Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“I see you struggling, Emery,” Claire says with feigned sympathy. “So, let’s talk it through: I knew if you saw your husband hit by a car, you wouldn’t call an ambulance. Not with your tragic backstory.”
I clench my jaw, staring at her with such hatred I’m shaking.
“An ambulance couldn’t save your parents—so no, you wouldn’t trust it to get there in time. I gambled that you’d inject him with the compound—just like you did—and put him in the BioVIVE.” She smiles smugly. “Then it’s a win-win for me: If he dies, I have the backup AISS footage showing that you conducted an unauthorized experiment on a human, who did not come out of the pod alive. The board would immediately terminate the project, declassifying the protocol in-house for full review, and I would get access to the Compound Y structure. Or Luca is successfully resurrected, proving the protocol works, and I’m able to negotiate for far more money. Especially now that the US government wants in on the game.” She spreads her arms. “And voilà. I’m thrilled with how this has turned out. Well, at least for me.”
I look over at Luca, who is staring at me with wild eyes. They’re filled with such terror that it hits me as if he’s said it out loud: She’s told us too much.
46 LUCA
They say hindsight is 20/20, and now when I look back over my life with Emery, it’s like having a light turned on, a prescription filled, everything coming into focus.
The first time I realized she was lying to me was when she missed a dinner reservation. It was about six months ago, and Crash had managed to date someone longer than it takes milk to expire; he wanted us to meet for a double date. I made sure Emery would be free and gave her plenty of notice, putting the dinner in our shared calendar. I left Post-it notes on every surface and called her at work that day to remind her of the place and time.
She didn’t show.
When she got home that night, she was apologetic. She explained that her team was presenting a new Lasik technique that week and there’d been a supply chain issue with a part used to create the corneal flap.
It wasn’t that I suspected she was lying about where she was, it was that I somehow knew her absence had nothing to do with supply chains and everything to do with priorities. Whatever had kept Emery at the office hours longer than she had planned was more important to her than keeping her word to me.
After that, it wasn’t that I was keeping score, it was that I couldn’t not see the excuses and late nights and every distracted conversation when she would rather be working. That’s just who Emery was. She was everything to me, but Emery’s everything was her job.
The thing is, it took a long time for me to realize that it wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t normal. My parents’ commitment to us—their kids—was sporadic at best, but I saw enough of Crash’s family life to know that mine was strange, and that not all teenagers were balancing going to school, working at a local pizza joint, and raising their younger siblings. Even so, after three years of marriage to Emery, I couldn’t deny that the way I was raised undoubtedly contributed to my willingness to put up with my wife’s nonexistent work-life balance. I knew it wasn’t fair and that there were things she wasn’t telling me, but rather than confront it like an adult, I swallowed it down and let resentment build until I decided to walk away.
When someone ends a relationship, it’s natural to assume they’ve already grieved and moved on. But from the day I realized I would never come first, to the appointment with the attorney, it hurt. I knew I needed to leave, I knew it was the best thing for me, but my heart didn’t care. It never, not for one second, got easier.
And then I forgot it all.
Until tonight, when I recognized the woman who let me into the warehouse as the same person who’d been driving the car, who is apparently also my wife’s assistant, and it all came back so fast it felt like a physical shove. The lack of headlights meant that I had seen her face through the windshield, and she hadn’t even flinched before she hit me, not a moment of hesitation. Then she stepped aside and the guy from the white car—the one I’d talked to on my walk—was there. He’d introduced himself as Frank that night, and now I understood the strange demeanor, his fascination when I said my name was Luca and that I lived in a house on the street.
Of course he was fascinated: I was living proof that Emery’s compound worked, and he knew that because he was working with the person who’d killed me.