And then there was the way Rhett did nothing at all.Nothing at all when she needed him the most.Nothing at all when she needed a shield against the storm that was her mother.Rhett kept his career safe, his image safe,himselfsafe, but he’d never kepthersafe.
No, Aiden was nothing like her fiancé.
But how could she place her trust in Aiden if he blindly placed his inEos?
Elodie rubbed the collar of her shirt between her thumb and forefinger.“You said that words matter, they have meaning.”
Of all the things you’ve done, and you’ve done plenty, becoming a sympathizer is the one thing that will make me regret turning those natal programmersdown!
Elodie’s throat burned with the memory of her mother’s words.“What you don’t say is just as important, Aiden.”She forced back more tears as the image of Rhett standing silently, complacently at her mother’s side flashed behind hereyes.
Aiden zipped and unzipped his jacket.“You’re right.”He stopped zipping and dragged his fingertips along the metal teeth.“I wanted to keep yousafe.”
“I can keep myself safe.”Elodie bit out the words more harshly than she’d meant to.
The streetlight haloed him in brittle white as his chin dipped toward hischest.
Elodie had a hundred questions, a million questions, but they stuck in her throat, bitter and barbed.Maybe she didn’t want to know the answers.
She picked at her fingernails.
That wasn’t true.She wanted to know everything.
Aiden broke the stillness, charging up from the bench.“Go somewhere with me.”
Anywhere.Each fiber within her quaked.
She shook her head.“I’m not an Eos sympathizer.”She winced.There Gwen was again like a bruise Elodie couldn’t keep from pressing.Her throat tightened.“I can’t be,” she whispered.
Aiden stood in front of her, his hands stuffed into his pockets.“You can be whoever youwant.”
He made it sound so simple.
Elodie chewed her bottom lip, the very fabric of her identity fraying, unraveling as she yanked herself in different directions.
Explore.Conform.
Explore.Conform.
Moonlight glinted in the shallow pools of Aiden’s eyes as he waited expectantly.
To health.To life.To the future.We are the Key.
And the corporation had kept Elodie on the right path since they’d intertwined her mother and father’s DNA and grown her in the lab nearly eighteen years ago.But Elodie wanted so much more out of life than a predetermined path.She wanted to,neededto, let herself loose.
The endless black of thestar-speckledsky pressed down on top ofher.
Were Aiden’s truths like Gwen’s, thin and unstable and treacherous?Were they worth dying to uncover?
Elodie swallowed past the tightness in her throat.
Cool droplets dusted her cheek as the wind twisted and played between the spray of the fountain.“Eos kills people, Aiden,” she said as she stood.
He took a deep breath and shook his head.“Eos is protecting people—children.TheKeyis hurtingkids.”
She threw her hands into the air before stepping away, packing more empty space between them.“And I’m just supposed to believe that?”His deep scent faded as she neared the street.
He walked closer.“What do you think happened to PatientNinety-Two?”
