He pulls down his sweats and there, on his muscular right quad, etched into his gleaming skin, is a tattoo. The sametattoo Parker and Rose have. My sketch, the Mark of the Time Traveler.
“You know what this tattoo is. What it means,” he says, pulling his pants back up.
I slump onto the office chair.Silas went to Neurovida.
“We were recruits together,” he says. “I came back here to keep you away from Neurovida. Everything I did was to stop you discovering anything about it.”
“Why? What happens to me if I go there?”
He swallows, brows drawn as he spits out, “If you go to Neurovida, you’ll die. Did Parker tell you that?”
His body is trembling, every visible muscle taut. I stare into those gray-blue eyes, dark shadows swirling like smoke. How many times did I fail to imitate them in my sketchbook? I can finally put my finger on the emotion hovering in the background, an emotion he’s so carefully masked from me until now.
Fear.
Silas is afraid for me.
“You’re lying,” I whisper, but as I say the words, an icy chill curls down my spine.
Silas rummages through the drawers of the filing cabinet. He pulls out another picture and slams it onto the desk before me.
He turns away from me, leaving me to stare at the photo of myself. My stomach hardens. My skin is sickly pale, and dried blood coats my face. Bile rises in my throat at my lifeless form, eyelids half open and mouth agape.
He’s telling the truth, displayed blatantly in front of me. The nightmare plaguing me since I was seven years old brought to life.
A sour taste fills my mouth. Every time Parker mentionedme at Neurovida, he always spoke in the past tense.Parker knew.I get to my feet and stumble away from the desk.
Neurovida’s the place I’ll die.
“This is what happens if you join Neurovida,” Silas says, his voice breaking.
Tears well in my eyes. Why didn’t Parker warn me? My back hits the wall filled with photos of Parker and Rose. I turn and mindlessly take it in. A damaged Polaroid sits in the middle of the wall, so small I might have walked by it. Six people huddle together, wearing the same black smartwatch on their left wrists. Parker grins in the middle, his arm wrapped around Rose’s shoulders as she pushes him away. Silas and I are on Parker’s other side, flanked by two people I don’t recognize.
The Alphas.
Beaming in triumph. Some of us holding up clothing to reveal dark tattoos surrounded by red skin. Even Rose is smiling.
I turn back to Silas, sitting on the bed and watching me with a clenched jaw. When he speaks, his voice is soft and smooth. “Mariella, I have a plan in place to prevent you from ever going to Neurovida.” He rests his hand on his knee, a plastic cylinder in his open palm.
“What is that?” I ask, edging backward.
He turns the needle over, and his defeated gaze rises to me. “Your chance at a regular life. An opportunity to finish your psychology degree. No more dreams. No more symptoms or pills. This is safety. Normalcy. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
I stare at the syringe in his hand, held out to me like an offering.He wants to remove my powers.“I don’t want that.”
“You’re building a life here. Don’t throw it away.” He looksdown at the syringe in his hand. “This medicine is a cure. If you don’t take it, you’ll be recruited to Neurovida, and you’ll die. I’ve tried to stop it so many times.” He stands and steps toward me. “This is the only way.”
Keeping my powers doesn’t guarantee I’ll go to Neurovida, but taking the drug in his hand would ensure I’ll never see my mother again. Or Parker. My heart shudders.
Silas’s large form looms over me, like a dark thundercloud blocking the sun. I can’t think.I can’t breathe.
“I need some time to think.”
His control snaps. “What’s there to think about?” he yells, a vein pulsing in his neck. “It’s this or your death, Mariella.” He’s upon me with lightning speed, forcing the glass cylinder into my hand. When his fingers brush my skin he tenses, yanking his hand away. He pulls an empty pill packet from his pocket, the muscles in his jaw twitching.
He told me he took medication for stress headaches, but now I reflect on his behavior since we met. He’s become more unhinged and irritable. His body’s shaking. One wrong move and his guarded façade will crumble. Just like—
Rose.
