Chapter 70
Jay was both the same and different.
He’d always had an athletic build, but he was more defined now, like he’d been working out and putting on muscle mass for months.
He had a new scar that ran right through his eyebrow and down his right cheek. It looked like the wound had been so deep that I was shocked he hadn’t lost the eye.
He also had another scar on the left side of his upper lip that I’d been afraid to ask about.
He’d seemed upset and confused when he couldn’t tell me what had happened to his eye, and I hadn’t wanted to push too far too soon.
Obviously, the military techwear was new too, though it weirdly suited him, and I found him just as attractive in structured tactical pants as I had in tailored blazers.
What was killing me was that the whole reason I had forced myself to forget everything was so they wouldn’t be able to use my love against Jay to develop the NeuroManipulator. But, from what I could gather, they had managed to do it anyway.
I’d forgotten him for nothing.
With this harrowing thought rattling through my brain, I followed Jay out of the oak-paneled surgical room and up a flight of wooden steps into what appeared to be… a lodge-style home.
I pushed my glasses up my nose as I took in the massive, sun-drenched space.
The walls and floors were all exposed brick and rustic log-style walls. The 15-foot A-frame ceiling had gorgeous natural wood beam supports, and the furniture was all oversized and rustic.
This floor was open concept with a gorgeous kitchen and a ranch-style table, next to a living room that had a massive, plush leather sectional, a pelt-shaped rug, and a real wood fireplace.
This was all put to shame, though, by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a gorgeous mountain scape.
“Welcome to ‘The Cabin,’” Jay said, giving me a hesitant smile as he led me through the massive house. “My dad and I used to spend a lot of time here when I was a kid. No one knows where it is. Not even Sebastian, though we did bring him here when he and I were smaller.”
“Then how does he not know where it is?”
Jay smirked at me. “The location was always a big secret. My father wouldn’t even tell me what mountain range we were in until I turned twenty.” His expression darkened.
“It was a fun thing as a kid, being whisked away to some secret destination, but now it makes me wonder if he was always a little suspicious of Luke’s intentions with the company.”
I nodded in understanding.
“Anyway, this is where NOVA’s servers are. After Melanie hacked her, she needed to retreat to fix the damage the virus caused. It took her some time, but once she managed to clear out the malware, she attacked TECHA and managed to bring down the Neurovance servers long enough for me to escape.”
“What about your chip?” I asked, wondering how he’d managed to get it out without me around to help him. I was certain that if they’d gone as far as to mess around in his brain with faulty neurotech, they would have tagged him, too.
He rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie and showed me a neat scar on his left arm that matched my own.
“I dunno. I woke up in my cage one day, and they seemed to have removed it while I’d been unconscious. I assumed it was interfering with whatever else it was they were implanting in me to make the manipulator work.”
The blood drained from my face at this.
“They were just… implanting shit into you?”
Jay shrugged again as he led me through the kitchen to what looked like the front door.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah. It’s hard to know what they did to me and what was a result of their screwing around in my head.
But I woke up several times with shit embedded in my temples.
I’m pretty sure those memories are real.
It’s hard to know for sure during times when NOVA wasn’t around to confirm. ”
“So you don’t… You have a hard time knowing what’s real?”
He glanced back over his shoulder at me as he yanked open the front door, his Adam’s apple rolling as he swallowed.
“Yeah. It’s… It’s a mess up there.”
I stared into those gorgeous copper eyes that I once knew better than my own, and found myself reaching for his face again.
He froze, allowing me to brush my thumbs over both his cheeks and tug him down toward me.
I rested his forehead against mine and took a slow, shaky breath in through my nose.
Oak and birch.
Seeing this gorgeous cabin, his woodsy scent suddenly made so much more sense than it had in the pristine, high-tech campus he’s been trapped in.
“I’m going to make it better,” I promised.
“Yeah?” he choked, his own voice trembling, as if he were afraid to believe me.
“Yes, Jay. I’ll fix it.”
“I don’t know if even you can fix what they did to me, Milo.”
My fingers tightened on his face, and I kissed him firmly, nipping at his lips until they were swollen and he was nearly panting in my mouth again.
“I’m telling you I can, and I will. You can trust that this is real. I promise.”
He pulled back, meeting my gaze, and the sadness I saw there broke my heart.
“I don’t know if I can trust you… not after you… forgot me.”
It felt like he’d just shot me in the chest with one of his fancy new handguns.
“Wait… what?!” I rasped, and Jay just looked at me, his face devoid of any emotion.
“I know you said you were scared, but I never thought you would abandon me like that.” His voice was flat and deadpan. As if he really thought I’d done what I’d done to… what? Save my freaking self?
Did he not understand…why I’d done what I’d done?
“Jay, I—”
“Shh…” he hummed, pressing a finger to my lips to shush me.
“We can talk about why you did it later. Right now, there’s someone you need to see.”
Jay pulled back and led me through the front door and out into the crisp mountain air.
There was a small vegetable patch here with an attached greenhouse that was lush with fresh produce, just ripe for picking.
There was a woman on her knees in what looked like a patch of hearty, deep green kale, humming happily to herself as she harvested the coniferous plants into her basket.
“Mira,” Jay called, and the woman looked up, a gorgeous smile lighting her face as her eyes landed on me.
“Oh my… Milo?!” she exclaimed, abandoning her basket and getting to her feet.
“Mom?” I croaked, and she beamed, stripping off her gardening gloves and walking toward me with outstretched hands.
“I’m so glad you’re here! Your father kept saying you were coming soon, but it feels like I’ve been waiting weeks!”
Wait… My father?
My mom wrapped her arms around me, and I tossed a shocked, questioning look over her shoulder to Jay, but his lips were in a firm, grim line.
“Sometimes she confuses me for your dad. I’m sorry, but he really did die that day in the N-car accident. That was real.”
My mother was still hugging me tightly, humming happily in my ear, and I felt my throat close up as I fought off another bout of tears.
“H-how? They were both happy and healthy before…”
Jay’s gaze darkened, and he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Luke. That whole two years after MIT, when you lived alone, was set up by him with the intention of luring you back to willingly work on the product. Melanie was obviously a plant to try to sway you, but he had to deal with your parents somehow. Otherwise, they’d know where you were that whole time and would have made it impossible for you to just lose two years of your life without noticing.
“From what NOVA and I have been able to dig up, the N-car accident your father was in was sabotage, just like it was with my father. They dropped your unconscious body off at the scene of the accident, knowing the hospital would list memory loss as a side effect of being out for so long. That’s why you can’t remember being in the car with him before it crashed. You were never in the car.”
“Fuck…” I choked, going three for three on the ‘f’ bombs today.
“And my mom?” I whispered as she pulled back, smiling down at me and fussing with my hair, clearly uninterested in our conversation.
“Faulty memory manipulation. She was patient 002. She wasn’t with me in The Cave long, but they tried to manipulate her into believing their version of events…
Clearly, it wasn’t successful. I’d barely had time to work on the tech before they started using it on her, and it… obviously didn’t go well.”
Rage twisted in my stomach as my mother started asking me what I wanted for dinner, and explaining that my ‘father’ would be home soon.
“Mom… let’s… let’s go inside,” I whispered, needing to get her settled somewhere so I could figure out what I was going to do with all this.
“Okay, honey!” she chirped, trotting back toward the cabin and leaving Jay and me out in the cool mountain air.
“I’m sorry,” Jay said, sounding absolutely miserable.
My head whipped to face him.
“What could you possibly be sorry for?” I snapped.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe if I did a better job with the NeuroManipulator or had been able to work faster, she would be in a better place.”
“Jay, none of this is your fault.” I strode up to him and placed my hands on his shoulders, hating how vulnerable and sad he looked as he stared down at me.
“I told you, we’ll figure this out. I’ll find a way to fix you, and I’ll fix my mom, too. I just need time… and maybe some equipment. Do you have a real lab here? Something I can use to tinker?”
The scarred side of Jay’s lip quirked, and he nodded.
“Yeah, Milo. I have somewhere you can tinker,” he said, and for some reason, that made heat pool in my gut.
I stood on my toes and brushed a kiss across his stubbled jawline, relishing in the way this big, bad man trembled in my arms like the hurt, broken thing he was.
“Mmm. Maybe we can get my mom settled, and you can show me somewhere we can be alone together instead? Somewhere preferably with a hot shower and a bed. I can tinker in the morning.”
He pulled back, giving me a surprised but hopeful look. That twitch at the corner of his mouth jumped again.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Jay. All I want to do is be with you right now.”
He looked unsure, but just for a moment. Then, without another word, he hoisted me up until my legs wrapped around his waist and my arms circled his neck, and he took me back inside, where I hoped I could heal this man in more ways than one.