Chapter 30
THIRTY
LEO
I cradled Alex in my arms, unwilling to let anyone else touch her as she slept.
We were three miles below ground, in the highest security prison that the VIA had to offer. A reinforced, two-way mirror separated us from Reed and Glitch—Joon. I didn’t believe it at first, but the moment I’d seen him and Alex together, it was clear. He hadn’t died; I hadn’t killed him.
But this? It was so much worse.
“We still have to keep them close while she’s under,” Dahlia sighed beside me, her head cocked with monitors set up in front of us.
“Her output has grown, but the data on his chip? Hopper is working at ninety-two percent right now. The fact that she was even able to bring him in is a miracle. I’ve never seen anything like it before; as far as we know, the highest percentage ever recorded was eighty-four.
Even you hover at seventy-six, when you’re approaching a burnout. This is record-breaking—”
“—it’s a fucking disaster,” I spat. “This isn’t Hopper; this is a glitch. They turned him into a monster, Dahlia. Don’t get wrapped up in the statistics.”
She went silent, and I watched as lightning bounced off the glass in front of us. Reed sat in front of Joon’s sleeping body, a shield of electricity barricading him. Joon always hated lightning abilities, how they kept him paralyzed. If he couldn’t move, he was dead in the water. Useless.
Luckily for us, Reed had an assortment of shields in his arsenal.
Between him and Alex, they were the best hope for Joon right now.
There was a look on his face; serious, intense, all his playfulness gone.
Occasionally, Joon—Glitch—would burst forward, purple eyes flaring as he screamed.
Alex would startle, her eyes flashing open, before Reed tightened his binds.
After a jolt or two, Joon would collapse again, and Alex would sink back into her sleep.
It was torment.
She’d been under for six hours, with no end in sight.
Holding her was all I could do — controlling my heat, keeping her warm.
Alex could do this, I knew she could. But Joon?
It hurt to look at him, to see the damage I’d caused.
Villain organizations didn’t exactly draw in healing types—his recovery must have been excruciating, at the least. The VIA could have fixed him; if he was alive when the building went down, they could have put him back together, just like they did with me.
If they’d just let me back in, if they had just fucking trusted me to save him. If I had made sure that the orders were correct, none of this would have happened.
“You said he was dead.” My tone was sharp. “You said his chip was destroyed. You said I killed him.”
Dahlia didn’t move, her eyes locked ahead. “… It went dark, yes, but there was something strange about it. You know the VIA, Leo. We only tell you what you need to know.”
“You didn’t think I needed to know this?!” I whipped my head around, but my body didn’t burst into flames.
Not with Alex in my arms, not with her vulnerable. Joon always said we’d find a way to control it; I never realized that she was all I needed to make that happen. Would she be able to bring him back? Would he see the change in me?
Will I get to apologize?
“Not every decision is up to me,” she said. “I’m just following orders, Leo—the same as you did when you burned that building down.”
My teeth ground together as I seethed. “I thought you were turning empathetic on me. Guess not.”
“And that’s why I have this job,” her voice cut, before she softened. “Listen…I’m sorry. This is a pain I can’t understand. But I am sorry. Let’s hope that Daydream can get us through this; at the very least, she’ll buy us time. I have every coder in my arsenal working on it. I promise you that.”
“You better,” I snarled. “You will fix him.”
“And mark my words, when I do, you’re going to burn Splinter to ashes.” Dahlia had never sounded so lethal.