Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
And now, here we are—clean and warm and watching Miss Piggy beat Kermit over the head with a hammer.
This is what happiness feels like, I realize. This ordinary, unremarkable moment. A woman in my shirt, a silly show on TV, the smell of takeout containers in the kitchen—this is everything I didn’t know I was missing.
And now I know what I’ve been missing, I don’t think I can ever go back.
I’m…falling for her.
The thought doesn’t arrive like some revelation. It’s been there for a while now, growing in the dark like something planted without my permission. But tonight, watching her laugh at Miss Piggy’s latest diva tantrum, I can finally name it.
I am falling in love with her. Free-falling, actually. I’m obsessed with her, can’t breathe without thinking about her, can’t sleep without reaching for her, can’t imagine a future that doesn’t have her in it. I’m plummeting. She’s become the axis my whole world turns on, and that should terrify me—does terrify me—but I only seem to welcome it.
For the first time in years, I feel like a person instead of a product. For the first time since Emma died, I feel like I have something worth living for. Really living.
“Can I help you?” Mia says without looking away from the screen. “You’re boring holes into me.”
“Can’t help it. You’re prettier than Miss Piggy.”
“High praise indeed.” She tilts her head up to kiss my jaw. “Though I think Kermit might disagree.”
I catch her chin, turn her face toward mine, and kiss her properly. She tastes like sweet wine, and I feel that familiar hunger stirring again, like I can never truly be satisfied, never get enough and—
I cry out as pain spears through my skull.
It’s sudden and brutal, like someone’s lancing a sword through my left temple. My vision gets blurry and sound distorts, the Muppet’s yammering warping into something slow and sinister. My hands clench involuntarily, and somewhere far away, so far away, I hear Mia’s sharp intake of breath.
“Nate? Hey, what’s wrong?”
I can’t answer, can’t think. There’s only the pain and beneath it, rising like something surfacing from deep water, a darkness I should recognize, should welcome like an old friend, but I don’t. Ugly thoughts. Violent thoughts.
I shove it down. Hard. Force my fingers to unclench, force my breathing to steady, force myself back into my body.
“Nate!” Mia yells. Her hands are on my face now, her eyes wide with concern. “Talk to me. What’s happening?”
“Headache,” I manage to say as I blink at her. The pain is already fading, leaving behind that hollow throb I’ve come to know too well. “Just a headache. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine. You went completely white.”
“It’s nothing. Julia said it’s stress, the enhancements putting strain on my—”
“Fuck what Julia said.” Her voice is sharp enough to cut, to make me sit up taller. “You nearly crushed my hand just now. That’s not stress.”
I look down. Her right hand is cradled against her chest, the knuckles red where I must have squeezed without realizing. Horror washes through me, cold and nauseating.
“Mia, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she says, but she’s studying me with an expression I don’t like, one that seems wary of me now. I can’t blame her. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Come on,” she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You need to lie down.”
“I’m fine—”
“You’re not fine, and you’re not arguing with me.” She stands, tugging me with her. “You get to bed right fucking now. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“And you’re not fine. Move it.”
I let her lead me to the bedroom, because honestly, I don’t have the energy to fight. The headache has faded to a dull ache behind my eyes, but that darkness—those thoughts—they’re still there, lurking at the edges.
Waiting.
Mia pulls back the covers and practically pushes me onto the mattress. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, while she fusses with the blinds and adjusts the thermostat.
“You don’t have to—”
“Shut up.” She crawls in beside me, pressing her body against mine, her head on my chest. “Relax and get some sleep. I’ll be right here.”
Her hand rests over my heart, and the weight of it is grounding, real, the only anchor in a world that suddenly feels like it’s tilting and I’m about to go sliding off.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “About your hand. About…everything.”
“I know you are. Go to sleep, Nate.”
So, I do.
The operating room is cold.
White walls. White ceiling. White coats moving at the edges of my vision like ghosts. The lights are too bright, searing even through my closed eyelids, and it smells like antiseptic and something metallic. Blood, maybe.
“Prep for final integration,” someone says. A woman’s voice. Familiar.
I try to move, but I can’t. My arms are strapped down, my legs immobilized, something pressing against my temples like a vice. Electrodes. Wires. The hum of machines building to a crescendo.