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Chapter Nineteen
Creed is granted a weekend pass to leave Groom Lake.
We end up taking my car to Vegas, simply because Creed lives in the highly secure military housing on the property. Its’s just easier to take my basic sedan than to retrieve his vehicle, but even so, Creed is quick to claim the driver’s seat. It’s the first time we’ve had to just talk, and I couldn’t be more interested in learning about this man. “Tell me about your mother,” he urges.
There is a swell of emotion in my chest, in an uncomfortable way. “Not yet,” I say. “I have to get past the graveyard. Can you tell me something about you? Are you comfortable talking about you?”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you love?”
He glances over at me and then the road. “Road trips to Vegas with you.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, Addie. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time.”
“Since before you were a GTECH?”
“Even before that,” he says, and he surprises me by how easily he offers more details. “I was on one mission after another. Every soldier that was selected for this experiment was the best of the best. That means we all worked pretty much around the clock.”
“You grew up wealthy, but you live like a soldier now. And I get the impression you’re much happier a soldier, or at least you were.”
“It was the life I chose, and that’s why I’m where I am now.”
It’s not really an answer so I try a bit harder. “Do you regret joining the Army?’
“No,” he says, “because Project Zodius was going to happen, and I wouldn’t want to be a naïve human and weaker, thus a future victim. Because GTECHs believe they are better than humans, and that’s what these soldiers living amongst us will eventually become.”
Which is a scary statement, but for now, I focus on him. “But you’re a victim.”
He glances over at me. “I’m never a victim. And you wouldn’t be here if you were, either. You came to make a difference even if it meant standing against your father.”
“Do you think he was behind Project Zodius?”
“Do you?” he asks, for the second time now.
“You’ve already asked me that. You know my answer. Do you?” I repeat.
“Do you want to know my answer before or after this weekend?”
“There is no before. We’re living it. And I want to know.”
“Yes,” he says. “I think he did it.”
“And yet, you’re still here with me?”
“Yeah. Pretty inconvenient for us both, but here we are.”
“I’m not revenge against him, right?”
He literally pulls the car to the side of the road in the middle of what is nowhere, no other car in sight, and turns to me. “No. One hundred percent no. I swear to you, but if you think that—”
“I don’t. I never had the thought until just now, and I don’t feel it in my gut or anything like that, but the logical part of my brain had to ask.”
“No,” he repeats. “You are not revenge, and the truth is, you’re the most dangerous decision I’ve ever made. You can take everything you find out about me back to them. You could be using me to conduct an experiment.”
“I’m not,” I say quickly. “I’m one hundred percent not.”
“I know that, Addie, or I wouldn’t be on my way to Vegas with you.”
I reach out and catch his hand where it rests on the console between us. “Let’s go to Vegas.”
“Let’s go to Vegas.”
And then he lifts my hand in his, tenderly kissing it before he releases me and sets the car into gear. And I’m struck by the very human, gentle side of Creed that manages to exist without diminishing the lethal edge beneath his surface that some of the legends have gone so far as to call brutal.
Chapter Twenty
We stop to get my mother’s favorite white lilies on the way to the graveyard and arrive late afternoon. Creed parks the car, and I can’t seem to move. He doesn’t move either. He just seems to know I’m not ready. “You okay, sweetheart?”
It’s strange to have someone here with me—here for me—and I swear it makes it as better as it does worse. Because she’s not here anymore. Tears well in my eyes. and I tilt my gaze to his. “Thanks for coming with me.” My voice is as hoarse as my throat is raw. “I swear I’m not a weak person. She was just my person, you know?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been lucky enough to have that person in my life, but I’m glad you did, and I’m sorry I didn’t meet her.”
“She would have discovered ways to protect you and help you, and I haven’t yet.”
“I’d bet everything that you’ll her make her proud. Give yourself time, Addie. And maybe you’re not supposed to protect me. Maybe I’m supposed to protect you.”
