I didn’t hold back any longer. I rushed forward, crushing myself into his chest.
“I forgive you,” I said into the fabric of his shirt. “As long as you never do anything stupid like that again.”
“Promise,” he whispered into my short, fuzzy hair. He kissed the top of my head.
“After everyone is evacuated, I’ll talk to Royce about your release,” I said, looking up at him. “Once everything begins, I’m sure we’ll need you.”
“Whatever everyone thinks is suitable punishment, I’ll take it,” he said, his voice dead sounding. “I deserve it.”
“You’re human, Avian. We all make mistakes.”
I knocked on the thick black door of Dr. Beeson’s office. After ten seconds it opened.
It was Addie who answered.
“How’s Dr. Beeson doing?” I asked. Addie held the door open just wide enough for her face to pop out.
“He’s still pretty out of it,” she said, her entire demeanor crest fallen. I understood it. Dr. Beeson, helping him with his research and work, it was her entire world. “Dr. Stone has him all drugged up but he thinks Erik will be okay by the time everything goes down.”
I nodded, my eyes falling to the floor. I shifted from one foot to the other. My heart started beating quicker.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
There was no hesitation when I shook my head. “This last adjustment, it was too much,” I said. I finally looked up. “I need him to fix me.”
Addie’s eyes darted back into the office before looking back at me.
“He said something about that in his notes,” she said.
I was a little annoyed that she had access to nearly everything in Dr. Beeson’s office, including such detailed notes about me. That felt too personal. I would have rather kept it between the two of us. We had history, history that didn’t need to be shared with anyone in the present.
“I am very familiar with the wireless transmission system,” Addie said. She fidgeted. “I helped him develop it. He trained me extensively. I was the one who got it back up and running yesterday. He always said that should something happen to him, someone would need to know how to work it. I’ve read all the notes on what he does with your adjustments. I’m ninety-five percent confident I could do it. If you’d like.”
Addie’s offer threw me. It took a lot of trust to let Dr. Beeson mess with my head. He could do anything to me when I was shut down and vulnerable like that. He could turn me into a blithering idiot. He could turn me back into an infant. But I trusted him to help me.
Could I trust Addie?
“I promise I won’t do anything other than restore your emotional blockers,” Addie said, as if she could read my mind. “Trust me, I have no interest in harming you. You’re pretty much the most amazing science experiment I’ve ever met.”
My eyes must have darkened because she apologized.
“What I mean is that I will make sure it works,” she said. “I promise.”
This seemed stupid. I knew if Avian was here there was no way he would allow me to do this. Nearly anyone in the hospital would protest.
But that beacon was about to go off. The Underground wasn’t finished with me and I needed to be at the top of my game if I was going to fight back.
“Promise?” I asked. “You’re sure you can do this?”
“Ninety-five percent,” Addie said, giving a little nod.
“That’s going to have to be sure enough, I guess.”
She opened the door wider and let me in.
The air was crisp with the promise of the New Year. I rolled Avian’s motorcycle out of the underground garage. I was clouded in exhaust fumes as I started the engine.
I took a solid breath before I started down the road.
I finally felt like me again.
I didn’t feel like I was going to crack at any moment, like I was going to have a meltdown. I could see things clearly and my insides didn’t feel like a snaking mess.
Addie had done the adjustment perfectly.
Even though my emotions were dulled back to normal, there was something very personal I had to investigate for myself before I got down to Bane business.
One moment I had myself convinced that there was no way my tent could be washed away, the next I couldn’t image that it hadn’t been.
But when I parked the motorcycle next to the beach, I saw it, sitting battered and sideways, but still there.
My boots sank into the wet sand. The shoreline looked different, as if the water had in fact rushed in, dragging the granules away. The tide had pulled my tent down the beach. It sat only two feet from the water.
I righted two of the poles before I stepped inside.
The floor was soggy and my clothes that had been stashed under the cot were soaked. But when I checked underneath my pillow, I found the picture of my mother, undamaged.
I held it to my chest, taking a deep breath.
My past.
Had I been remembering it back at the Underground? Were those scenes and images real? Or had I just been going crazy? Had they broken my brain enough to make me see things that just mimicked reality?
I looked down at the woman who looked just like me.
If she hadn’t died giving birth to me, the world might still be recognizable. She might have stopped Dr. Evans from giving me TorBane, let me die the natural death I should have died, and TorBane might have just stayed a theory in a file.
But these thoughts weren’t going to change the past. So I put them away.
Tucking the picture in my pocket, I rescued a few of Avian’s books and tucked them into my pack.
I took my time emptying the tent. I broke into one of the houses that sat on the beach, storing my clothing, cot, pillow, sleeping things, Avian’s belongings, and eventually, the tent, inside.
I was doomed to live forever inside prison walls.
When I was finished, I stood with the tips of my boots in the water. I closed my eyes, breathing the ocean air in. Before me was freedom and peace. At my back was the real world of destruction and endless, crushing work.
“Goodbye,” I whispered to the water as my eyes opened. I knew that it would be a while before I would see it again.
Straddling the bike, I pointed it back in the direction of the hospital.
I wove between bodies that lay on the streets, all Hunters that had been outside when the Pulse had gone off. It seemed unreal that that had only been three months ago. So much had happened since then.
I was three blocks from the hospital when something caught my eye.
A movement. Something darting behind a building.
I stopped the motorcycle on the side of the road and killed the engine. I pulled my Desert Eagle from my back pocket. Peeking around the corner, I slipped silently along the wall.
My handgun was held steady when I popped around the corner, only to find an empty alley.
Something hit my shoulder—dirt—and my eyes jumped up just in time to see a foot disappearing over the edge of the roof.
I scaled the fire escape, making sure my feet were silent as I did. And just as I got onto the roof, I saw two figures jump off the side of the building.
I sprinted across the roof. Bodies hit something solid with a clatter and a curse below me and then feet were running.
I looked over the side of the roof just as they disappeared around a corner.
Darting back to the fire escape, I slid down the ladder and ran back to the motorcycle. I pushed it to close to eighty miles an hour in the three blocks I had left.
When I rounded the final corner, I saw a crowd of people in front of the main entrance of the hospital and stopped the bike on the grass there.
Elijah had his foot on the back of a man who was handcuffed and on his knees. Graye held a gun to the man’s head. Royce stood before him, his arms crossed over his chest.