The smirk died on his lips, his expression becoming serious. “The world doesn’t need another me. It needsyou,Dex. I’m sorry if the reason for your existence made you believe otherwise.”
My eyes lit up at his words. This was the Dax I wanted to meet. The one I hoped he would be when I stared at his smiling photograph.
He stood up and put out his hand to pull me to my feet. He dusted off his lab coat, smoothing the bright white fabric under his green palms before he shooting me a wide grin. “Besides, the state of your wardrobe alone indicates that you are your own cyborg.”
I threw an arm around his shoulder. “You do know that your wardrobe screams mad scientist with a side of awkward nerd, right?”
He shrugged. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
The sound of my laughter chased away the remaining worries swirling inside my head.
Brone
Isat on my bed in my temporary quarters and tried to ignore the hollowness inside my chest. I rubbed a palm over the ache, pressing hard, hoping it would dissipate with time.
Nara had made her choice.
And it wasn’t me.
Lennox had stopped by to inform me she had sent Ion with her as Nara’s guard. She thought I might want to know which cyborg would be staying with her. I thanked her, shut the door, and immediately collapsed, my knees giving out.
I don’t know Ion. He could do anything to her and I wouldn’t be there to stop him. If it had been one of ours, like Axios or Rust, I might have felt a bit better. I knew my fellow rebellion cyborgs-my friends. I trusted them to treat her with kindness even if they were angry at her deception.
That was why Reaper had been the next to knock on my door, letting me know that was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to send one of our own. He hadn’t wanted Nara to attempt to sway them and use their kindness against them.
While the logical side of my processors understood Reaper’s reasoning, my soul screamed that she would never do that. Nara cared about us. She had risked her life to find Iris’s Beanie Babies, knowing how much they meant to us. She had cried over the loss of Torque.
Nara didn’t want to hurt the rebellion or its cyborgs. If she had, she would have kept her mouth shut and let the Global Allegiance come for her.
I had felt the way she trembled against my frame. Heard the pain in her voice when she talked about her parents. Saw the tears that trailed down her cheeks when I had held her chin and made her look at me.
No matter what Reaper thought, I knew Nara wasn’t a monster. She had been tricked by the Global Allegiance and when she realized what they wanted her to do, she had come with us instead, bringing her cyborgs with her.
Her cyborgs.I could only imagine how much pain they felt due to being separated from her. Dax and Dr. Shaw had always had a unique relationship, and if theirs were anything to go by, I thought that maybe the Luxury Models had the same with Nara. Granted, they had each other, but losing the woman that effectively was their mother had to be a pain I could never understand.
All of us were now hurting, and for what?
A knock on my door yanked me from my troubling thoughts. I forced myself to rise on shaky feet and fling open the door.
The sight that greeted me stopped me in my tracks. Three Luxury Models stood huddled together outside my doorway, the same look of shock and confusion mirrored across all their faces.
It was Core that spoke first. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“Nara left us,” Caliber’s voice shook.
“She said she had to. But we don’t understand. Why would she leave us? What did we do wrong?” Chaos rasped.
With a gentle tug, I pulled Core into my room, the other two following right behind. Ushering them over to the couch, I pointed to the worn-out brown cushions. “Sit.”
They complied instantly, sitting down in unison, and fitting their three frames onto my couch. Gold, silver, and bronze eyes peered at me, never looking away from my face as if it held the answers they desperately sought.
Say something, Tank Class. They came to you for help.But I had no idea how to handle this. I stared at the three cyborgs that occupied my couch then kneeled in front of them, not wanting my big size to make them feel like I was towering over them.
They didn’t need a Military Model Tank Class right now. They needed a friend.
“I want the three of you to listen to me. None of this is your fault.”
“But…” Core frowned then shook his head, “then why?”