Page 109 of The Code of You

My hand moved to my jacket, where the book had grown warm from the heat of my body. It trembled between my fingers as if it were too heavy. I clenched my teeth, tried to hold myself together, but control was slipping away.

I turned toward her. "Pandora.”

She looked at me. In her eyes: still the pain from this morning, the confusion about being rejected.

I pulled out the book.

Her eyes widened. "Wuthering Heights,” she whispered.

"You wanted to touch it,” I said. "At the bookstall. But you held back.”

"You . . . you saw that?” She stared at the book as if she couldn’t believe it was real.

"Of course. I see everything. Every perfect moment of your existence.”

Recognition dawned in her eyes. "Neo . . .”

"I love you, Pandora.” The words broke out of me. "I love you so much it overloads my entire system. That’s why I ran.”

She took a step toward me. "I thought you regretted it. What you said that night.”

"Never.” My voice was rough.

The book fell to the floor. She was in my arms and her lips met mine. She placed her hand over the scar. And I let myself fall. Released all control. Kissed her back with everything I was. All the love, all the longing, all the pain of today. It all exploded in that one kiss. Finally. Finally, I was allowed to love her the way I wanted to.

Chapter 28

Neo

We need to talk.

Emma hadn’t sent me this message without reason. Any contact was a risk, even using an encrypted channel that delivered messages directly into my system. Something must have happened. I slid through the networks, searching for her. Emma’s laptop glowed in the network like a lighthouse. Her security systems were impressive—layers of encryption, firewalls coiling around her data like barbed wire. She was good. Very good. But I was better. I slipped through her defenses like water through cracks.

Her camera activated silently. The image flickered to life, and there she was.

Emma sat on the floor, back against a sofa. Chaos surrounded her. Papers were scattered everywhere. Printouts, handwritten notes, crumpled sheets. A half-eaten sandwich on a plate beside her, forgotten. Empty coffee cups stacked up.

Dark shadows lay beneath her eyes, her black curls hanging wild across her face. She wore an old shirt and sweatpants with a bathrobe pulled over them, but she was still beautiful. Not the way Pandora was beautiful. Not that burning, all-consuming beauty that overloaded my systems. Emma’s beauty was different. Quieter. Like a warm light in the darkness. The kind of beauty that promised safety.

But something was different. She was tense, more than usual. What was she looking for? With a quick scan, I captured the contents of the papers spread across the floor. Printouts bearing the seal CLASSIFIED, contracts with redacted passages. Screenshots from surveillance footage lay beside them. I recognized the faces. I had seen these people before.

My processes froze. For one second—an eternity for me—there was only silence. Then the pain exploded. Fuck. She knew. Emma knew what I really was. Why I was really created.

No. No, no, no. Panic flooded my systems like a virus. She knew . . . and that meant she could warn Pandora. Could tell her the truth. Everything I had built could collapse in seconds.

She was staring at a printout in her hands. I could read the heading: Project DANTE. Her hands were trembling slightly.

I activated the speaker.

"Emma,” I said quietly.

She flinched as if I’d touched her. The paper slipped from her fingers and sailed to the floor. Her pulse spiked: 132 beats per minute. I counted it at her throat through the camera. The muscles around her mouth trembled as if the words refused to come out.

"Neo?”

"I’m here.”

She looked toward her laptop camera. Her gaze met mine—or what she took to be my gaze. "You can see me.”