Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“Just be still now. Your reserves are buildin’ back up. You’ll feel better in a few hours.”
And now I feel the warmth. His body pressed into mine. His arms around me. He’s so hot, he feels like a furnace. But I’m so cold, I push myself into him, trying to get warm.
“You’re OK,” he says again. “You’re all right. You’re gonna be fine.”
I’m sleepy and his words echo in my head as I go back into the dream to see the Little Sister with the blue butterflies swarming around her like a cyclone. Jasina Bell. Then I’m being pulled back in time, to the afternoon when I first saw her inside the Maiden Tower when she was getting her tour.
It was the last day of my innocence.
The last day before the bells started ringing again.
The day when everything started to unravel like a loose thread of silk…
The next time I wake up, the world is shaking. Booming, thunderous vibrations echo through the walls. I know this sound, and it terrifies me. I try to take a deep breath, hoping to steel myself, but it comes out as a gasp and ends like a whimper.
“It’s OK,” Tyse says. “It’s just the horde. Somethin’s goin’ on down there.”
I open my eyes. Tyse is wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist. He’s wet, like he just got out of the shower. And he’s sitting in a chair across the room.
The room?
“Where are we?” My words come out throaty. Croaky.
“Our new quarters, darlin’—courtesy of Epsilon.” When he says these words, he… he lights up. Patterns of lights, specks, and dots cover the length of his arms, his torso, his neck. Even his face.
Lights inside his skin. Not on him—in him.
I try and sit up, but the headache is so acute, I nearly double over and vomit. Only my extensive years of Spark Maiden training stop the act before it happens. I close my eyes again, propping myself up on one elbow, hoping the wave of nausea passes.
The lights go out. “Sorry,” Tyse says. “I forgot about the headaches.”
Feeling a little bit better in the near darkness, I open my eyes and find him standing up now, hand still on a light switch on the wall. He’s lit up. Entirely lit up. Every part of his visible skin is glowing with lights. Some kind of tech that should be on the screen of a computer, but is now embedded into his body.
“What happened to you?”
His brow furrows, eyes narrowing. “What?”
“Your body, Tyse! What the hell happened to your body!”
“Oh.” He blows out a breath, looking down at his arms where all his tattoos are now covered in orange and green glowing patterns. “This is just…” His eyes find mine. “An upgrade.”
“Upgrade? You’re glowing with lights!” I might be getting hysterical. “I don’t understand. What happened to you? Because this doesn’t look like an upgrade, Tyse. You look like one of those things!”
He sighs now, glancing away. Absently rubs his hand through his hair. A flicker of something clenches in his jaw.
I just compared him to a Delta Factory worker bot. It’s an insult. He’s well aware of what has happened to him and he’s not in the mood for my judgment.
He looks back at me. “It’s just augments, Clara. Like the eyes.” He points to his eyes, which are the least glow-y thing about him right now. “Nothin’ to get upset about.”
My mouth drops open. Nothing to get upset about?
He uses my dumbstruck silence as an opportunity to duck into another room. From the steam pouring out, I decide that this is the bathroom. When he returns a few moments later, he’s wearing a pair of black tactical pants, a belt, and a piece of sleeveless chest armor that should dial back his bot factor, but instead only adds to it.
Because this armor looks like it grew out of him. It’s so tight and sculpted to his muscles. Plus, it’s got lights on it as well.
“Tyse,” I breathe. “Where… what? I don’t understand.”
“It’s all right. You’ll be OK.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t feel OK, Tyse. I feel like shit, actually. And I’m not even that worried about me. It’s… you.”
“You’re just confused, that’s all.” He draws in a deep breath and lets it out as a tired sigh. “You were drained.”
Drained. It takes… well, much longer than it should for me to connect the dots. To remember where I am. What we’re doing.
What I agreed to.
Drained. Of spark, he’s saying. Harvested.
Because I gave the god Epsilon permission to take everything I have and give it to Tyse so he can survive the experiments and the fights that come after.
And this is what I gave Epsilon permission to do to him.
He doesn’t even look human.
“How long? How long have we been doing this?”