Page 80 of Dangerous Deviance

“She could be from a different group. Completely separate,” I tried.

“Or Muro’s changing tactics.”

After more discussion, I hung up and watched Ellie on the screen, her sweet eyes gazing at the clouds. To Axe, she was a killer, ready to attack us. To Derek, she was another experiment gone wrong. But what was she to me?

She was a woman. A woman with more strength than I would ever understand. And she was mine.

But the choices were becoming clear. If the women were attacking us without a trigger, I had to choose what was right for my family. And that made me sick.

For now, I would deal with the issue at hand. I put the flash drive in the USB port of my computer. The drive was encrypted, but after sending it through a decryption program, I was able to access a few of the files. Most of them were broken, but eventually, I could see that each file had a set of numbers, which was attached to a woman. I had to click through several before I found what I was looking for.

172966: Julie Jordan: Deceased.

Action Line 13: Transferred to Shadow Hills.

Action Line 12: Transported from SS campus to woods.

Action Line 11: Resigned during endurance training; Alexandra Mink assisted.

Next to Action Line 13, there were coordinates for her location.

How the hell was Ellie going to take this?

On the tablet’s screen, Ellie stared off into the distance, her lips pressing together in a pattern. She wasn’t talking to herself; she was singing. Carefree. Happy. I wanted to sneak up to the rooftop’s doorway, to listen to her voice. She was finally comfortable with her life here, her life with me, and I was about to screw it all up. I had a feeling all along that her sister was gone, but Ellie? Had she secretly realized what had happened, and hadn’t accepted it? Or did she really believe Julie was still alive?

How the hell would I tell her?

Axe sent a text:I know she was a gift,he started out,But this needs to end.

And I knew that in his mind, there was only one way this problem would be solved.

CHAPTER 21

Ellie

The air shifted as the door behind me opened. Usually, since I knew it was Wil, I would wait for him to join me on the couch, letting myself stay lost in my thoughts. But for some reason, instinct—myactual instinct, and not just a voice in my head—told me to look at him. His shoulders were slumped, and there was a grim twist to his lips. My breath caught in my throat.

“What is it?” I asked.

He sat beside me. “You know that file Axe got?” he asked. I nodded. “There was a file there.”

He was dancing around the subject. It wasn’t like them, and the more I thought about it, the more it made me dread what was coming. I don’t know that my situation could have gotten any more messed up, but the way he was carrying himself told me that it was about to get worse.

“What?” I asked. “Just say it.”

And with three words, he broke me even more.

“It’s your sister,” he said.

I stared out at the gray sky, wondering why the hell I was still there. I could have gone into the camp, kamikaze style, and this torment would have been over sooner. But I had held on, for her, for Wil, and yet he was about to take that away from me too.

“She’s—”

I shook my head furiously, my eyes burning with anger. “She’s not,” I insisted. “She’s still out there.”

“Ellie,” Wil whispered. “She’s—”

“Lost,” I cut him off. “She’s just gone somewhere. Just because there’s no record of her doesn’t mean that she doesn’t exist.”