Oz
Ifelt the moment the mood around us shifted. Some foreign emotion filtered across Viper’s face and then he told me to get dressed.
The walk back to the rebellion headquarters was done in silence. Had the bond not worked? Panic welled up inside my chest. My lungs drew tight as I tried to calm my racing heartbeat. This time, it wasn’t because we were about to tear each other’s clothes off.
No. Something had changed. And whatever it was, Viper wasn’t saying.
He probably realized you’re not worth dying for. I bet he is happy the bond didn’t take. He’s going to drop you off at the lab and not look back, grateful he doesn’t have to spend forever with a female like you.
I deflated, my heart sinking inside my chest. The voice in my head was cruel and I tried hard not to listen, but Viper’s silence was deafening.
When we neared the clearing where the hidden door to the rebellion was, I couldn’t take it any longer. I halted my steps, refusing to go any further.
If this is how Viper wanted to end things, so be it. But he was going to do it here. I refused to let him toss me aside in front of the rest of the rebellion. I don’t want an audience to witness my heart breaking.
“What’s wrong?” His brow creased, his lips turning down into a small frown.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You tell me! You haven’t said a fucking word to me except order me to put my clothes back on!”
As I stood there, I felt the lingering proof of what we had done slide down my inner thigh. The act that had felt so magical now felt wrong. I hugged my arms around myself, desperate to hold myself together from the waves of shame and hurt washing over me.
“I…what we did back there…was that all for nothing? Talk to me! Did the bond not take?” I swallowed, forcing myself to ask the thing that was haunting me. “Have you changed your mind about me?”
In an instant, I found myself in his arms, cradled tight to his frame. His hold boarded on bruising, but I didn’t care. This is what I had needed. To be held like what we had done mattered. That I wasn’t losing the one thing I had torn down all my defenses for.
That the cyborg I loved still wanted me.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed into my hair and my whole body relaxed against his solid frame. “I thought if I moved quick enough, I’d be strong enough for what I needed to do.”
Our time in the forest had made me forget what came next. The lab and Dax. Reactivating my implant. The battle with the Global Allegiance. “I wish there was another way.”
He exhaled sharply, ruffling my hair. “There is.”
I felt my eyes widen. “What? Since when?”
He sighed. “After we were done. I felt something. A line of code that I couldn’t place. I thought it was the bond.”
“But it wasn’t, was it? It didn’t work.” I slumped in his hold. That hurt more than I had expected. I hadn’t wanted it at first, but I had come around to the idea that we’d be drinking Mai Tai’s on some beach together for all eternity. Not a bad way to spend forever in my opinion. Now I had no idea what waited for me after I took my last breath.
“No, it worked. In part. I think.”
“You think?” This wasn’t sounding any better.
He nodded. “I felt us sync. Our hearts. Our souls. Our bodies. But we are missing one thing.” He tapped the side of his head.
Realization dawned on me. I had something in my head that the other females hadn’t. The implant. That had to be what was preventing the bond from fully taking. I wished I could say three out of four wasn’t bad, but we needed that last link or we couldn’t bond.
A scream bubbled up but I forced it back down. I had thought death was the worst thing that this thing in my head could do, but I had been wrong.
How much more could I have fucked things up? My hand went to the back of my head, my fingers digging into my skin. I wanted to rip it free, claw it from the inside of my brain, and stomp the shit out of it until it was nothing but dust.
I dug my nails in harder, causing me to wince.
Viper caught my wrist. “Stop. You are hurting yourself. I know you wish you hadn’t done it. But we can’t change the past. It’s useless to hate yourself over it.”
I wanted to listen. To hear Viper’s words and believe them, but I was struggling. The voice in my head that spewed poison was taunting me. Telling me that this is what I deserved.
All the sins of my past felt like they were piling around my feet like bricks, locking me in place.