I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what I say, his decision has been made. All that’s left to decide is?—
“What happens next?” Cooper asks, as though he can read my mind.
“I don’t know.” I can’t breathe in a way that has nothing to do with the smoke or the fumes and everything to do with the fist gripped around my heart, crushing and pulling with every monstrous act he commits. I want him to tell me this was all some kind of twisted mistake, that he can clear everything up and turn this all around. But that was the old Kaye. Whatever she knew to be true is little more than breadcrumbs on a forest floor to me. Even if they weren’t half eaten and smashed into the bud, the home they lead to no longer exists.
The person though, whoever she was, is worth fighting for.
“Get out of here,” I tell him. “In a couple of minutes, the fire willreach those tanks and all of this will be gone for good. I want this to be done.You, to be done. Leave New Malcolm. Don’t ever look back.”
“And if I don’t?”
I shake my head. “Then we’ll both regret what I have to do, but I promise you this, Cooper—I will do it.”
His weapon lowers. He suddenly looks so young. So lost. The fight drains from him like sand through a sieve. And even if it’s nothing more than a mask, he looks like brother I knew once before.
“You’re really letting me go?” he asks. “Aren’t you worried that I’ll come for you or Zane again?”
A weariness as consuming as time itself settles onto my shoulders like a shroud. I feel, deep in the marrow of my bones, just how tired I am, like I’ve aged a decade in a day. Someday, when the people I love are safe and the world is right again,when I’ve grown too sick or old to care, perhaps then I can have the rest I crave. It may never be with the family I wanted, or the friends. Or home. But it will be mine. And I’ll fight for it every day until I do.
Whatever he sees when he looks at me, it’s the only answer he’ll get. He ducks his head.
“Don’t trust Zane Maxwell,” he warns, his voice now only barely audible. “There’s a reason why the CCP wanted him to work with me on the Rose project.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He nods, and again it feels as though he’s heard my thoughts.
“I never meant for this to happen,” he says. “Not like this. I know how this looks… what I’ve become. Trust me when I say it’s more complicated than you could imagine. If we only had more time.”
I’ve given him enough time, and I’m done listening.
He turns back only once to look at his laboratory again. I wonder if he’s thinking of the other laboratory he watched burn. I see so much pain in his eyes. No monster is born on its own. Cruelty is born from cruelty, until someone, somewhere, breaks the cycle.
His gaze settles over me, and I’d almost swear I see tracks streaking his cheeks. That’s not possible, of course. I doubt Cooper is even capable of real remorse anymore, if he ever was.
“I love you, Kitty,” he says.
35
ZANE
Recovery is a painful and slow thing, existing purely on spite and malice for sustenance. It’s not so much the torture I endured at Cooper Grace’s hand or the nightmares stalking my dreams every night. It’s that feeling.My feeling. Of helplessness and hopelessness. Of struggling against orders you never had a say in only to obey despite yourself.
Our Lady of Sacred Redemption is barred to me now. I sit on the marble steps day and night, waiting for even a glimpse. Jaspar is the only one who takes pity on me.
“You have to leave, Zane,” he says through the crack in the door.
His dark eyes trail over my face. I know what he sees. Eyes bloodshot and ringed in purple, my chin dotted in stubble left so long it could almost be considered a beard. My rumpled, haggard clothes that I picked up off the floor after also wearing them yesterday. Maybe ever a day or two before.
“Let me see her,” I beg him. “I just want to talk to her.”
He shakes his head, his attention darting over his shoulder before landing on me again. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I need to tell her how sorry I am. Please. I fucked up so badly.”
His hand lands on my shoulder, warm and solid and comforting. “Go home, Zane. Get some rest. She’ll find you when she’s ready.”
Time is the only thing I have left to give her.
