AlexMcGilvery Array - Nano Bytes

People looked away as they raced by, all of them with one goal, which did not include helping her. They just wanted to get out of here.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled her car keys out of her pocket. It was her way out of the city, but it would be useless if she didn’t live long enough to drive away.

She waved the keys. «I’ll give you my car if you just stop for a minute.»

No one stopped. Most people didn’t even look at her.

Helplessness overwhelmed her, and her voice became croaky as she lowered her head in defeat. «Please don’t leave me here to die.»

«I wasn’t planning to.»

She jerked her head up, recognizing the voice and finding herself staring into a pair of familiar green eyes. She gasped his name. «William.»

Thea didn’t know what to think as she stepped back to allow William into her apartment. The last time she’d seen him, he’d told her that he never wanted to see her again. Now, here he was, right when she needed him the most.

«I didn’t know if you’d still be here.» He gripped her hand, pulling her toward the door. «Come on, we need to get out of here now.»

She pulled back, her heart racing as she neared the point of no return.

He turned back to frown at her, confusion crossing over his handsome face. «What’s wrong?»

She backed away from the door, ripping her hand away from his. He looked as sexy as ever, his broad shoulders concealed beneath a white shirt and his long legs encased in dark jeans. The crumped shirt seemed to glow beside his tanned skin. His short blond hair was a mussed mess, as always. In his eyes, there was that pain again. The same one she’d seen in on the day she’d been arrested.

Loathe to remind him of that moment again, she pressed her lips together, determined not to drag him into another one of her nightmares.

He frowned and walked toward her, taking her hands in his and staring into her eyes. «Talk to me, Thea. Please.»

She expelled a slow breath, the coldness of the room causing a momentary fog to appear between them. She only had two choices: Tell him the truth, or tell him to go.

If she told him the truth, he’d hate her forever because she’d drag him into her murky world. If she told him to go, she’d die.

Maybe I deserve to have my heart frozen. Maybe it already is.

He knew she’d been arrested for stealing files from his father’s company, but he didn’t know the full story.

«We need to go. You can’t ignore me again, not now!» He sounded desperate, and he was right. She needed to either face her demons or take them to her grave. She couldn’t run away this time.

«I can’t go anywhere,” she muttered, unsure of how to tell him the truth but determined to at least try. It might be her last chance to talk to him.

«Why not?»

She brushed her fair hair off her shoulder and pointed to the glowing implant beneath her skin.

His eyes widened. «Why do you have that?»

He knew she’d been sentenced, but the punishment had been delivered privately in the correctional facility.

«Manslaughter.» She turned away. It hadn’t been a fair ruling. It hadn’t been a fair trial, but the guilt she felt was real enough.

«Of who?» He gasped out the words.

She spun to face him. Wasn’t it obvious? «Your father.» She winced at the words. But inside, it was a relief. She’d needed to tell him the truth since that day in court. The promise she’d made his mother to keep it a secret and to stay away from him had been killing her. Judging by the pain in his expression, it had been killing him too.

«My father isn’t dead.» He narrowed his eyes.

She widened her eyes. «What?»

«What did you really do to get that?» He folded his arms.

«I told you!» A million questions tumbled through her mind. What did he mean his father wasn’t dead? She’d shot him. Okay, she hadn’t had a choice. He’d caught her helping some street kids escape from his human–testing laboratory, and he’d pulled a gun on her. But she’d wrestled the gun off him, and it had gone off. «I shot him. He couldn’t have survived.» She frowned.

«He’s alive and well. You must have shot one of his clones. Is Is that why you didn’t answer my calls?» he asked.

Of course he has clones! What the hell did I get arrested for then?

«What calls?» Thea snatched her phone off the side table, scanning the call log. There hadn’t been any calls or voice messages in days. Then her eyes fell upon the Devlin Corp logo on the top of the handset.

I’ve been played!

«Do you have a knife?» She ground out.

«What an earth for?»

She pointed to her shoulder. «I have two choices; home surgery, or being frozen to death.»

He swallowed, staring at her shoulder. «It’s a heart–stopper?»

She nodded. «That’s what they told me.»

«It sounds as if they told you a lot of things that aren’t true.»

«I get the feeling they weren’t lying about this.»

He nodded, looking somber as he reached back and pulled a penknife out of his back pocket. «We need to hurry.»

«You shouldn’t stay.» She didn’t want him to die here too. It might already be too late.

His expression darkened. «I’m not going anywhere without you.»

Thea almost felt hopeful at the passion in his voice, but there were still so many lies between them that it seemed impossible for their relationship to survive.

Let’s sort out us both surviving the end of the world first.

«Okay, give me the knife.» She held out her hand.

«We need to sterilize it first.» He handed her the old–fashioned blade.

She pressed the button on the side and a sharp, three–inch blade shot out of it. «We don’t have time.»

Gritting her teeth, she leveled the knife at her shoulder.

This is going to hurt like a bitch.

Without pause, she sliced through her own skin. A searing pain shot through her shoulder as she slashed a line across the implant. Blood rolled down her arm as she nudged the gash open wider until she could see the blinking blue light embedded into her flesh.

The sensor appeared to be a small silver capsule with thin silver wires coming off it like spider’s legs.

She glanced at William. His face had paled at the sight of her cutting into her own shoulder.

Her breath came out in short sharp gasps, as pain shot down her arm. «I need something to dig it out with.» She forced out the words, trying to ignore the pain.

Galvanized into action by her words, he hurried into her bathroom, coming out a second later holding a clean towel and a pair of tweezers.

She reached out for the tweezers with a shaking hand, but he handed her the towel instead.

«Be ready to put that on the wound and put pressure on it when we’re done,” he said, brushing her blonde hair back, away from her wounded shoulder, and gazing down at the implant.

«It’s connected to your nerves,” he said. «If I pull this out, it’s going to hurt like hell. All the little legs on it are clamped down on your nerves. What do you want me to do?»

She clenched a fist around the towel, preparing herself for more pain. «Pull the fucking thing out!»

He nodded before looking down at the implant with a grimace. «Okay.»

She felt a stinging sensation as he lowered the tweezers into her shoulder, but then the pain increased to become unbearable. The world around her blurred for a moment as white–hot agony overwhelmed her.

She gripped his arm, holding on tightly as he pulled on the device, watching the muscles clench in his jaw as he ripped the implant out of her shoulder in one fast movement.

Her eyes widened at the implant. It was small capsule with one tiny silver thread hanging off it. The thin wire was twitching as if it was dying. The blue light on the silver capsule blinked once before it dimmed to gray.