Chapter 40
The Revamp Program
Pretty sure I felt Soren smirking behind me, and I had no idea why the hell I had said that last part.
“He’s evil!” Zade yelled and stepped to the side.
I mirrored him.
“Move, Eliana,” Soren said from behind. “Let me finish off your ex-boyfriend.”
He was standing again, black blood trailing down his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“You aren’t allowed to hurt him!” I now turned to block Soren, my mini-sized hand pressing on his chest, truly comical in its attempt. “If you care about me at all, leave Zade alone! He’s good!”
“He’s a Mod,” Soren spat.
“At least I’m human, you freak!” Zade barked.
“He’s not like the others,” I snapped. “He’s a spy.”
Soren’s eyes darkened. Deep crimson spilled from the shadows of his irises into the whites. “And you care about him?”
Zade put a hand on my shoulder.
Soren’s fists tightened at his sides until I swore I could hear bones cracking.
“I care about him more than anyone,” I said loudly. Stupidly. When all this was over one day, Zade would probably bring this up as proof that we should get married and live happily ever after together, and I would deny it was ever said with my dying breath.
“Can’t have that now, can I?” Soren’s grin bared his teeth like a cat ready to devour the mouse.
My heart was the mouse.
Zade lunged past me, heading straight for Soren’s throat.
Soren dodged and drove a fist into a kink in Zade’s armor. Zade staggered.
I stumbled backward, tripping over roots as the air thickened with malice.
Soren picked up a boulder as if it weighed nothing and hurled it.
Zade yanked an entire tree from the earth and swung it like a bat.
I barely dove out of the way to avoid the brush of the root system.
They fought like gods or monsters. And they meant to kill.
I watched in frozen horror as each blow sent shockwaves into the ground.
All I could think was that someone I care about was going to die right in front of me as I struggled with staying far enough away not to get caught in the crossfire, but close enough to try and save whoever lost, as fruitless as that attempt would be. I was no Zuri.
Then came that sound.
A high-pitched hum from Chapel’s direction.
A frequency too sharp for me to process as anything other than pain.
We all dropped—Soren, Zade, and especially me—hands over ears, eyes screwed shut.
Didn’t matter. The sound was in my brain.
When it finally faded, Zade rose first.
“Get her out of here!” he shouted. “I have to stop them.” Then he sprinted back toward the fire without hesitation.
I had one heartbeat to react before the wind was ripped from my lungs and I was dragged through the forest at a breakneck speed again.
I didn’t vomit this time either, but I did hit the ground when we stopped.
Just as the world started to come back into focus, the explosion hit.
It rocked the earth beneath us. We watched from a distance as Chapel—burning bright now—flung pieces of itself through the air.
“Zade?” I whimpered, my fingers digging into the soft floor of the forest as I stared on in horror.
Soren knelt beside me. His hand barely settled between my shoulder blades as if he wasn’t sure where the threshold of a gentle touch ended.
“He’ll be fine,” he said with an effective softness.
“Especially with all those upgrades he’s had done.
” His fingers moved to the back of my neck, beneath my hair. “He’s nearly impossible to kill now.”
I exhaled too much air and had to gasp to catch up.
“Upgrades?” I asked, but I didn’t care about the answer quite yet. Another death rested in my palms. Zade’s death.
“The Revamp program. They enhance Mods with tech and gene therapy. Your ex-boyfriend is a cyborg.”
Cyborg? Makes sense. Zade’s always been an idiot and would probably agree to something like that.
But did he really subject himself to the Administration's devices? Why?
“He’s never been my boyfriend,” I corrected. Then I turned to look at Soren with my eyes stinging and still blurred. “You really think he’ll live through whatever he just ran into?”
“He will.” Soren slid an arm under mine and hoisted me up. “And it’s a good thing he’s not your ex-boyfriend. Otherwise, I’d have to kill him.”
I resented the fact that he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes as he faced away from me.
“You two have way more in common than you think,” I mumbled.
“That’s the problem,” Soren said. “Come on. We gotta go.”
“I want to wait for him. I can’t leave him behind.”
“You can and will. Either come willingly, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder again and spanking your ass for causing more trouble.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but chose the willing route because I knew perfectly well how his threats panned out, and I vehemently ignored the shiver wrestling through my muscles at the idea of him spanking me.
We pushed deeper into the woods, and it didn’t take long at all for me to notice he was limping.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, my voice too light and shaky.
Usually, I wouldn’t panic over a limp. But this was Soren, and I was more than ready to panic with the adrenaline of the night still coursing through my veins.
This guy was practically made of steel and could self-heal from a stab wound in under five minutes.
So, if he was limping, there was a good chance he was dying.
“It’s fine,” he answered after a beat. “Zuri’ll fix it.”
I gave him five minutes before bothering him again. “You didn’t need her to fix it when we were in the pit.”
A low growl rumbled in his throat. “Maybe if your stupid not-ex-boyfriend wasn’t loaded with chemical weapons, then I could heal it myself. Hm?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you know he had Upgrades?”
“I...don't even know what that's really supposed to mean.”
Soren stopped, leaning hard against a tree, his breath ragged.
“The Reborn Project,” he said. “They’re modifying humans. Gene therapy. Tech implants. Turning Mods into weapons. Volunteers get paid. A lot. Did you know he signed up?”
It felt strange to be the one stepping toward Soren because I usually ran away. I lifted an arm to put a hand on his shoulder, but let it flop uselessly to my side before coming anywhere close to contact.
“He wouldn’t do something like that for money,” I said. “He only became a Mod to protect me and to spy on Azazel. They must’ve forced him. Or he did it to help me somehow.”
“Maybe he’s not who you think he is.” Soren pushed off the tree. “You don’t seem to be the best judge of character.” His voice dipped into something darker. “If you were, you wouldn’t be getting so close to me.”
I grumbled unintelligibly, mocking him.
“Shh,” he interrupted.
Muffled voices were coming from nearby.
He grabbed my arm and dragged me down a slope, into a tight, natural alcove. The earth curved around us, shadows swallowing everything. The voices grew louder, and their boots crunched against the dried leaves.
“Bunker’s cleared,” the first muffled voice said. “Reagan confirmed it.”
“No thanks to you,” said a second. “You only got three!”
A third Mod laughed. Then, “I got 15.”
Soren tugged me closer to him and further out of sight. We both sat there, huddled together in silence and trying not to breathe too loudly as three Moderators were shooting the breeze about how many of our friends they’d slaughtered.
I clenched my jaw. The tension ran down my neck, into my shoulders, my fingers.
Then I realized Soren was holding my hand. He rubbed his thumb over the back in slow, steady circles. Matching my pulse and lulling it back from the precipice.
“Abadon’s obsession with this girl’s gonna cause the next Great War,” the first of them bit out through a laugh.
I felt Soren straighten beside me. Now, he was the one clenching.
The third Mod didn’t laugh. “You’re asking for the death sentence just for saying that out loud.”
“I just don’t understand what it is that the most powerful being in the universe wants with a mutt like that,” said Number One. “She ain’t even hot.”
“Seriously, shut up,” said Number Two. “Rein got staked for less.”
Their voices faded as they moved away.
I slumped against Soren, him feeling more solid than the dirt beneath. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, steadying me.
Ire. Pure ire.
As someone who’d lived half their life with the sole purpose of exacting revenge, my blood danced at the need to avenge the souls who’d been slaughtered for sport that night. I was a creature of habitual vengeance, and they’d just whistled for me.
A distant shout broke the silence. “Eliana! Where are you?!”
I blinked. “That’s Riaan!” I scrambled upward, mouth wide. “I’m here! We’re down—“
Soren’s hand clapped over my mouth, yanking me backward. He pressed my back to his chest and hissed in my ear, “Shh! It’s not him.”
“What?” I mumbled into his hand.
Riaan’s voice came again. Closer. “Eliana! Where are you?!”
“It is him,” I whispered when Soren loosened his hand slightly.
Soren’s grip tightened once more. His words burned against my ear. “It’s a mimic. Be quiet. Listen.”
All I heard was wind.
Then...sliding. Something hissing.
Then Riaan’s voice again. Directly above us. Same words. Same tone. An identical recording.
I froze.
A second later, the slithering moved away. Riaan’s voice called again, this time farther off.
“Eliana! Where are you?”
Tears slid hot down my cheeks and washed over Soren’s fingers. Even after he let his hand drop, he kept me close with his arms around my middle. His presence became a barrier.
Soren spoke in a whisper so low I wouldn’t have been able to hear it if he were any further from me. “Did I hurt you?”
Goosebumps sprinted down my arms.
“No,” I said. Then swallowed. “H-how? How do you know that was a mimic?”
A mimic means….
I didn’t remember everything from class, considering I chose to focus on only the things that seemed relevant to killing Azazel. But the lesson on mimics was unforgettable.
They looked and sounded exactly like someone you loved. They lured you out. Then they paralyzed you with venom. You’d be brain-dead in an hour without the antidote.
They could only mimic the dead, and they could only be programmed to say a few words.
“He wasn’t looking for me,” Soren said. “Riaan would have. That, and I heard the clicking. Mimics always click when they string memories together.”
“I didn’t hear any clicking.”
Soren shifted. Just an outline in the dark.
His fingers brushed my cheek. It was barely a touch, but I jolted. My skin lit up.
“That’s 'cause you’re just human, Little Shadow.”
I licked my lips. Swallowed thickly. Wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. All the bad habits that put me at risk in front of this man.
My eyes stung because of what I had to say next. “So, if Riaan has a mimic…”
His breath came burning against my ear, but cool against the tear streaks on my cheek.
“He’s dead,” Soren whispered.
My fists flew at him.
I pounded and wailed, “Why did you let him die?! You were supposed to save everyone! Why did you get me out first?!”
He grabbed both of my wrists in one hand and jerked me toward him, smothering my noise and violence in his chest.
“Because you are everything!” His voice rose just enough to drown out my sobs. Then, as if he couldn’t bear to keep yelling at me, he dropped it to a whisper. “To me, you are all that matters. I will always put you first.”
The smoke, the fire, the blood soaking the forest behind us—none of it could compete with that truth. As much as Soren obviously hated it, he couldn’t put anything above me.
I went still in his grip.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I whispered. My voice cracked.
His jaw ticked.
“Exactly what it sounds like, Xiao Ying,” he said.
He let go of my wrists as he moved back. They dropped uselessly to my sides.
“Let’s move,” he said, not looking at me.