Chapter 42
Sprite’s scream stopped abruptly, and she sank to her knees. Her image stabilized, but her eyes were still dark with pain.
“You did it!” Jason said. “You broke free! How?”
“Norman’s manufactured memories were very good,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “But he shouldn’t have told me to kill you and Chloe. It was too similar to what he told me to do before. To Mom.”
“That made you remember?” Jason said, aching that she’d had to relive that, aching that he’d had a part in making her relive it.
Her eyes slid away from his. “Sorry I fought remembering. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to be the person who could do that.”
He said, “And so, this time, you didn’t.”
She nodded, and her eyes flooded. “This time,” she whispered.
Her physical hand in Jason’s was thin and fragile, but when he looked at her avatar, he saw the kind of strength that could only come from being broken and remade stronger. He said, “Your mother would be proud.”
She met his eyes again. The pain there didn’t disappear, but it diffused, like liquid dissolving in a solution, becoming part of it, making it something new. She smiled. “So,” she said, “would Mia.”