CHAPTER 22

Artemis

Strap her down. Keep her still. Run.

Please don’t hurt me. Run.

You’ll be fine if you don’t struggle.

I’m not trying to hurt you.

We must proceed, no matter the cost.

Run, A.

Don’t let them get away! Run.

The procedure was a success.

We must implant them all before…

They’re thinking too much for themselves.

Run, A!

You’re safe, little girl.

…Fully controllable… It’s too late for me…

RUN!

???

My hand was wrapped around someone’s throat, and I was squeezing. I blinked myself into consciousness, my mind taking a moment to process what was going on. But when I realised I had Dorian pinned to the floor while he desperately scratched at my arms and tried to dislodge me, I immediately let go and backed away.

‘Fuck,’ he coughed, scrambling away from me as if he were afraid I would try to kill him again. I hadn’t tried to kill him, not really. After the way some of the guards in The Program would sneak into our rooms in the middle of the night, or when the scientists would try to take us for more testing while we were unconscious, my subconscious mind had learned to react defensively.

It had also learned that outright killing someone would bring further pain and suffering, so Dorian was never in any real danger. It was more of an involuntary scare tactic. But there was no way I could explain that to him, so I tried not to take his reaction personally.

Sorry,’ I said. I didn’t think there was anything else I could say.

When it was clear I wasn’t about to attack him, he let himself relax a little, though he didn’t come any closer. ‘That must have been some bad dream,’ he forced out, his voice scratchy and abused from the damage I’d caused.

I didn’t want to give him any information, but the brightly coloured bruise appearing on his neck caused a stab of guilt right through the gut. ‘You probably shouldn’t touch me when I’m asleep.’

‘Yeah… no kidding.’

I shot him a thin-lipped, apologetic smile, but didn’t say anything else.

‘You were screaming in your sleep,’ he explained when the silence dragged on too long to be comfortable.

‘That happens sometimes.’

He hesitated before asking his next question. ‘Wanna talk about it?’

‘No.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Okay…’

I stopped him when he stood, preparing to leave, my fingers stretching toward the injury. He flinched away, so I let my arm drop. ‘You should probably go the med bay for that.’

His exhale was shallow and drawn-out. ‘Nah, they’d just ask questions. I’m fine.’

I frowned. ‘You sure?’

‘Yup. I’m not dead. I’m good.’

His light-hearted joke fell a little flat, but it did its job to remove some of the tension between us.

I checked the time, knowing I wouldn’t be going back to sleep now. It was only a few clicks away from my usual alarm.

‘We should get ready,’ I told him. He was still in his sleepwear, so I offered to let him use the bathroom first. I thought he could use the moment after what had just transpired, and I must have been correct because he readily agreed.

He took his sweet time, though. I’d parked myself in the living area, patiently awaiting my turn, but he had still yet to emerge. He took so long that the buzzer sounded through the speaker system, rousing the others, and I was still waiting on the sofa. I watched as they tried the door one at a time, each discovering it was occupied, then turned as saw me on the couch, still in my sleepwear.

‘Who the hell is in the bathroom, and why are they taking so long?’ Cadmus asked. More like whined. He sounded vaguely annoyed at the hold-up like it was his right to use the bathroom whenever he wanted, regardless of whoever was already using it. But he sat down beside me, wings tucked close against his back and straining against the fabric of his sleep shirt.

I tried to catch a glimpse of the feathers poking out from the collar, but he turned to face me instead, keeping them out of my line of sight. He must have recognised the disappointment in my expression, however, because he started asking even more questions.

‘Aren’t you usually ready before everyone? Why are you always awake at such a despicable hour? And who the fuck was up before you to take over the bathroom? How long have they been in there?’

‘Take a breath, man,’ Henrik teased as he came to join us, settling in the only space left open.

Cadmus glared at him, but it lacked any real heat. From what I’d discerned from the little I’d witnessed of their interactions and behaviours towards one another, they hadn’t been friends before enrolling at Nova Academy but they seemed to be forming a particularly close bond. There hadn’t been any romantic or sexual vibes between them that I could see, just platonic, almost brotherly friendship, and it made me ache for my own.

Ignoring the way my chest constricted and the air tried to stick in my lungs, I jumped up as soon as the bathroom door opened and Dorian stepped out. He jerked away from me as I brushed by him in my eagerness to be alone, and I ignored the guilt from that, too.

If I just ignored all of my problems, would they go away?

Obviously not. That was never how things worked, but that didn’t stop me from wishing. A break from the chaos of my life would have been nice.

But I couldn’t have that. Not yet. I was beginning to wonder if I ever would.

The exhaustion that had abated a little with sleep was suddenly bone deep again. My entire body sagged as I entered the shower stall. The fizzing of the bubbles as they ate at the dirt and grime didn’t fully register. I was moving on autopilot as I dressed, which was becoming an alarmingly regular occurrence. I usually hated the way the chest binding felt, crushing me as it did its job to make me flat. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but it sometimes felt that way wearing it day and night. But even that didn’t bother me today. I didn’t have the mental energy to care .

If anything, I just wanted to stomp my feet, scream and cry and beat at my surroundings because life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! All these people were out here living their lives without a care, enjoying their friendships and sneaking time with their lovers, forging new bonds and living open and free while they built their careers and families and lived .

And they took it all for granted.

I hadn’t felt anger to this degree for a while. I’d become extremely skilled at pushing it all away to deal with later, but that ended up creating cracks in my armour that eventually spilled, the dam bursting with an emotional overload that destroyed everything in its path.

It had happened pretty frequently right after I’d escaped. I knew I had to be strong to survive. Life outside The Program was new and strange and oftentimes impossible to manoeuvre on my own. I had caused some destruction to the places I’d been staying. I’d hidden myself away in derelict buildings. Many places not even the lowest of deviants would go because they were too dangerous even for them. With the nanites coursing through my veins, injury or sickness wasn’t a concern for me, so I was able to carve out a semi-comfortable existence within those buildings.

Until I’d snap and accidentally level it to the ground. Then I’d have to move on and find some other abandoned building in a different city to lay low.

Sometimes it felt as if I was always on the move. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real bed that with a mattress that wasn’t rotting, consistent showers and hot food in my belly. This was the longest I had ever gone where I was safe – as safe as I could be in disguise and on the run – and provided for. Everything I could possibly need was available to me, and there wasn’t even a catch. I didn’t have to let scientists strap me down and cut into me in order to get a meal, even if it was merely flavourless slop. I didn’t have to pretend I was happy to be poked and prodded and experimented on. I didn’t have to perform tricks for treats.

After my less than restful, nightmare-riddled sleep and now this, my mood had thoroughly plummeted. It wouldn’t take much to set me off today, so I hoped nothing happened to trigger the rage simmering beneath my skin, scratching incessantly as it fought to be released.

Henrik jumped the queue and took my place in the bathroom when I exited. He shot me a polite smile on his way in, but I didn’t think he truly saw me, merely flexing his manners. I was surprised to find that everyone else was already dressed and ready for the day when I found them sitting around the table and munching away on breakfast. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew that I had to eat something or my struggles would be exacerbated throughout the day, so I grabbed a piece of fruit and bit into it.

Fruit was a commodity in The Program. Those of us on the wrong side of the invisible line weren’t allowed much more than oatmeal and bland stew, so we would savour it when we got the chance. Now, though, I wasn’t even able to taste it. Libby would have had my head if she saw me now, but that thought only made my rapidly devolving mood even worse. She should have been out here with me and eating her own fruit. We would have drawn it out, chewing slowly and leisurely, slurping up the sweet juices and sucking them from our fingers.

The urge to punch my way through the bastards keeping her from me grew so strong that the fruit burst in my hand. My grip had tightened to the point where it could have ground steel into dust.

Everyone stopped and stared as I took a deep breath in a failed attempt to ground myself and quickly cleaned up the mess. I wiped my hands on a towel hanging in the little kitchenette, then snagged a sausage, scarfing it down to avoid any more accidents. My belly wasn’t full, but it wasn’t completely empty either and that was all that I could manage .

We were pushing the limit this morning. More than likely to be tardy for Combat Training, Addy and Captain Hironimus still greeted us when we left the room en masse, and I was immediately assaulted by the short pink female.

With thoughts of Libby running amok in my brain and the emotions that dragged up, her excitement to see me was bittersweet. With my negative emotions running wild, it was more bitter than sweet. I ended up forcing her off of me with a harder than necessary shove. She stumbled back, magenta, dual-pupiled eyes wide with shock. The captain growled and planted himself between us like he could physically block me from hurting his friend.

He didn’t know that it if I truly wished her harm, he was as useful as a hologram was as a shield.

‘Arty…?’ Reece’s voice was tentative, and that just piled more onto me.

If I didn’t get of here soon, I was going to explode on all of them.

I pushed past them and stomped toward the elevator. They gave me a wide berth, and I found myself alone in the elevator as the door began to slide back down. Except it didn’t make it all the way before someone ducked beneath it and joined me.

I heard a panicked protest from the captain that was cut off as the door finally finished its descent, but I was now stuck in an enclosed space with one person I knew wasn’t going to leave me alone to shove everything back in its box where it belonged. No, she was going to push and push and needle her way inside until I was left bare and bereft, raw and exposed.

Fuck, I just couldn’t…

‘Artemis – ‘

‘Don’t,’ I interrupted, my voice hard and cooler than I think it had ever been.

But she didn’t heed my clear warning. ‘Bromm told us what happened. ’

That wasn’t what I was expecting, but the fact that he’d blasted what had gone down between us was the wrong way for her to start her interrogation. All she succeeded in doing was further perpetuating my desire to kill something. To tear another living being to shreds simply because they dared to exist in the same space as me.

‘Fuck off.’

‘It’s okay – ‘

‘I said fuck off! ’ I roared.

The door slid open to let us out at the same time as the other one further down the corridor. The private elevator that had apparently brought everyone else down at the same time. They all heard the way I shouted at Addy, and the captain wasn’t having any of it. He raced towards us, fatal intent in his gaze.

I was fully prepared then to meet him head-on, fuck the consequences, but Addy stepped in front of me and blocked his path.

‘Stop, Xander. Don’t .’

He didn’t want to, that much was obvious, but he did as she asked all the same. His breaths were heaving and his muscles were coiled, ready to attack, but he obeyed, trying to cow me with his death glare instead.

‘ Xander , seriously. Stop. It’s my fault. I didn’t read the room. I pushed when I shouldn’t have. Don’t get mad at Arty.’

‘He raised his voice at you,’ the captain bit out through clenched teeth. His jaw ticked as he ground them so hard I was surprised they hadn’t chipped away yet.

I ignored everyone as I left them behind, entering the locker room by myself. They let me, giving me ample space both physically and emotionally.

I had to get myself together. Today we were rotating to hand-to-hand combat, and I was going to have to spar against another person. I couldn’t lose control .

But I could feel what was quickly brewing simmering away beneath my skin. I was already half-way there.