Page 15

Killing Maurick wouldn’t be a hardship at all. I would have strangled the traitor quite easily, and the law be damned, when her voice stopped me.

“Jacques.”

That was all Inka said. That was all she had to say.

Disbelievingly, I spun round and grabbed Inka, pulling her into my arms.

Relieved, I held Inka’s head in the curve of my shoulder and breathed in the scent that belonged to her alone. In return, Inka clutched me as if she couldn’t let go, and we stood there for a few minutes.

Stupid as it sounds, I felt reborn, newly emerged from the womb. Somehow, I’d been given a second chance at having my life again, and everything was as it should be.

Then my tongue glanced over my molars, and I knew something wasn’t right. They were fangs, and I didn’t have them before the experiment.

“You’re alive,” I muttered, putting strange teeth out of my mind.

Lovingly, I kissed the top of Inka’s head. “I saw you die…”

“Don’t, Jacques. I’m here, we areallhere, and we arealive,” Inka said, pulling away from me and turning so she could motion to the others.

Mera and Pal. Kait, Pari, Tobais, and Emil. My friends stood in a small group. D’vid stood slightly apart, gazing unfathomably at his sibling.

“What have you done?” I hissed at Claudias.

Claudias said nothing and glanced at Maurick. “Jaq—”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear another single lying word from you. Or I will rip your throat out,” I thundered, anger welling up inside.

“Explain!” D’vid demanded of Claudias, resting a hand on my shoulder.

Claudias sneered, but before he could say anything, Marel, the leader of the Core, stepped forward.

“This is my responsibility, I’ll explain,” Marel replied softly.

“Marel, I don’t give a damn who does. Someone better explain,” Pal retorted. “The memory of our experience is still vivid in my mind.”

The threat was obvious in Pal’s voice.

“The Great Experiment was a lie. There is technical lan—”

“Layman’s terms are fine,” Tobais said.

“Short and sweet. Everyone died.”

We had all accepted that idea because not one of us questioned it. But, I suppose everyone guessed a cure had been discovered. That was the purpose of the stasis chambers: to freeze us as soon as our heart stops, and we’d be rejuvenated when a cure was discovered.

“Did you know what would happen?” Kait asked as he and Emil supported Pari, who seemed very weak.

“No,” Marel replied.

“Despite casualties, you continued with the experiment. You should have stopped at the first death. Nobody had explored all the risks. Basically, The Core hadn’t done due diligence, and panicked” a female voice said.

I glanced over my shoulder and recognised the girl as Julia from the Southern Province. “The Core let us die. Didn’t the test results show some side effects? There’s a word for what happened, Marel. It’s calledmurder.”

“Nobody expected anyone to die. By the Creator’s sacred blood, you were not meant to,” Marek denied.

“What was meant to happen?” Tobais asked.

“Hold on,” I said, cutting in. “I don’t feel dead. This doesn’t look like what I expected the other side to be.”