Chapter 39
ANNIE
The golden light blinded me before it consumed me.
It flowed through my veins like liquid sunlight, impossibly hot.
I was on the cold concrete floor of the abandoned testing facility, or maybe I was on the metal workbench in Cipher’s lab.
The locations bled together into a chaotic blur of shadows and blinding gold.
Such a beautiful fire, Annie.
The voice slithered through my mind and wrapped around the stolen energy I had taken from Helios. The heat building inside my blood should have been agonizing. It should have torn me apart from the inside out. I braced myself for the torturous pain from before.
The pain never came.
A deep, thrumming warmth spread through me.
It felt incredible. It felt like waking up after a lifetime of sleeping in the freezing cold.
The power vibrated against my bones in a steady rhythm of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
I wanted more of it. I wanted to drown in the golden flames licking beneath my skin.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. Cipher leaned over me, his silver eyes wide with a frantic desperation I had never seen before. He held a cuff in his left hand while his right forearm pulsed a violent white-hot glow beneath the skin.
“Hold on, Annie,” he ordered, his voice cracking.
He pressed the cuff against my wrist and the moment his fingers brushed my glowing skin, the golden fire leaped from my veins to his.
“Stop,” I gasped. My voice echoed with a distorted, overlapping harmonic that didn’t belong to me. “You have to let go. Please.”
He ignored me as he kept working.
The flames crawled up his hands. His skin blistered and blackened instantly. His suit melted directly into his flesh.
Watch him burn, the voice whispered. See how willingly he gives himself to your flames. It feels so good to consume him.
It did feel good. The power surged and a wave of euphoria washed over me. The fire wanted to devour Cipher and part of me reveled in the heat of his destruction.
I hated myself. I screamed at Cipher to run. I begged him to leave me behind and save himself.
He just smiled, his face charring to ash as he leaned closer to my ear.
“I would sacrifice everything,” he whispered. His lips crumbled into glowing embers as he spoke.
I jolted hard, my teeth clicking together as reality snapped back into place. My lungs heaved, dragging in air that smelled of sterile hospital antiseptic and damp potting soil rather than ash and burning flesh.
“Hey, you’re okay. I’ve got you,” Dawn soothed.
I blinked rapidly, the blinding gold of my nightmare fading to the muted gray afternoon light of the hospital’s visitor garden. My cheek was pressed against the soft fabric of Dawn’s cardigan, and a terrible ache throbbed at the base of my neck from sleeping sitting up on a rigid metal bench.
Heat flooded my cheeks as I scrambled backward, wiping at my mouth to make sure I hadn’t drooled on her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pass out on you like that.”
“Don’t apologize,” Dawn said gently, giving me a small, sympathetic smile. “You haven’t slept in at least two days, Annie. Probably closer to three. Your body finally just shut down.”
I looked at my watch and my stomach dropped. I had been asleep for forty-five minutes.
Panic flooded through me, hot and fast. Cipher. I needed to get back to Cipher. “I’ve been gone too long. I need to get back to him. I told him I was just stepping out to get some air and grab the stuff you brought.”
Dawn caught my wrists. “Annie, breathe. He told you to see me and get some fresh air. He’s perfectly fine.”
No he wasn’t. Everyone kept saying he was fine, but how could he be fine after what happened?
She pulled me into a tight hug and I melted into it for just a second, letting her warmth push the lingering chill of Halcyon’s voice out of my bones.
“Go back up to your Villain,” Dawn murmured, squeezing me once more before pulling back. “I’m going to head up and check on Simmons before I leave.”
A pang of guilt hit me. I had been so hyper-focused on Cipher that I hadn’t even checked on Simmons today.
He’d taken a brutal hit during Helios’s attack.
The doctors said he had three broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, and enough deep-tissue bruising to keep him bedridden for a week.
But true to form, he had politely threatened the nursing staff when they tried to give him the good painkillers, claiming they clouded his judgment.
He was going to be fine. It took a lot more than a mind-controlled Hero to keep Simmons down.
“Tell him I’ll come see him tonight,” I said.
“I will.”
Dawn handed me my coffee, then carefully gave me the small white bakery box containing a piece of lemon cake before I hurried back inside.
I pushed the elevator button, watching the numbers count down to the hospital’s main level.
He’s perfectly fine.
Those words kept repeating in my head and I hated how when anyone said that, I just nodded along like I believed them.
I should have told Dawn the truth. That I was terrified.
I should have told her how I’d been unconscious when they’d rushed him into surgery.
How I’d woken to find him pale as the sheets he lay on, tubes and wires connecting him to machines that beeped steadily.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped into the quiet corridor of the private wing. I slowed as I reached his door, balancing the coffee and cake box carefully as I pushed it open with my hip. The soft glow of a holographic display illuminated his face in the dimly lit room.
“Cipher!” I hissed, stepping inside to find him propped up against the pillows, his left arm extended as the implant there projected information into the air above his bed. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
He looked up, his silver eyes widening slightly before his mouth curved into that infuriating smirk.
“I am resting,” he countered, not even having the decency to look guilty. “I’m lying down.”
I set the coffee and cake on the bedside table. “The doctor said no work. Specifically no implants. Nothing that could strain your system while you’re recovering.”
“It’s just a few calculations,” he said. “Besides, I’m going mad just lying here.”
“You nearly died.”
“But I didn’t,” he said, his voice softening as he noticed my expression.
I opened my mouth to point out that he’d lost his arm, but stopped myself. The bandaged stump just below his right elbow was evidence enough—he didn’t need the reminder.
The Hammer had actively suppressed his enhanced healing, so they’d had to amputate the arm since it had destroyed the tissue beyond repair.
I took a deep breath and gestured to the small box I’d brought.
“I brought you lemon cake,” I said, forcing a smile.
Cipher perked up, the holographic display vanishing as he straightened against his pillows. His eyes brightened with pleasure.
“You’re breaking the rules for me,” he said, nodding at the cake. “I thought Keepers were supposed to follow every rule to the letter.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, though there wasn’t any heat behind it. “It’s just cake.”
“It’s contraband,” he corrected, looking genuinely delighted. “Dr. Manning explicitly said no outside food.”
“Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I replied, pushing the box closer to him. “Are you going to eat it or just gloat about my rule-breaking?”
“I’ll save it for later.” He reached out with his remaining hand and set the box aside. “Come here.”
I hesitated for just a moment before carefully sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. The mattress dipped beneath my weight, and I was acutely aware of how close we were, how fragile he still looked despite his efforts to appear normal.
My eyes drifted to the bandaged stump where his lower right arm should have been. The questions that had been burning inside me rose again to the surface. What really happened? What did he do to himself?
The last time I’d asked, he’d simply said, “Engineering miscalculation. Nothing to worry about.” The casual dismissal had been so obviously false it was almost insulting.
I reached out and rested my hand on Cipher’s, feeling the warmth of his skin against mine. “I need you to tell me the truth about what happened with the Hammer.”
He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against my knuckles.
“I used the Hammer for exactly the purpose I wanted it for—to create something impossible.”
Before I could respond, he tugged me forward, capturing my mouth in a kiss that effectively silenced my protest.
When he pulled back, he said, “I did what I set out to do. It’s not that big of a deal.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “Not that big of a deal? How can you possibly say that?”
Cipher smiled as if we were discussing a minor inconvenience rather than the permanent loss of a limb. “Now I get to play around with prosthetics,” he said, enthusiasm creeping into his voice. “Think of all the possibilities, Annie.”
“You lost your arm because of me,” I whispered.
“I gave my arm for you. I made a calculated exchange. Flesh and bone in return for your heartbeat. It was the easiest transaction of my life and I would do it again. I would sacrifice everything if it meant keeping you.”
“Cipher—”
“Annie,” he replied softly. He reached up to cup my cheek, thumb gently brushing away a tear I hadn’t meant to fall.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m alive and you’re here. That’s all I need,” he said. “That and learning how to finger you left-handed while I perfect a new arm.”
I scowled at him, unable to believe he could be so cavalier about losing a limb. “How can you joke about this?”
Cipher reached up, his fingers brushing gently near my right eye where I knew a golden streak now gleamed, a permanent reminder of what I’d absorbed from Helios.
“This,” he said, his voice low and serious, “is the price you paid. We both made our choices.”