped me on his knee while reading me bedtime stories. So why was I so worried about him?
When he didn’t leave the truck, I turned back to the huge room and glanced around one last time. It resembled a cave more than anything else, but that might have been because it appeared to have been hewn from one singular chunk of rock. Only that was impossible because it was the size of a football stadium. Off in the distance, I could see one of those tubes that reminded me of an elevator I’d taken with my foster mom, Esmeralda, when we’d been on the run from my biological mother, Gabriella.
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