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And Ericson Daverns was unfinished business.
But then there’s the darker side of her nature, the part of Blakely that enjoyed causing pain, suffering. It’s why she wanted to take the job to the extreme to truly make Ericson suffer for his sins.
Oh, Blakely, what has my little monster done?
I pull back a section of bandage and examine the burned flesh of my hand. Damaged but my body is already generating new cells to heal the skin. We adapt. We recover. We grow stronger.
Blakely is like those damaged cells; her brain generating new growth to repair and replace the scorched memories. Coding over the old data, learning and adapting to her new emotions.
I did not fail. I knew I could not fail…not with her.
The treatment is a success.
Pulling my desk drawer open, I remove the one object I was able to save from the fire before it took the cabin. The journal of subject 6. I page through the entries to find the drawing of Blakely I sketched in the park.
My fingers trace her features reverently. The hard expression she wore when she believed no one was watching. The delicate curve of her lips, the way she bit her lip so enticingly.
She swore she was not like me—she vowed she’d never be a killer. She refused to take my life, and I witnessed her conflict over that choice. Yet, she seemingly murdered her target.
Why take one life and not the other?
What sets me apart from Ericson?
Maybe the answer will be in new brain scans. Or a whole new emotional map. Or maybe it’s something I can’t quantify with data.
Some look for love in flowers and sweet professions of adoration and devotion. Ours is not sweet. Ours is not naïve. Ours is a sick and cruel love born in a lab. Violence and obsession are only a measure away from passion, and our depraved passion owns us wholly.
Blakely belongs with me.
She is my proof. My cure is out there right now, wandering the world, a fledgling in her own right. She’s going to need protection, guidance. She’s going to need her maker to help her transition. Blakely is going to need me as much as I need her.
Soon, little monster.We will be together soon.
“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”
MARY SHELLEY, FRANKENSTEIN
ALEX
If you had asked me to define love before, I would have broken it down scientifically.
Love is not substantial. It’s firing synapses and brain chemicals—dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, vasopressin—producing a rush of endorphins. That which our body uses as a defense mechanism to protect from pain is the same chemical-induced physiological function summoned to translate love.
Thought-provoking.
Love is not the absence of pain.
It’s the absolute immersion of it.
She doesn’t make me feel as if I’m soaring high above rose-colored clouds, or traipsing through a field of poppies, elated, euphoric.
She drags me through the crags of hell, tearing the still-beating muscle from my chest wall, my blood aflame with her scent, tortured by her stormy eyes.
Her loss would annihilate me.
Even now, as she wields the syringe, the friction of just being near her, my molecules clinging to hers, her energy absorbing mine, I’d sever a body part before I’d suffer the loss of her from my system.
That is the bounds of my love for Lauraleigh Blakely Vaughn.
