Chapter 12
TWELVE
PARIS
The words freeze on my tongue.
This is it.
The moment where I either trust him completely or keep hiding behind half-truths. I trace one of the circular scars on my arm, feeling the slightly raised tissue under my fingertip. Knox watches me, waiting, his eyes soft in the flickering candlelight.
Please don’t hate me.
“I lied before,” I say. “About my illness. About the doctors.”
“How so?”
“There weren’t a million doctors.” The candles flicker as I exhale. “Just one. My father.”
His hand finds mine, fingers interlacing. “Your father was your doctor?”
“He was a research scientist. Specialized in immunology and viral engineering.” I focus on our joined hands. “When I got sick, he… he couldn’t accept that conventional medicine had no answers.”
“So he experimented on you.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “He said it was to cure me, and maybe it started that way. But after a while…” I gesture to my arms, my chest, the visible map of puncture wounds. “Fourteen different treatment protocols. Different viral vectors, different delivery methods.”
“For how long?”
“Ten years. Started when I was nine.” The memories of sterile labs that smelled of bleach, needles that burned going in, and my father’s face, clinical and detached as he recorded my symptoms, flood back.
“Sometimes I think he stopped seeing me as his daughter. I became his project. His miracle in the making.”
Knox’s jaw tightens, but he stays silent.
“The thirteenth attempt nearly killed me. Organ failure. Seizures.” My lips twist into something that’s not quite a smile. “The fourteenth saved my life. Fixed whatever genetic fuckery was wrong with me in the first place.”
“And that was it? He cured you and moved on?”
“No. That’s when the real work began.” This is the part that matters. The truth I’ve carried alone. “The treatment that saved me. He kept refining it. Kept studying how it changed my immune system. How it made me… different.”
“Different how?”
“I—”
He reaches for my discarded top, hands it to me like he senses my growing discomfort. I drag it over my head, grateful for the barrier it provides.
I meet his eyes. “BC-7 exists because of me, Knox.”
His entire body goes rigid. “What did you just say?”
“The treatment that saved me…” I hide behind my hands. “What if I told you that everything out there—all of it—exists because my father couldn’t let his sick little girl die quietly? I don’t know how it got out or why it affected everyone else differently, but I know it started with me.”
“Your father.” His voice drops to a dangerous whisper. “What’s his name?”
“Jacques Green.” I lower my hands. “He’s dead. Died before it all started.”
His lips part. “Green? Your last name is Green?”
“Yeah? Paris Green. Not exactly a state secret.” Something cold slithers up my spine at his expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Gabriel Green. That’s your brother?”
“He took over after my father. The news were—”
“Fuck.” He stands, pacing. “Fucking hell. I almost brought you there. I almost—”
“What’s happening?” I stand too, confusion turning to panic. “Do you know him? I haven’t seen Gabriel since before the outbreak.”
“Or he sent you to find us.” He whirls on me, eyes cold. “Was that the plan? Seduce the scout? Get information about our location?”
“What?” I extend my hand, but he steps back, avoiding my touch like I’m contaminated. “Knox, you’re scaring me.”
“Am I?” He scrubs his hands through his hair. “Good. Because I’m fucking terrified right now. I was about to bring you to my community. To the people I protect.”
“And that’s… bad? I don’t understand.”
“I—This doesn’t make sense. Your brother is hunting us, Paris.” Each word drops like a stone. “Capturing people for his experiments. For his little army of enhanced soldiers. To create more people like Gavin.”
“Who the fuck is Gavin?” My voice rises, tears burning behind my eyes. “I don’t know anything about his experiments. I’ve been alone in this penthouse my whole life. I didn’t even know you existed until you crashed into my life.”
“You’re invisible to zombies.” He backs me against the cushioned wall. “Just like Gavin. Just like the others your brother is hunting. Why would he leave you if it all started with you? Did you lie?”
“No. That’s not—Gabriel wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t what? Experiment on people?” He gestures at my scars. “Seems to run in the family.”
Tears spill down my cheeks now, hot and unwelcome. “I don’t know anything about Gavin or enhanced soldiers or whatever the fuck you’re talking about!”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I trusted you!” My chest heaves with ragged breaths. “Because I was alone for a year and I dragged your bleeding ass up twelve flights of stairs! Because I’m fucking falling for you!”
Shit. No.
I didn’t mean to say that last part. Didn’t mean to lay myself this bare.
“Paris…”
“No.” I shove at his chest, needing space. “You think I played you? You’re the one who didn’t tell me who you were, where you came from. You let me think—” My voice breaks. “You let me think I mattered.”
“You do matter.”
“Fuck you.” I swipe angrily at my tears. “Get out. Go back to your precious community and tell them all about the crazy Green girl talking to kitchen appliances.”
“Paris, stop.”
“No, you stop!” I’m shaking now, anger and hurt colliding like storm fronts. “I’ve spent my entire life being seen as an experiment, as a burden, as fucking invisible. And for a minute—God, I’m so stupid—for a minute I thought you saw me.”
The hard edges in his expression soften, disbelief giving way to something else entirely. “Paris.” His hands come up to frame my face, thumbs brushing away tears. “I do see you.”
I try to turn away, but he holds me steady. “Let go of me.”
“You’re not lying.” His eyes search mine. “You really don’t know.”
“Know what?” I hiccup, pathetic in my tear-soaked state.
“About Gabriel. About what he’s doing.” His forehead drops to rest against mine. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
“I thought—” He exhales sharply. “Your immunity, your last name. It was too much coincidence.”
“Well, I’m sorry my existence is so fucking inconvenient for you.”
His thumbs trace my cheekbones, gentle despite the tension still vibrating between us. “You really are the most inconvenient thing that’s ever happened to me. But also the best thing in this godforsaken world.”
I close my eyes, leaning into his touch. “I should hate you right now.”
“You should.” His lips brush my temple. “But I’m really fucking glad you don’t.”
And then he’s kissing me.
Not soft or sweet like before, but desperate and demanding, like he’s trying to pour every apology he can’t voice into the pressure of his lips against mine.
I kiss him back just as hard, fingers digging into his shoulders, tasting salt from my own tears.
His tongue demands entrance as his hands venture under my shirt.
I arch into his touch, anger transmuting into need.
Fuck being careful. Fuck taking it slow.
I want this, want him, with a desperation that should terrify me. But after facing zombies and isolation and now this revelation about my brother, fear is a luxury I don’t want.
I tug at his shirt, needing skin against skin.
I hate the space between us. Knox breaks the kiss long enough to yank it over his head before diving back in, his mouth thankfully insistent on mine.
His chest presses against me, all hard planes and ridges, the heat of him scorching through my thin top.
“Off,” he growls, fingers finding the hem of it. “Now.”
I raise my arms, letting him strip the fabric away again. The cool air hits my bare skin, raising goosebumps that his palms smooth away as they travel up my ribs to cup my breasts. His thumbs brush over my nipples, and I gasp into his mouth.
“Fuck,” he breathes against my lips. “Give me more of that.”
His mouth travels down my neck, teeth scraping, tongue soothing, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. And I love the burn. When he reaches my breast, he takes the nipple between his lips, sucking hard.
“Knox.” I thread my fingers through his short hair, holding him against me. “This is crazy.”
“Too fast?”
“Not fast enough.” I dig my nails into his scalp. “I’m done with slow.”
He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention while his hands slide down my stomach to the waistband of my leggings. One quick tug and they’re halfway down my thighs, his palm cupping my pussy through the damp cotton of my underwear.
“You’re soaking,” he murmurs against my skin. “Will you take my cock here, princess?”
In answer, I fumble with his belt, desperate to feel all of him. He helps me, shucking his pants and boxers. His cock springs free, hard and proud against his stomach, and my heart goes crazy at the sight.
This is really happening.
After a year of isolation, after thinking I’d die alone in this glass prison—I’m about to have sex with this impossible man.
“Do you have condoms?” I drop down on the blankets.
Knox nods, reaching for his discarded pants and retrieving a foil packet from the wallet. “Are you sure? After everything—”
“If you stop now, I will actually murder you with my katana.”
He chuckles. “That’d be a hell of a way to go. But—”
“Can we talk about my homicidal brother later?” I reach for him, wanting his weight on top of me. “Right now, I want to feel something good.”
“You deserve good things.”
“Then give me one.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, while his fingers drift beneath the elastic of my underwear.
I lift my hips, helping him draw them down my legs until I’m completely naked beneath him, exposed and vulnerable and not giving a single fuck because his fingers are tracing through my folds, circling my clit with maddening precision.
“Please,” I breathe against his mouth. “Knox, I need you to fuck me.”
“Say that again.”