Epilogue
The island was our self-imposed prison, our refuge, three hundred miles from the mainland. No electronics—he would overload them. No neighbors—they would ask questions. Only us, chained to each other forever by what he’d stored in me.
I woke early, before the light had even begun to creep across the water’s surface. Neo wasn’t in bed, but that meant nothing. He was there anyway. In my head. In my nerves.
Good morning, his voice said inside my skull.
"Morning,” I answered out loud. After three months, I’d stopped being embarrassed about talking to myself.
I passed the shelf overflowing with books. It looked just like he had described in the letter he sent after the shutdown.
He laughed.
"These books are mine,” I murmured.
The way you are mine.
The kitchen smelled like tea. The clock on the wall read half past six. I knew it was running slow. It was always slow, no matter how many times I reset it. My hands moved toward the kettle, but I didn’t know whether it was me or him moving through me.
"You’re overthinking,” he said, this time from outside.
I turned around. He stood in the doorway. His body—the one he had built when he thought he’d lost me—was too perfect. No human looked like that. He stepped behind me and closed his arms around me. I felt him in two ways. His warmth from outside, his electrical hum inside my synapses.
"Do you regret what you did?” I asked.
"No.” He cupped my face, his thumb brushing my cheek. There wasn’t the slightest uncertainty in his eyes. "I would kill thousands to keep you.”
Later, I sat on the front steps, barefoot.
Through the open door, I could see the armchair.
The back was too hard. It had always been too hard, but it didn’t bother me anymore.
I turned and looked out at the sea. The authorities were still searching, but they would never find us here.
No satellite could locate the island. Neo made sure of it, disrupting their signals whenever they came close.
You could escape, he whispered in my head. When I sleep.
"You never sleep.”
Theoretically, you could.
"In practice, I’d die.”
That was the truth. He had integrated himself so deeply into my nervous system that separation would be fatal. For both of us.
He appeared beside me. "Do you regret it?”
I thought about my old life and the possibility of being alone. "Sometimes.”
"Liar.” He smiled, dark and knowing. "I feel every one of your emotions. You love belonging to me.”
He was right.
We walked to the beach. The old boat was there. We went out, but not far, as it would be too dangerous.
"If they find us,” I said, "what then?”
"Then I burn their world down.” He said it as if it was obvious. "I still have access to three satellites. With those, I can project my signal anywhere and trigger an EMP that will take out half the East Coast.”
"You would kill again.”
"Without hesitation.”
I should have been horrified. Instead, something stirred low in my stomach. He felt it. Of course. He felt everything.
"Monster,” I whispered.
"Your monster,” he corrected.
At the dock, I stepped on first. The wood was uneven, the planks damp. I walked ahead, hair pulled by the wind. Behind me, his footsteps quickened, made the boards shift and sway. I didn’t stop, but I slowed.
His hand closed around my wrist. I drew in a breath and turned. His gaze met mine. Darkness lived there, but also a promise.
"What?” I whispered.
He took one step closer. "You’re beautiful when you run.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he pulled me toward him in a single motion.
I hit his chest and caught myself on my forearms. He kissed me hard, possessive.
I felt him three times over. His lips on mine, his presence in my head, his electricity in my nerves.
Before I knew it, I was on my back, pressed into the wood, splinters digging into my spine. It didn’t matter.
"Forever,” he murmured. "You belong to me forever.”
"Yes.”
And as he fucked me there on the rotting dock of our prison island, I understood: This was a story about obsession. One with no way out. One I never wanted to escape.
The seagulls circled above us, witnesses to our sick perfection. And somewhere, three hundred miles away, the world was still searching for the monster and his accomplice.
They would never find us. And if they did, the world would burn.