Chapter 22
I pace. That’s the first problem, especially considering that a shower and a solid six hours of sleep in an actual bed did absolutely nothing to stop my body from feeling like it’s falling apart.
The second problem is that I can’t stop pacing.
Back and forth across the living room, bare feet dragging against the floor, one hand pushing my glasses up my nose every thirty seconds like they’ve suddenly forgotten how to sit on my face properly.
“Okay,” I mutter for the eightieth time.
Felix watches me from the couch like I’ve finally lost the last fragile thread tethering me to reality.
He’s not wrong.
“Okay.”
I drag a hand through my hair, exhale hard, then immediately inhale too fast like my body forgot how breathing works again.
“Super normal,” I say to no one, trying not to choke. “Everything about this is super fucking normal.”
My gaze flicks to the camera like it’s already done a hundred times today. Reese’s camera. It’s still there, still watching. I can almost see his silver eyes reflected back in the lens. I feel it like a weight between my shoulder blades.
I don’t look at it too long. Instead, I veer hard left toward the kitchen, then down the hall, and back again.
“So,” I say out loud, gesturing vaguely into the air like I’m giving a presentation to an invisible audience. “Hypothetically speaking, purely theoretical, if someone were to, oh I don’t know, consider doing something incredibly stupid, we would all agree that’s a bad idea. Right?”
Felix blinks in that judgmental way he does.
Unhelpful.
“Right.” I nod. “Great talk.”
I keep moving, keep wearing a fucking hole in the floor as I pace. Because if I stop, I might actually think about it instead of just circling the idea of it like a fucking coward. But the thing is…
I’m already thinking about it. It’s there. Sitting in the center of everything.
Ascension.
The word alone makes something cold curl in my gut.
Die.
And come back.
Maybe.
I let out a shaky breath, pressing my fingers to my temples and rubbing slow circles. There’s no fucking way…
“Yeah, no,” I mutter. “That’s insane. That’s…objectively insane.”
Felix hops down from the couch and weaves around my legs, forcing me to stop unless I want to trip and die in a much less narratively satisfying way. It would suck to die like that before I can even figure out the coming back part.
“Please don’t,” I beg him. “I’m already spiraling enough here. Let’s not add a broken neck to the list.”
He ignores me and headbutts my ankle.
I give in and crouch down, my fingers sinking into his fur as I speak softer now so only Felix can hear me, not the camera. “So, fun hypothetical for you. If I die, you’re gonna need a new person. You wouldn’t love them more than me, right?”
He purrs.
“You would. Traitor.”
Pushing myself to my feet, I let my gaze flick once again to the camera and force a crooked smile.
“Don’t worry,” I say lightly, my tone innocent. “I’m not about to do anything dramatic.”
Except…I think I am.
I have to, don’t I?
I’m smackdab in the middle of this supervillain shitstorm with absolutely nothing going for me. Okay, so I have some hacking and coding skills, but what the fuck is that going to do for me against Malcolm and his army of Ascended? And what if Reese decides to come after me again?
I swear to fuck if I get kidnapped a third time…
I can’t let that happen. I won’t. If Reese does show himself again, I’ll be ready next time. I’ll finally be able to put up a fucking fight against him.
My stomach twists in on itself, but I ignore it. Turning away from the camera, I move to my desk, open a drawer, and pull something out. It’s a small device, a little older. Custom, one I made myself.
“Let’s just…level the playing field a little.”
I flip it on. A faint hum fills the air—low, subtle, easy to miss unless you’re looking for it. Signal interference. Not enough to kill the feed entirely but enough to scramble the audio. Enough to give me a pocket of privacy.
Setting it down, I glance back to the bookshelf.
“Sorry. You don’t get this part.”
Then I pick up my phone. My hand hesitates, only for a second, because once I do this, there’s no taking it back, no pretending I didn’t consider it. No going back to being the guy who hacks things from a safe distance and makes jokes about it.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I scroll through my contacts and find the one I’m looking for, one I haven’t used in three years. Then I drop onto the couch and press call.
It rings twice.
“Hello?”
I lean back against the arm of the couch as relief fills my lungs. Fuck, it’s good to hear a voice that isn’t trying to manipulate me into a moral crisis.
“Long time, Doc.”
“Cason,” Harrison says.
I grumble. As much as I still hate anyone else using that name, this still feels…
familiar. Safe. Or at least safer than everything else currently happening in my life.
It may have been three years since I last spoke to Harrison or Lane, but I think I’ve kind of missed them.
I’m just horrible at keeping people around.
“What can I do for you, Case?”
Hearing the name I prefer he use makes the next part easier. But only a little.
“I need your help with something.”
The words come out faster than I intend, like if I don’t say them quickly enough, I might lose my nerve. I don’t even give him time to respond.
“I know it’s been a while. I hate to call after so much time to ask you for a favor.”
“Case—”
“But I did help you back then, and I was hoping…”
“Case—”
“And before you say no, I think you might actually be interested in what I have to say, what with your fascination with impossible projects and—”
“Cason!”
I snap my mouth shut.
Okay, maybe I’m spiraling a little.
“You’re right,” Harrison says, sounding a hell lot more calm than I feel. “You did help me back then, and I’m still very grateful. So tell me what you need from me.”
I blink.
Well, that was easier than expected.
“Really?”
“You’re part of the reason Lane is alive right now. I don’t take that lightly.”
I wince. Lane also very nearly wasn’t alive because of me, but if he’s willing to forget that part, then so am I.
Distracting myself, I grin and say, “Fucking smitten.”
“In love,” he corrects.
“Right.” I let out a quiet laugh, but it comes out thinner than I mean it to. “Married too so I heard. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
I fall silent as something eats away at everything in my chest. It’s like I can feel the pressure of tiny teeth, biting their way through bone and muscle and organs.
It’s heavy and hot. My grip tightens around my phone as those teeth sink deeper, until I’m too full of something I don’t want to name.
Jealousy.
For a split second—just one, fleeting traitorous second—I wonder what it would be like. Not with Reese, of course. With anyone. The fact that any face I try to imagine having all of that with is Reese’s doesn’t mean anything.
I hate him.
Maybe the more I think that the more likely it will become true.
“Case?”
“Right.” I clear my throat. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you first that I’d rather keep this on the down-low?”
“You should know by now how well I can keep secrets.”
“Right,” I say again, starting to feel like a broken record. “It might also be a little dangerous…”
“Out with it, Case.”
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry as hell. This is the part where I sound completely unhinged.
“Okay. We’re just…hypothetically, we’re going to entertain a concept here. Have you ever heard of near-death experiences causing…I don’t know…superhuman abilities?”
Silence is the only thing that comes over the line, and not the thinking kind. It’s the what the fuck did you just say kind.
“Do you want me to repeat the question, or are you just taking a moment to process how insane that sounded?”
“It sounded insane,” he confirms flatly.
“Sure, but…more insane than reincarnation?”
“Yes.”
I sigh heavily and lean forward with an elbow on my knee. “You only think that because you know without a shadow of a doubt that reincarnation is real. Well…I know without a…” I wince and clear my throat again. “…shadow of a doubt that this is real. Not hypothetical.”
“How?”
Shit. I can’t tell him that. I can’t tell him about Reese or the Institute. He doesn’t even know my last name is Bellrose.
“That doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “What does matter is this could be your chance to study something else that should be impossible. We know the brain experiences electrical surges after the heart stops. Maybe that’s something being rewired? You’re a scientist, Doc. Don’t you wanna find out?”
Silence again. This time, he’s thinking. Good. Or…worse. Because that means I’m convincing him.
“Case,” he says, speaking slowly, “what exactly are you asking me?”
Here it is. The point of no return.
I stare at the floor, then squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, and…
“I want you to kill me.”
Dead.
Absolute.
Silence.
I hold my breath because I don’t know what I’m hoping for here. I have enough self-awareness to realize how ridiculous and dangerous this is, but I still feel like it’s something I need to do. And yet, I might also be hoping he says hell no and hangs up in my face.
“I’m sorry,” Harrison says after a beat, voice dangerously calm. “You’re going to need to repeat that.”
“I want you to kill me.”
“And, what, just leave you there?”
“Obviously not,” I snap. “You have to bring me back too.”
I stop just short of calling him a dickhead. I may not know him that well, but I know him well enough not to put it past him to agree only to leave me dead.
A short, disbelieving breath leaves him, something between a laugh and what the actual fuck. “It’s been three years since you worked for me, and you call me out of the blue because you want me to murder you. Do I have that right, Case?”
“Factual.”
“You’re asking me to clinically kill you and then resurrect you based on a theory.”
“It’s not a theory.”
He goes quiet again and takes another breath, this time a calmer one. Then, “How serious are you?”