Alive.
We didn’t have time to save Lachlan. His corpse sits slumped in the dentist’s chair, his body riddled with shrapnel. While I was resuscitating Cole, I saw the light fade from Lachlan’s eyes and heard him take his final breath.
It almost looked like he was smiling.
When Cole is ready, we carry him outside for no reason other than wanting to get out of the prison we spent our childhoods in. Leoben and I drag logs and sticks from the forest to build a fire together, and lay Cole beside it to keep him warm. I stretch out next to him until his vitals stabilize and his internal tech takes over.
Hours later, the sun dips below the horizon as the night’s first stars blink into an azure sky. Cole breathes steadily, still asleep on a roll-out mattress on the ground, his face bathed in the light from low flames dancing up from the fire. His back is a mess of silver streaks, more nanomesh than flesh, but I don’t care. I just want him to heal.
Leoben waited for a while, then went off hunting. He said he needed to kill something, which part of me understands. We’ve just lost our father, in a way. We grew up as prisoners and subjects in his experiments, but Lachlan was also the man who raised us. My memories of my childhood are still scattered – broken moments and snatches of conversations drifting without context in my mind, but I know that part of me cared about him back then, despite everything he did. There is a void where his shadow once fell, and I don’t yet know how to rearrange my emotions to fill that space.
Since Leoben left, I’ve sat for hours with my back against one of the jeep’s tyres, staring into the flames, unsure if I’m numb or just overwhelmed. Part of me thinks that if I let myself feel anything at all, I’ll fall into a chasm inside myself and won’t be able to climb out. Or maybe I’ll be fine. Cold and dispassionate, like Lachlan. I don’t know which reaction would be worse.
The fire crackles, and Cole’s hands twitch in his sleep. He shifts on to his side, brushing against me, his skin warm and flushed. It takes all my strength not to pull his arms open and curl into his chest, to kiss the soft skin beneath his jaw where his stubble fades away. I still haven’t told him what Lachlan said to me. About changing my mind.
I still don’t know how to feel about it myself.
If Lachlan’s mind was written over mine, then maybe I’m no more than a copy. A butchered, mutant clone with one gender chromosome and a bunch of inhuman DNA separating me from him. I wear his skin; I share his personality – all that’s left from Jun Bei are the memories of a girl I barely know buzzing in the back of my mind. I don’t know if it’s enough to resurrect her, or if I’ve truly lost that version of myself.
I don’t know which option frightens me more.
I glimpsed enough of Jun Bei when I hacked the lab’s genkit to know that the pain of her childhood is what defined her. She took that pain inside herself and let it crystallize there, creeping into her heart until it glittered like ice. I thought Cole was a weapon made of steel, but he has softer places hidden inside. He is vulnerable, and gentle.
Jun Bei is not.
Her voice has faded from my mind, but I can still feel the power of it, the echo of her thoughts on the fringes of my mind. To remember her fully, and hear her voice like that again, would mean opening myself to the pain she carried. I don’t know if I can bear that. I don’t know if I want to.
But when I think of the little mountain lion on Leoben’s chest, I feel a void inside me.
A log in the fire pops, and Cole stirs, his hand brushing my ankle. ‘Hey there,’ he says, blinking awake. He rubs his eyes, bleary. ‘Where’s Lee?’
‘Hunting,’ I say. ‘Don’t get up. I’m keeping watch. He wanted to let off steam by shooting things.’
He smiles, his eyes puffy. ‘That sounds like Lee.’
I snort. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m pretty high on meds right now, but I think I’ll be OK. What about you?’
I shrug. My hands are bandaged, and my leg barely has any strength, but it isn’t my physical wounds that worry me. ‘I’m not doing so well,’ I admit.
Cole opens his arms, inviting me closer, but I’m not sure I can let him hold me. I’m not the girl he thinks he loves. How is he going to feel when he finds out the truth about what Lachlan did to me?
‘Come here,’ he says, reaching for me. He slips a hand around my arm, tugging me in to him. ‘I know there’s a lot to figure out, but we’re together now. It’s going to be OK.’
I breathe in a lungful of his scent, letting myself curl in closer. There’s nothing I want more than to believe those words right now. But I don’t know if they’re true. I don’t know if anything is OK. I don’t know who I am, or how I’m going to handle everything that’s happened.
Cole pushes the hair from my face. ‘How’s your new panel?’
I rest my head in the curve of his shoulder, lifting up my arm. ‘It’s strange – I can feel apps that I’ve never used before. I don’t even know what they’re supposed to do.’
He smiles, a playful gleam in his eyes. He takes my hand and turns it gently. ‘Can I try something?’
‘Sure,’ I say warily.
He slides his hand along my forearm until our panels are pressed together, the way I’ve seen him do with Leoben. I let my eyes glaze over, waiting to see a comm or a file, but all I feel is a low, prickling heat in my stomach.
‘Here,’ he says, lifting my other hand to his face, tracing my fingers down his cheek. Sparks rise on my skin in the same place I’m touching him.
‘Is that … Am I feeling what you feel?’
‘Mm-hmm,’ he says, moving my hand, tracing my fingers over his lips. Lines of fire rise across my own.
‘Are you feeling what I feel too?’ I ask.
‘Of course, it’s a feedback loop.’ He grins and pulls me closer, leaning in to kiss me.
The feeling erupts across my skin – my own rapid-firing nerves leaving me breathless, shaking as our lips press together. It’s like fireworks – tiny pops of pleasure growing stronger with each moment the kiss lingers until it’s so intense I can’t take it any more.
‘Holy shit,’ I gasp, pulling away, breaking the connection between our panels. ‘Is this what you and Leoben were doing when your panels were pressed together?’
He throws back his head, roaring with a laugh that turns into a wince of pain. ‘No, but I’ve got to tell him you said that.’
My cheeks flush, my body still tingling. ‘That’s a hell of a piece of code.’
Cole grins. ‘It’s supposed to be used to transfer pain for medical diagnoses, but you hacked it years ago.’
‘I wrote it?’
‘Yeah, baby. You’ve been a badass from the start. It wasn’t him. You know that, right? It was always you.’
I let my gaze drift up to his, my heart stuttering. The firelight catches his eyelashes, lighting up the curves of his face.