She glared at me. “Fine, for not telling me, which is a form of lying.”
“I don’t think you want to use that argument, do you?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“You know everything about me, everything,” she whispered. “Even the horrible things. Why wouldn’t you tell me about the potential consequences?”
“Because I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen,” I said, exasperated. “And…I knew you’d take it on.” I turned away from her to stare out the side window. “You’d make my decision your problem, like you always do, and I didn’t want to make things any more complicated.”
“How am I not supposed to take it on when it’s a decision you made because of me?” she demanded.
“It wasn’t just because of you, Ariane,” I said. “Not entirely. I knew the risks, and I wanted what St. John was offering. I could have stopped after the initial injections, had him try to wean me off instead of trying for stabilization, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was a chance to be more, to finally be good enough,” I said a little too loudly, losing my grip on my frustration. “So I took it, and now I’ll have to live with whatever happens.” My mouth twisted in a strained smile. “Or not.”
She didn’t like that answer. Ariane turned her head away from me, staring silently out the side window for the rest of the trip.
Ten minutes later, we pulled up near the Manderlay, finding a scene similar to what we’d just left behind. The front entrance was cordoned off with police caution tape, with uniformed officers patrolling the line. Emergency vehicles occupied the turnaround and the street out front. One news crew was already stationed as close to the tape as possible, with two others pulling equipment out of their trucks.
Some guests still lingered nearby. They were the ones with the uncertain expressions and missing shoes or random pieces of clothing. Others were obviously tourists, passing by and taking in the drama, recording it with their phones.
“This is fine,” Ariane said in a clipped voice to the driver. She handed over the last of our cash. Then she got out of the cab without waiting for me, or even looking to see if I followed.
I climbed out of the cab, shutting the door behind me. Ariane was still pissed, obviously. But I suspected at least some of it might have been because she was scared, not for herself but for me. My mind-reading abilities were weak. But fear had a distinct flavor to it, for lack of a better term. It was metallic, cold, powerful. And that’s what’s radiating from her more than anything, even anger.
And she kind of had a point. Knowing what I knew now, I had to admit that, given the chance to do it all over again, I would probably choose differently. Adam had been pretty close to perfect as a candidate for Emerson’s experiment, and even being skilled and better than the average human hadn’t saved him.
Everyone had limits, blind spots, weaknesses, peculiarities. Maybe the key was just figuring out how to live with them. I loved Ariane for who she was, including the parts she didn’t like and other people feared or hated.
Was it so impossible that she felt the same way about me? Maybe not.
I caught up with Ariane when she paused on the sidewalk, near a clump of people watching the spectacle.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
Her expression had clicked over to that distant, evaluating mask that I recognized. She’d retreated within herself, letting the training she’d had and the nonhuman instincts she’d been born with rise to the surface.
“When the GTX guards brought me here, they used that garage.” She tipped her head to indicate the structure looming over us. “There was a walkway to the hotel.”
Which would mean fewer people watching, maybe even the possibility of no police at that particular entrance.
But a few steps toward the garage entrance revealed red and blue flashing lights and squad cars blocking the ramp to the upper levels of the garage. The officers inside the cars were on the radio, and their stiff posture screamed, “We are not kidding around.”
“They are taking this really seriously,” I muttered.
She nodded, her head cocked at an angle and her forehead wrinkled with concentration as she focused in on their thoughts. “Hostages. That’s what they’re worried about. They’re not talking about it with the media yet, but that’s what I’m hearing. They think someone’s still alive in there.” She frowned.
I felt a spark of hope. Someone still alive was good. Even better if it was Emerson St. John and not Dr. Jacobs or Laughlin. Though, the odds of just one of them surviving weren’t good. The scar on my stomach began to itch and burn again.