Chapter 45

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I TELL HIM EVERYTHING. ABOUTKay. About me. About the facility in the sea. Time does not stop for my confession, and the orange of the sky rots to russet. The clouds become bruises. The sea bleeds around the horizon, the sun puncturing its navy skin. Our shadows grow long over the pier planks, and Hero’s touches my toes by the time I finish.

Finally, he speaks. “How many times have I tried to kill you?”

One time on the beach. Possibly one time on the ridge. One time on Genevie, and one time just now.

“Two?” Hero asks as I say, “Three.”

Silence.

“Maybe four,” I add, my voice quiet.

The last of the sun sinks. The air cools. The tide rises, blue-black, washing over the planks and sloshing at our feet as Hero begins to pace back and forth.

He comes to a sudden stop. He covers his face with both hands before pushing them through his hair, then turns to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because I wanted to protect you, and because it doesn’t matter. We’re real. But every reason sounds like an excuse. By lying to him, I chose for him, just like Kay chose for me. I took away his autonomy.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words paltry.

His breathing accelerates. I had a whole dive to the bottom of the sea to show me that I wasn’t human. He’s getting this all at once.

“Hero…” I start, but he’s already shouldering past me. He strides down the pier. “Hero!” I turn after him, but don’t chase him. I don’t deserve to; he needs space and time.

He doesn’t come back to the house that night.

Around midnight, I search for him along the shore and at the cove. No luck. The wind picks up. U-me greets me on the porch as I return, but I don’t have the energy to entertain her. I sit on the couch, legs to my chest, arms crossed atop my kneecaps, and bury my face in the nest of limbs. Eventually, my mind goes dark like my vision. This time, I dream my old dreams. The touchstone images—of cherry ice pops that melt too quickly, a sequined dress that fits my body like a second skin, and Kay’s hand, reaching for mine as I climb down a white ladder to join her in the sea—are almost comforting, even if I still wake up with tears on my face. I wipe them off before heading to the kitchen, brew tea like it’s a part of some normal routine. My hands shake.

Final day.

The kitchen door opens as I’m filling a mug—or trying to. I can’t seem to aim and most of the tea has spilled onto the countertop. I glance up from my mess to find Hero in the doorway, in the same clothes as yesterday, hair windswept.

“Where did you—”

His mouth’s on mine before I can finish. I start to kiss him back; he breaks away to lift me.

We end up at the counter—on it, against it, clothes half on, half off. Our rhythm is serrated, like the shards of sound we don’t manage to swallow. The countertop drives into my tailbone, and my nails dig into his shoulders as we come apart.

“Are you okay?” It’s the first thing Hero asks after he finds the air for words. His breath is ragged, and he rests his forehead against my shoulder to catch the rest of it.

“Better than okay,” I gasp back.

We clutch each other like we’re breakable. But we’re not. We may be breathless right now, but we’ll never be permanently without breath.

“How can it be?” Hero whispers into my shoulder. He lifts his head to look at me, and the confusion in his gaze blisters me like a flame. “You and I … we both feel so real.”

“We are real, Hero.”

“But so are the people—”

I press a finger to his lips. “Don’t think about them.”

“But I have to.” He pulls my hand away. “Because if you decide to wake them, I might stop you. I might kill you. The worst is that I don’t know what I might do, Cee.” He begins to tremble. “I just don’t know.”

“Shhh.” I take his head into my hands and draw him to my chest. His tears run warm over my breast and down my ribs. “It’s okay,” I say, even as my own heart clenches around my false memories of Kay. We are the same, Hero and me. All we can do is live and feel as much as we can, to rebel against the life and feelings we can’t control. “It’s okay, love.”

“Strongly agree,” comes U-me’s voice from the doorway leading to the living room, and I glare at her. But then Hero coughs out a wet laugh. A real one. This is our normal. Voyeuristic androids and tears shed over our overlords.

Slowly, we separate ourselves. Even more slowly, we get dressed, prolonging the present. As I tighten the drawstring to my cargos, Hero pauses, sweater caught around his elbows. His gaze drifts.

“Hero?”

Eyes refocusing, he shrugs his head through the neck opening. It leaves his hair going every which way. “Will you come with me somewhere?”

Honestly, I was looking to stay in. In this house, I feel protected. Kept at a distance—however slight—from the sea. Justified in defending my home and life.

But Hero looks like he needs air, so I open the kitchen door and say, “Lead the way.”

Hero does, pausing only when U-me follows us down the porch. “U-me, mind if it’s just us?”

U-me whirs.

“She doesn’t do questions,” I explain to Hero, then to U-me: “Stay, U-me.”

U-me blinks, unhappy with the order, but honoring it and letting me and Hero go.

We trek past the rocks behind the house, over the squidgy mud and then the shale scape. The fog is thick today, reducing visibility to mere meters, but Hero moves as if he took this path not too long ago.

“Why do you think I was made?” he asks casually, some minutes into our walk.

I try to give an equally casual answer. “I don’t know.”

“You were made to wake your sister.”

“Sure.”

“Who’s supposed to wake the entire population. And I’m supposed to end you.” You don’t know that—but I guess there’s no one else on this island for him to kill. “Why?” asks Hero.

The topic feels morbid, but I should be glad Hero is comfortable enough to talk about it. “Dunno. Maybe the person who made you didn’t want the entire population waking up.”

“Sounds like an asshole.”

“We don’t know what the world…” I trail off, searching for the right verb tense. “Was like. Maybe everyone turned evil, and whoever made you was trying to do good.”

“You don’t have to make me feel better, Cee.”

His voice, while quiet, holds a rare edge. My mouth opens and closes, fishing for words.

“Sorry.” We speak at the same time, break off, and try again. “I just—”

I smile. “Joules, are we a mess.”

Hero shakes his head. “I’m a mess. I’m not even programmed with the right language.”

“Right language?”

“Yeah. You say words I don’t understand, like ‘Joules.’”

“How do you know Joules isn’t my secret lover?” I tease as we walk around a shelf of shale.

Hero doesn’t say anything for a second. “Do you? Have a secret lover.”

“Did,” I correct. “And I—” I correct myself. “Celia … well, she knew a lot of boys.”

“And here I thought I had no competition.”

“Consider yourself lucky we met on this island,” I say, and Hero laughs, but silence descends as we come to the ridge.

On a day like this, I can’t see the top. It’s just an ombre of gray fog and stone, the neon-orange rope the only thing breaking up the monochrome. I catch myself wondering if the ridge was always a ridge, or if it once served some practical purpose. It couldn’t have been a mountain—it’s too narrow in width—but maybe it was a—

Levee.The thought comes abruptly. And the shrines on the other side used to be houses. People lived in them, 989 years ago.

Eerie. I run my tongue over the backs of my teeth, noticing the build-up of plaque. “Want to turn back?”

“If you want to,” says Hero.

Something in his voice makes me hesitate. “What do you want?”

Don’t ask me that, he said last night, when I posed the same question.

But today, he says, “To climb.”

“For fun?”

“Why not? If beach yoga is your thing, rock-climbing can be mine.”

Add extreme sports to our list of common hobbies, then. “Okay,” I say, grabbing the rope. “But I want a shoulder massage afterward.”

“Can do,” says Hero, taking a hold of the leftover rope behind me.

I’ve been away from the ridge long enough that my muscles are stiff. Maybe a normal human can’t even make this climb without dying, and as I near the top, I recall Kay’s words.

We designed you to be mechanically hardier than a real human.

How many times did I fall in the beginning? More than I care to remember, that’s for sure. I’ve had more than my fair share of broken bones. But I always heal. And then there’ve been the handful of really bad falls—too high up, the ground too far—where I’ve blacked out. Did I die? Have I been revived, like Hero? Would death leave a physical mark on my body, at least?

I realize I don’t know the answer to that, and when Hero reaches the top behind me, I turn to him and clasp his face between my hands. I’ve checked his forehead before, but now I check again, searching for a scar and finding none. His wound has healed over completely. I should be troubled, because that means I might have lost scars myself, but I’m just relieved I don’t see a single trace of my killing blow. I start to quiver, my breathing becoming rapid.

“Hey.” Hero holds my wrists. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“No. No, you’re not.” Am I hyperventilating? Definitely. Why now, though? I’ve faced scarier things. But nothing beats realizing our bodies are not ours, and even if Kay ceases to exist, her control over us remains indestructible as long as we do too.

“Cee, really, I’m oka—”

“I cracked your head open with an oar.”

Hero blinks. “The oar I made?”

I nod, bottom lip trembling.

“So I died, and came back…” to life “… hours later,” he finishes, skipping the words we both know.

Again, I nod.

I didn’t cry, not then.

I cry now, hands still cupped around his face.

Hero thumbs away my tears, brushing them from my lips. Then, slowly, so different from the rush of before, he angles his head. His mouth replaces his fingertips.

He kisses me, featherlight, and I’m the one who presses in. He lets me, before backing toward the edge. Rocks tumble down the ridge.

I start to tell him to be careful, before I realize he has been this entire time. This walk was carefully planned. This climb. This kiss, as carefully planted as a first.

Or a last.

“I wanted to give you the space to decide,” Hero says, and my mind pinwheels. What did he just ask me to confirm? So I died. Came back hours later. “The time. Without my interference, mental or physical. And this”—he glances over the edge—“is the only way I know how.”

No—

I scramble for him, and almost reach him, but falter when he says, “Don’t, Cee.” His voice is soft. Fearless. His eyes, though—I think I see fear there, but the wind covers them with his hair, and his lips smile. “Don’t choose me, or her. Choose yourself.”

Then he jumps.