Chapter 28
The corrupted.
A queasy feeling crawls up my throat.
“I visited that hospital,” Cross continues, his eyes never leaving my face. “When you were there, you assumed all the patients were Mods.”
“Most of them were marked,” I say, thinking back to the night at the hospital.
There must have been at least twenty people in that room, and the majority had tattoos on both wrists, indicating they were—or at least used to be—Company slaves.
“And I saw a lot of silver veins. They were flickering in and out, like the synapses in their brains were misfiring.”
Uncle Jim told me that’s what happens when a Mod’s mind is fragmented. They aren’t able to filter properly, and so their minds are swarmed, ceaselessly, with other people’s thoughts and projections. It’s a staggering amount of stimulation, enough to drive a person insane.
“At least half the people in that ward were Primes,” Cross tells me, his tone flat.
My brows knit together. “No. That’s impossible.”
“I had two different Mods, former loyalists, verify it by penetrating their minds. There were no electric shocks in their necks. They’re Primes. And Catherine corroborated it when I went to question her—”
“Catherine?” I interrupt. He says that name as if I’m supposed to know who it is.
“Catherine De Velde,” he clarifies. “Lyddie’s mother. She’s the head of Biotech.”
The casual mention of Lyddie, the person who turned me in for concealment, only reignites my anger. I tried so hard to see it from Lyddie’s point of view. To see her as a victim of the propaganda that Primes like her consume from a young age. They’re raised to hate us.
But I don’t have my head in the sand anymore.
Lyddie knew exactly what she was doing when she turned me in. She knew, especially with my bloodmark, that I’d be sent to the firing squad. I can no longer find a way to justify her actions.
Other than plain fucking evil.
“There’ve been cases of corruption in the wards,” Cross says. “Corrupted Primes have been cropping up all over the Continent for years.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Catherine described their symptoms to me, and it’s exactly what happened to my mother.
The corruption doesn’t always happen instantaneously.
It depends on how severe the rewiring was.
But ultimately, those damaged wires take their toll.
Moments of confusion, disorientation, anger, all mixed in with moments of clarity.
Eventually, their thoughts become incoherent, their memories full of holes.
Sometimes it sounds like there’s voices in their heads, which is why it’s been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, but at some point, their mind goes completely silent, and the subject becomes catatonic. That’s how it happened for my mom.”
“And your father?”
“Whatever Adrienne did to him, it was a lot more effective, and the results were immediate. He went from confused to incoherent to catatonic in less than twenty-four hours. Merrick Redden no longer exists. He’s just a shell.”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel much sympathy for him,” I say bitterly.
“I’m not asking you to. I don’t feel sympathy for him, either.
He was a ruthless bastard and a shit father.
But my mom was innocent. These other Primes were innocent.
” Cross’s jaw tightens. “I found other hospital wards, Wren. Catherine took me to several of them. She showed me entire children’s wards. ”
I take a sharp breath. “Bullshit.”
“I saw them with my own eyes. Children and teens with corrupted minds. Kids as young as five, six, seven. All corrupted.”
“No,” I say slowly. “There’s no way. I spoke to Adrienne, and she swore she isn’t corrupting on a mass scale.
She’s the only corrupter on the Continent, and trust me, the Authority would never authorize any mission that involved experiments on children, or civilians in general.
Especially after what happened at Valterra Ridge. ”
“Well, someone authorized it, and someone is doing it, whether that’s Adrienne or—” Cross stops, narrowing his eyes. The man is too intelligent for his own good. “Did Adrienne corrupt my mother’s mind?”
I falter, fighting the urge to avert my gaze. I can’t hide from this.
“Yes,” I admit.
To his credit, he doesn’t explode the way I know he wants to. He keeps his fists pressed to his sides, and though every muscle in his face is stretched taut, he sounds calm when he speaks again.
“You knew about it?”
“I found out when I got to their base. I confronted Adrienne about it. She said they’ve only authorized corruption on strategic targets. They don’t use it often.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…I guess I didn’t think it would achieve anything.”
He tips his head up at the sky, and the moonlight washes over his beautiful face, emphasizing each perfect feature. His straight nose, strong jaw, the curve of his lips. When he turns toward me, his vivid blue eyes are no longer angry but resigned.
“No. You didn’t tell me because you knew exactly what I’d say—which is that you need to get the fuck away from these people. They can’t be trusted.”
“You don’t even have proof that the Uprising is performing this supposed corruption,” I point out. “It could be a rogue corrupter in the wards. Or one of your own people experimenting on them. Maybe your brother has a corrupter on his payroll.”
“Travis is a lot of things, but he values every Prime life.”
“Unless he’s tricking you into thinking that.”
“You don’t get it,” Cross says, getting frustrated with me. “I’m not advocating for either side. I don’t trust what’s happening on the Continent. You have to leave before it’s too late. We have to leave.”
“You want us to…run? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. We disappear, Daisy. We run—tonight—and leave everything behind.”
“What about your mother?”
“My mother’s lost to me,” he says roughly. “And my brothers…I don’t know. Maybe they can be saved, maybe not. But the only person I care about saving now is you.”
I feel a squeeze of emotion. A month ago, I would have jumped at this proposition. The night we stood at the edge of the Blacklands, when he broke my heart by saying he wasn’t coming with me. If he’d asked me to run away together then, I would’ve said yes without hesitation.
Yes.
The word hovers on my tongue now, yet it refuses to leave my mouth. Indecision flickers through me. How can I run away? The people at the Dagger, in the valley…
They matter to me.
Some of them, like Evlynne, still haven’t warmed up to me and maybe never will, but the others have become friends.
Allies. I can’t abandon them now. I’m finally finding my footing there, my place among them.
And although we just rescued forty-two Mods, and I certainly view that as a success, Ice Canyon is one of many slave facilities. There’s so much more work to be done.
“Cross…” I swallow hard. “I won’t leave and let your brothers kill my people.”
“Your people,” he echoes.
“Yes,” I say. “And yours, if you want them. Please, come back with me tonight. You already have an ally there in Xavier.” At the reminder of Xavier, my throat closes again. “You’d leave him behind, too? He’s your best friend.”
“We can try to send word to him. He can join us.”
“How? They’ve got a tracker on him,” I say in frustration. “He’s a prisoner.”
Cross barks out a disbelieving laugh. “And you want me to be one, too? Wren. Wake up. I can’t work with the Uprising.”
“And I can’t turn the other cheek and pretend the Company isn’t experimenting on Mods, that your brothers aren’t killing us. I know you believe that Adrienne is corrupting minds, but I promise you, if you come back with me, we’ll get to the bottom of it. I genuinely don’t think she would do that.”
“She is,” he says flatly.
Sadness creeps into my chest, filling all the little cracks in my heart that are beginning to form with every word that comes out of his mouth. Because I don’t know where this is going, and it scares me.
“You would really leave with me tonight?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“And do what? Where do you propose we go, Cross? Join a Faithful camp?”
“It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we’re together. You and me. Wolf and Daisy.” His voice grows hoarse. “I love you. I’ve loved you my whole life.”
Tears prick my eyelids. “I love you, too.”
He bridges the distance between us. He’s so much taller than me, and I have to tilt my head to look at him. He leans in and presses his forehead against mine. My heart is pounding. Nothing ever prepared me for this. For this love that makes me feel both invincible and utterly fragile.
“Then let’s go,” he says, his warm breath tickling the tip of my nose.
“That isn’t a plan, Cross. You don’t even know where we would go, how we would live.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I meet his eyes. “And if people’s minds really are being corrupted? Children’s minds? You’re willing to walk away and let that happen?”
“Yes. Because maybe the Continent is a lost cause. Maybe the people here can’t be saved.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “Say the word and we’re gone. We can start fresh. Find somewhere new. Just us.”
I clamp my teeth over my bottom lip to keep the tears at bay. We’re standing less than a foot apart, yet I feel the distance between us. Vast. Unbridgeable.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
His jaw clenches, blue eyes shadowed with hurt.
“I agreed to fight this war. I need to fight this war. Your brother executed sixteen Mods this morning. My own parents killed hundreds of Mods—”
“Is that what this is about?” he interrupts. “You see pledging yourself to the Uprising as atonement? A way to make up for the damage your parents caused? Because it’s not your responsibility to do that.”
“Maybe not, but if I can undo even a fraction of their betrayal by helping to overthrow Prime rule, then I have to do it. I can’t abandon my people.”
Cross grips the edges of his black jacket as though he’s trying to hold himself together. His knuckles whiten, shoulders tensing as if he’s bracing for a blow. “So you’d rather abandon me?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“It’s fine. Just go.”
My breath catches, sharp and painful, and I feel my knees going weak. I sway forward, instinctively reaching out, but stop myself before I touch him. I know if I do, I’ll start to cry.
“What, it’s over between us then?” I choke out. My voice is trembling.
He looks away, jaw tight, and scrapes a hand down his face. The fact that he hesitates rips a hole right through my heart.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” I echo, the words splintering in my throat.
I feel like the ground has cracked open beneath my feet, and I’m free-falling.
Silence stretches between us. Suffocating. Raw. I’m desperately, irrevocably in love with him, and he’s telling me he doesn’t know whether it’s over.
“I tried,” he says, his features straining as he slowly shakes his head, as if that mere act exhausts him. “I thought I could fix the system from the inside. Tear it down piece by piece, protect as many Mods as I could. But all I’ve managed to do is watch people get destroyed.”
My heart clenches with pain, and I can no longer hold back the tears. They escape, spilling down my cheeks.
Cross looks down at his hands as if he doesn’t recognize them. “I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired of pretending this world is salvageable. If I stay here one more second, I’ll lose whatever the fuck is left of myself.”
“Please,” I implore him. “Just give them a chance.”
“I don’t belong there,” he says simply. “I’ll never belong there.”
I can barely see him through the sheen of tears, but I feel his pain, his exhaustion.
“Wren…” His voice shakes. “Come with me,” he begs. “Please.”
The last time we were in this position, I was the one begging him. Pleading with him to come with me. And he turned around and left me.
“I can’t.”
A sob catches in my throat. Then, as if the sky itself feels my agony, it suddenly starts to rain. Not a drizzle, either. Rain falls over us in a steady rhythm, soaking my hair, making the rocks beneath our feet slick.
His expression scares me. There’s something…broken in it.
As moisture clings to the chiseled planes of his face and slides down his throat, he finally wrenches his gaze off me.
“Then I guess this is it,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” I whisper, my heart shattering to fragments. “I guess it is.”