Trina turns and scans the horizon, just like I did only moments before. “Oh, Christ,” she says, fear making her voice tremble.
“What?” But she doesn’t have to say anything else. I see it—a large dorsal fin slicing through the water about fifty yards away.
“Swim!” Trina hollers.
But I can’t. I’m too weak. The loss of blood is slowing my thoughts, my reflexes.
And then I hear a sound that is sweeter than any other. The whining sound of a boat’s engine, coming closer, moving toward us. It could be the guards, but at this point, I don’t care.
My legs have stopped kicking. I mentally scream at them to keep at it, but they won’t. They can’t. My body is disjointed, unconnected. My brain is unable to send signals to the rest of my body. I close my eyes as a wave rolls over me, dragging me down, down, down…
***
Strong arms encircle my waist and pull me to a solid chest, propelling us upward until my head breaks the surface. There’s shouting and the whining sound of a boat engine. Trina is screaming something about a shark, but none of it makes sense.
Inch by inch, my body is lifted out of the water and plopped down onto a hard surface on my side. The cuffs are clipped from my raw wrists and the noose removed from my neck. When I shiver from the cold, a blanket or towel or something equally soft is placed over me.
Seawater surges from my lungs, and I cough it up, gagging on the saltiness of it.
A large hand rubs my back as I hunch to the side, spewing on the floor of the boat. “That’s right. Get it all out.” I recognize that voice, that deep melodic voice. When I finally do open my eyes, I’m staring into the warm brown ones of Zane Ryder.
“What are you—?” I start to say before he hushes me.
“Is she okay?” I hear another familiar voice and glance up to see Trey hovered over me, his hair and clothes dripping wet, his eyes full of concern. Zane moves to the side as Trey kneels beside him. “Hey,” Trey says to me. “That was a close call.”
I nod, trying to swallow the lump that’s rising in my throat. For the first time since this whole ordeal started, he’s looking at me like he did before his memories were erased. Before he forgot everything.
“Trina,” I whisper.
“She’s right here,” Zane says.
I whimper out the next name. “Curly.”
Zane’s eyes fill with sadness. “I know. I’m so sorry. We were too late.”
A heart-wrenching sob escapes from the back of my throat as I picture his body, hanging limp as the life drained from him.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “It’s my fault.” The words are drowned out by my tears and sobs. Zane helps me sit up and draws me to his chest.
“It’s okay. It’s over now.”
Trey looks away, but not before I see tears well in his eyes. Why should he care? He doesn’t even remember him.
I close my eyes.
All of a sudden, Trey says, “There’s a lot of blood. Did you scrape your arm?”
I open my eyes, wincing as he pulls my shirt away from the wound.
“Oh God, Sienna, you’ve been shot.” He calls out for Nash, which doesn’t make any sense because Nash is still in Legas. Isn’t he?
The shirt is torn from my shoulder, and I’m too weak to care that part of my bra is showing. I just want the pain to end, and the tiny colorful dots to stop spinning around in my vision.
Zane gently lays me back down.
“Trey, we’ve got trouble.” It’s Nash, but his voice sounds so out of place here. Nash and the ocean… Those two aren’t meant to go together. Nash and the desert… Now that one makes sense.
Trey rises to his feet and curses. “Get us outta here, Nash.”
The boat engine roars to life, like an animal coming out of hibernation. As we bump over the waves, I hear the scream of someone in pain. It takes a moment for me to realize that the person screaming is me.
A warm hand encircles mine. “It’s okay, Sienna. I’m right here.” Zane’s voice is soothing, but it can’t stop the tears that stream down my cheeks.
A cloth presses against my wound, and then there’s that ear-splitting scream again. I clamp my mouth shut and bite down on my tongue, my body shaking from the flames that lick my shoulder and spread out, engulfing my arm and torso. Before long, my entire body will be consumed by the raging fire.
“We need to remove the bullet,” Trey says, but it sounds like he’s very far away.
“I can do it,” Zane says.
There’s silence, and I picture Trey staring him down. “No, I’ll do it.”
I’m waiting for Zane to argue with him, to say something about how he doesn’t trust him—hell, I don’t know if I trust him—but there’s only silence. Trey kneels beside me again.
“Hey,” he says before the boat lurches to the side and his arms flail out, grabbing hold of something. He curses, and then leans back over me. “We’re gonna get you all fixed up. I promise.”
Gunshots fill the air around me.
“What’s going on?” I whisper. My teeth are chattering now, so hard I can barely speak.
Trey leans closer so he can hear me, his body swaying as Nash makes another tight turn. “A little incoming fire. That’s all. Nothing to worry about.” He gives me a wobbly smile.
“Where’s our backup?” he calls to Nash. “Where is Paige and the rest of her crew?”
Who’s Paige?
“I don’t know,” Nash hollers back. “After the sniper shots, they went quiet.”
Sniper shots?
Flaming pain sears through my shoulder as Trey removes the cloth and prods with his fingers. “Yeah, the bullet is still in there.” He turns to speak to someone. “Zane, hand me that knife over there.”
I see a flash of a blue-handled pocketknife that looks surprisingly similar to the one Trey’s dad gave him. But that can’t be right. Why would the new Trey have the old Trey’s pocketknife?
Trey leans close and begins talking. “Remember when I removed your tracker at the top of the Megasphere?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Remember how brave you were then? I need you to be just as brave now. Think you can do that?”
I’m confused why he’s mentioning my tracker. How does he know? Did someone tell him about that?
At my confused look, he says, “We have a lot to talk about—”
A bullet ricochets off the bulkhead right by my head, and Trey curses. “Dammit, Nash, can’t you drive this thing any better? We need to lose them!”
“I’m trying, Trey,” Nash replies, but it sounds like he’s saying it through clenched teeth.
The boat lurches again, seawater spraying over the sides and raining down on me. With a trembling hand, I wipe the water from my eyes.
“Zane,” Trey says, looking up. “She’s gonna need you.”
My eyes are closed again, but I feel a body settle beside me, and someone take my hand. My body feels blurry—like if I were looking at an image of myself, the edges would be faded away.
“Here,” Zane says. “Bite down on this.” When I open my eyes, Zane is holding out a brown leather belt. “It might help with the pain.”
Nodding, I let him place the belt between my teeth, clamping down as Trey begins to inspect the wound. Trey is kneeling on one side, his forehead furrowed in concentration, his eyebrows pulling together, and Zane is on the other, his hand tight in mine, his voice soothing.
When the knife digs into the wound, I scream, but it’s muffled by the leather strap in my mouth. I bite down as hard as I can, until my teeth sink almost through the belt and I swallow the metallic taste of blood.
I squeeze my eyes closed.
“I think we’ve lost them,” Nash calls out, his voice breaking in the wind.
The knife digs deeper and I abandon the leather strap, opting instead for a good old-fashioned scream. Trey murmurs something about being sorry, and Zane says something about holding me down—or maybe it’s the other way around and Trey wants me held down a
nd Zane is sorry. I’m not really sure anymore. Everyone is starting to sound the same.
But it doesn’t really matter. Right now, all I want is to remove myself from the pain. My body drifts away across endless gray oceans and frothy tides, and I am gone.
40
ZANE
I’m helpless as I watch Trey remove the bullet from Sienna’s shoulder. All I can do is hold her hand and check to make sure she’s still breathing. The rise and fall of her chest gives me some comfort, but we’re not in the clear. She’s lost a lot of blood. Her eyes are sunken in and her skin is a sallow, sickly color.
Now that we’ve lost our tail, Nash drives the boat to the AIG facility. As we get closer, Trey sends Dr. Phillips a message.
“We’re coming in. Lower the spikes.”
When I look up and see Trina, huddled by herself in a corner of the boat, I feel guilty. Trey and I have both been so consumed with caring for Sienna that we haven’t devoted any attention to Trina.
I move toward her, one hand holding on to whatever it can find to keep me steady, and collapse on the seat beside her.
“Hey,” I say. “How are you holding up?”
Her teeth chatter as she wraps the towel tighter around her shoulders. “I’ve been better.”
There’s blood on her legs. Upon closer inspection, it looks like a deep gash on her thigh.
“Are you all right? That looks like it hurts.”
She glances down. “Yeah, I think I hit a rock when we jumped.”
“Let me help you with it.” Reaching behind her, I grab an extra towel and shred it up to make a bandage. I try to clean the wound as best I can. She winces when I tie one strip of cloth around the wound.
“Just keep pressure on it,” I murmur.
Her fingers automatically move to press down on her leg, but her face remains impassive like her body is numb.
“Is she going to be okay?” Trina asks, eyeing Sienna’s pale face.
“She’ll be fine.” I smile. “And so will you.”
Her shoulders shake as tears slide down her cheeks. “I miss him. He was the biggest pain in the ass, but I miss him.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder, bringing her close. “I know you do. I’m sorry we didn’t get there in time.”
She pulls back, sniffling. “Thank you. For rescuing us.” When she turns away, cradling her knees to her chest, it’s clear she wants to be alone.
I move back to my spot beside Sienna and take her hand in mine again. She hasn’t had a chance to come to terms with Curly’s death. And I’m not sure how she’s going to handle it.
41
SIENNA
When I inhale, I expect to smell the saltiness of the ocean and dried-up seaweed, but instead, there’s a very clinical smell—the smell of rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and tongue depressors—like I’m waking in a doctor’s office.
The rocking of the boat is gone, so is the roar of the engine. The surface I’m lying on feels solid, but soft. My eyes move behind closed lids, trying to find the strength to open. I do a quick assessment of all my body parts. My shoulder throbs, but it’s not the shooting, fiery pain it was before. My knee aches from slamming into a rock when Trina and I jumped off the cliff. My wrists are sore from being cuffed for so long. Other than that, I’m alive, and that’s enough to celebrate right there.
But then my thoughts drift to Curly. In all the horror, I haven’t had time to mourn him. When I think of his teasing grin, I just want to curl into a ball and lose myself in my guilt. His death will forever be etched in my memory. No matter how hard I try to wipe it, scrub it even, there will be no erasing it. It’s one thing to lose your friend—it’s another completely to watch them die. And know you’re the one responsible for their death.
Tears flood my closed eyes and stream down my cheeks. I force my eyes open and bite my lip to keep a sob from escaping.
I’m in a room that looks oddly similar to ones in the AIG lab. Trina is resting on a bed next to mine, and Zane, Nash, and Trey are seated a few feet away, hovered over a comscreen.
“Where am I?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
The three men exchange looks before Trey rises from his chair and comes to stand next to me. “We’re in the AIG facility.”
Before he can say anything else, the door opens and in walks Dr. Phillips, my father.
As soon as I see him, I whimper. He will turn us in. He will turn his back on me, his daughter, and he will hand me over to the people who just tried to kill me.
But to my shock, his eyes are soft when they meet mine, and when he speaks, it’s as if he knows everyone in the room. He looks at Trey. “The lower levels are clear so far,” he says.
To which Trey replies, “I’m still waiting to hear from Paige. As soon as I do, it’s a go. We’ll need to get moving soon. Sienna and Trina’s faces are all over the news—the story of the escaped convicts who were slated for execution today.”
Trey sounds so much like his old self, so in charge, that it makes my stomach throb.
My dad looks at me and smiles before turning back to Trey and the others. “Can you give us a minute?”
Trey nods, and all three boys leave the room.
When the door has closed behind everyone except Trina, who’s asleep in the bed beside me, the slight whoosh of her breathing a comforting sound, my dad slowly approaches.
“Hi, sweetie,” he says. “May I?” He looks down at my hand.
When I nod, he takes my hand in his and offers me a hesitant smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you the other day. I was… in shock. If I had known—” He stops himself as his eyes become watery. “I’m so sorry, Sienna. For everything I’ve put you and your mother through.”
An ache fills my chest, cracking it wide open and exposing the raw pieces inside. “You know?”
His fingers move to the base of his skull. “It was Granger. He convinced me. It wasn’t too hard after you left that day. I felt the puckered skin and knew they’d done something. Granger removed it for me.”
I swallow hard. I have to know the truth. I have to. “Is it what you wanted? Did you ask to have your memories erased?”
My father’s face falls. “You have to understand. It wasn’t what I wanted. But it was necessary. To protect you, your mother, and Emily. They promised that if I went along with their plan, you would be safe. Protected.”
I snort when I think of all Radcliffe did—using me to get to Trey, abducting my mother, erasing my memories. There was no protection. He tried to destroy our family.
“They lied,” I say, my voice flat.
“Yes,” my father confirms. “It would appear so.”
A sharp pain plunges through my shoulder. I exhale slowly until the stinging subsides. “Why did they want you? Why did they want to fake your death?”
“Steele and Radcliffe have been working together for years. Steele’s been selling Chromo 120 secrets to the government for a profit. He claims that after the death of Mitch Hoover, Harlow’s lab was never able to recreate my genetic codex. They came close, but never reached perfection. When Steele learned I was still alive after all these years, he and Radcliffe approached me. Said they needed me. That the future of Pacifica rested in my hands. I turned them down, of course.” His face grows grim. “They threatened you and your mother if I wouldn’t cooperate. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” I say, my tone harsher than I mean it to be.
“Sienna, I know you’re angry with me. But please understand that I was only trying to protect you.”
“But you lied to us—to me and Mom—for years. You were never Ben Preston. You’re Mitch Hoover, lead geneticist for Harlow Ryder. Do you know what it was like to find that out after you died? Why didn’t you tell us?”
My father’s eyes are full of pain. “To protect you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
I close my eyes, trying to dispel the anger and hurt I feel from my father choosing to leave us. I sold my soul w
hile my father was gone—all for the sake of my family. I’ll carry that guilt and burden forever.
“But, Dad, I’ve done horrible things—” My voice breaks, and I pause. “You have no idea what it was like without you. Mom got really sick, and I—” Heat fills the back of my eyes. “I did terrible things.”
Dad pulls me to his chest, his arms tight around me, my head nestled beneath his chin. He may have spent the past year in a lab, but he still smells the same. A mixture of shoe polish and old books.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I should have never put you in that position. You kept your mother and sister safe, which is more than I could have hoped for. You’re a strong woman, Sienna, and I couldn't be more proud that you’re my daughter.”
I can’t hold them in anymore. Great sobs rack my body and my shoulders shake. “Daddy.”
His hand strokes my hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m right here. I’ll never leave you again.”
His words are exactly what I need to hear. They melt away my anger and hurt until the only things left are love and hope. But the thrill of being in my father’s arms is quickly replaced with the anxiety of what I’ll tell my mother. How will I ever explain to her that the husband she thought was dead is, in fact, alive?
I pull back and wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Does Zane know about Steele? That he’s selling Chromo 120 secrets to the AIG? Steele is also the one who turned us in to Madame Neiman at the Match 360 Headquarters. He’s responsible for Curly’s death.”
Just saying Curly’s name sends a knife-like stab through my heart.
My father nods. “Yes, he knows.”
The door opens and the three boys file inside, Trey first, followed by Nash, with Zane bringing up the rear.
Dad smiles at me before addressing the group. “I need some coffee. Would anyone else like some?”
Nash raises his hand. “I’ll help you,” he grunts.
“We should probably get moving soon,” Trey warns him as he and my dad head for the door.
“Not before coffee,” Nash says.
“Moving?” I echo. “Where?”
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