He grunted at me, indicating his disbelief in those statements. I wasn’t sure I could blame him.
5
Ariane
ZANE WAS BLUFFING WITH THAT THREAT. I was pretty sure. But all the emotion radiating off him made it hard to be certain. And determination ranked right at the top of that list. He wasn’t going to give up, and with that manager standing right there, ready to call the police, I couldn’t afford to waste any more time arguing with him.
Damn it. I shoved the gearshift into park and then reached over to unlock the door for Zane.
What might have been relief flickered over Zane’s face as he registered the sounds. Then, his mouth tight, he headed to the passenger side.
I shook my head. It was like just getting the bleeding to stop and then reopening the wound.
You never should have shut the room door. It woke him up.
All I’d had to do was walk out and leave the door slightly ajar. Just enough to keep the lock from engaging—a sudden and loud click that might be disruptive—but not so much that it would be noticed by a casual observer outside.
Easy, in theory.
And yet, in reality, not so much.
As I’d shut the door, I’d glanced at Zane one last time, sleeping and vulnerable, his limbs slack with exhaustion. His dark hair was a tousled mess, making him look younger and more at risk for harm.
Leaving the door unlatched—and therefore, unlocked—meant leaving Zane open to attack. Not just by GTX or the others who might be searching for me, but regular, disreputable humans who might not hesitate to take advantage of him. Or the money I’d left for him.
And wasn’t the whole point of this exercise to keep him safe?
I’d imagined Zane waking up with a stranger looming over him, his fear and confusion, and my hand had jerked, as if an electrical shock had passed through the metal handle. The door had snapped shut, the lock engaging with a declarative click.
And that had decided that.
Who, exactly, are you attempting to fool? You knew the risks of that action and took it anyway. You wanted this.
I winced. Great. The part of me that I counted on to be unemotional and logical—my “alien” side, as I thought of it—had apparently discovered the joy of sarcasm. Not that it was inaccurate.
Zane climbed in the van, saying something to the motel manager who was staring at us, a cell phone clutched in his thick hand.
“Thanks for getting him involved,” I said to Zane, as he closed the door.
“Never would have happened if you’d just talked to me instead of skulking out in the middle of the night,” he pointed out sharply, surprising me a little.
“I wasn’t skulking. Skulking implies shame or wrongdoing,” I said, stung. Stupid. It was a ridiculous response, but seeing him like this had thrown me. Struggling with my own mixed emotions, I hadn’t fully considered his feelings. Yes, I’d expected him to be upset when he woke and found me gone, maybe even feel a little betrayed, but I’d figured relief would outweigh both of those emotions. I mean, who wouldn’t want a free pass out of this nightmare that was my life?
Not, of course, that I’d planned to be here when he was running that particular emotional gamut.
You might not have planned it, but you certainly made it possible.
Oh, shut up.
Back in the world outside my head, Zane raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s your defense? Arguing word choice?”
By now, I was feeling slightly provoked and attacked from multiple sides. “I told you, I was trying to protect—”
“Protect me, yeah. From what? What is so different now from a few hours ago?” he demanded.
“It’s complicated,” I hedged, putting the van in gear and pulling out of the parking lot onto the road. The last thing we needed was the manager calling the police anyway, because we weren’t leaving.
Zane narrowed his eyes at me. “This is about that letter, isn’t it? What does it say?”
I hesitated. If there was the possibility I could get him to leave without dragging him deeper into this mess, all the better.
He made a frustrated noise. “We’ve been over this already. If you don’t tell me—”
“You want to know so badly? Fine,” I snapped. “Good luck trying to ever sleep again. I won’t be.”
He waved his hand in a “give it to me” gesture.
“According to my father’s letter, GTX shouldn’t be my primary concern. Dr. Jacobs wants me alive. His competitors—David Laughlin and Emerson St. John—do not,” I said flatly. “One less hybrid to beat in the trials.”
Zane flinched.
“And apparently, they aren’t particularly worried about taking out innocent bystanders if it means getting rid of me,” I said. “Anyone near me is in danger of being killed. Not captured, not tortured, not used for motivation. Dead. Do you get that?” I could hear the hard edge growing in my voice and forced myself to breathe.
Zane let out a slow breath and slumped in his seat, rubbing his hands over his face.
Disappointment crept over me, but I shoved it away. This was good. He should know the stakes, the odds against his survival.
I pulled over into the mostly empty parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts and dug into my pocket for the key card to the room, which I’d kept for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Here,” I said softly.
His gaze flicked between the card and my face. “Do you not want me here? Am I…” He paused, as if searching for what to say, and then he exhaled sharply, frustrated with himself or me, I couldn’t tell.
“Am I slowing you down?” he asked finally, the words coming out rapidly, as if he was afraid of the answer.
I gaped at him, too shocked to respond at first. “No, of course not,” I managed. “I mean, yes, I want you here, but it’s too dangerous.”
At that, he gave me a bitter smile, his white, even teeth flashing in the dim light. “Has it ever occurred to you that, even without crazy government people chasing me, I don’t have much to go back to?”
“They’re not government. At least not yet. For now, it’s just the corporate.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to correct him, to pick at minute points of his argument rather than the main one. Maybe it was because I was having trouble finding fault with it; maybe it was because I didn’t want to.
Zane rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He shifted in his seat, turning more toward me. “Ariane, do you think I can go home again? Do you really think I can live with my dad after all of that?”
I remembered the shade of reddish purple his father’s face had turned when Zane defied him. There was no love lost between them now, if there ever had been. That much was clear.
I shook my head. “But you have everything. You have a future. You’ve got…prom and graduation and college.” All the things I wanted and could never have.
“Your reasons for keeping me away are so that I can attend lame school functions?” he asked.
“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” I said, exasperated. If he could throw around “skulking”…
He smirked. “My favorite color.”
“Funny,” I said dryly. Then I shook my head. I wouldn’t let him distract me. “Okay, so going back to Wingate isn’t an option. We already figured that anyway. But your mom—”
“Vanished in the middle of the night more than a year ago and hasn’t made contact since. Left a note full of apologies.” He gave me a piercing look.
Ah, that explained why he’d reacted so badly to what I’d done. I grimaced.
“Is it so hard to believe I want to be here? With you?” he asked quietly.