My eyes dart to him. “Us, here together as… I don’t even know what exactly anymore. Allies, at the very least. It’s?—”
“Surreal,” he offers.
“—a miracle.” I finish in the same moment. Our eyes meet, and it’s one of those moments that can’t pass without laughter.
I move toward him, focused on his gorgeous smile, and laughter is the last thing on my mind. I feel him lean in, a sensation of increased warmth and charged electrons floating between us. He’s strong and intelligent, sexy as hell—and God help me, but I believe him when he says that he’s good.
His thumb ghosting across my cheek is a lurching trail of heaven. Gentle. Sultry. I close my eyes to better savor the sensation. His other arm wraps around my torso, curling around the contours of my lower back before dropping to rest against my hip. The air heats as the space between us shrinks. His breath brushes over my skin.
“There’s something I want to show you.” His voice is low and throaty, as if it physically taxes him to pull away. A trill of pleasure tickles my core to think that maybe it does. That I have the power to make the infamous Charade lose control.
I let him lead me to a glass-topped workspace.
“I should have known when I saw the security system thatthishad to be somewhere in the house.” I swipe my fingers across the glass and it lights with life, projecting images and 3D models in the air just above it. A glowing rectangle etched intothe surface along one side denotes the guide, the images clearing with a brush of Zane’s hand across the shape.
Zane smirks, but otherwise ignores my jab as his finger probes through lists and lists of programs.
“I think you’re really going to enjoy this.” His whole hand arcs upward over the pad, drawing with it a virtual 3D rendering of a familiar shape. Another motion pushes it to the center of the console where it triples in size.
I gasp, my fingers reflexively reaching out to touch the virtual replica of Checkmate’s iconic gear.
“Go ahead. Touch it. Turn it. Play with it,” Zane says, demonstrating its virtual durability. He picks it up between both palms; the rendering widening as he widens the distance between his palms. “Stretch it. Smash it. Do whatever you want; it’s there for you to study. When you’re ready, I want you to take what you love from that, and put those elements into this.”
He brings up another mode—a blank canvas.
“I think it’s time Checkmate had a fresh start, don’t you? One you choose for yourself.”
He looks at me and I can’t keep the grin off my face. I wrap my arms around him, pull him close. His arms fold around me, and it feelsecstatic.
“Thank you,” I say when we pull away.
“I can think of a multitude of ways you can thank me later if you want, but you don’t need to. We’re partners, remember?”
Somehow, despite every obstacle standing in our past, that word now belongs to us. Partners.
“There’s something else too. Something I’ve wanted to show you practically since the moment we met.” He drags a new icon into view and moves away from the console. “You wanted proof—of who I am and what I’ve been fighting. Open it and I’ll tell you everything, Kaye. My story. My plan. Everything.”
“You’re kind of scaring me,” I joke.
Slowly, his head shakes. “You’re Checkmate—you’re fearless.”
Then I’m alone with the two different icons. The whole, unfiltered truth of Zane Maxwell. Charade. It’s everything I’ve been looking for since I stepped foot in his house, since the day we first fought one another. I glance one more time at the design software. Sweeping it aside, I open the file.
There’s a long list of other documents inside—video files, text documents, PDFs. There’s no clear-cut direction on where to begin, so I select the videos and settle in.
“It’s April 10, about 5:15 p.m. This is a record of progress on the Rose Project. Formula F still running. Preliminary tests have shown promising data. We will have more data in about a month or so, once the mixture stabilizes. I think this could be the one. C keeps telling me not to get my hopes up too much. That we’re not lucky enough to hit on something this early. But he’s never worked with a Maxwell before. Luck is my middle name.”
“7:33 p.m. on April 17. Rose update. F is a bust. Literally. I’m going to be cleaning up glass in the lab for the next week, but that’s ok. Every failure is a lesson learned. Isn’t that the kind of thing people are always saying? C says that it’s a lesson that we need better temperature control equipment in the lab, but he’s just frustrated. Progress takes time.
“We’re moving on to formula G. I made a minor tweak to the ratio of soluble chemicals. Details can be found in the print experiment logs. With so much excitement around here these days, I can hardly contain myself. C says I need to spend more time at home with my family, with Moira, which is funny coming from him. The man’s not human. I come in early; he’s already here. I leave late—not as late as C. We’re workaholics together.”
The entries go on, one per week or so like clockwork, growing darker with each one. Zane’s appearance grows more and more strained throughout the entries. His skin fades to a sallower hue and dark circles begin forming under his eyes. For a few weeks he even had a beard. It didn’t suit him at all, like some kind of animal has taken up residence on his mouth and chin.
The entries are concise, each one taking no more than thirty seconds or so to watch. Zane never gives too many details or specifics on the experiments. He does, however, speak a great deal about the dynamics between him and his partner, C. It’s clear that Zane likes him. They make it through Easter, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years without a successful trial. Then, something changes.
“Today is February 17, and it’s somewhere in the ballpark of 3 a.m. We’ve finally done it! Formula V has shown the results we were waiting for. The mixture is stable. Early tests with human tissue show favorable results. We’ve been sitting on this news for weeks, doing every test we could to ensure its safety. We’ve presented our findings, and tomorrow C and I will meet with the board to see if we are cleared for a real, human trial!”
“February 24, 10:23 a.m. Serum V, which we have affectionately nicknamed Rose, has reached the next phase in testing! The board found our results compelling enough to greenlight human trials. There’s a long list of demands we’ll have to comply with the meet safety standards, which means we’re moving to a larger office space and some new equipment will be arriving soon. And the good news just keeps coming! We’ve been awarded a fifty thousand dollar grant from an anonymous donor to continue our research. Ifeverything goes according to schedule, we should be set to begin the next phase of testing as early as April.”
