Page 22 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Brice

I don’t know what comes over me.

When she touches my hand, I feel tingles, but it lasts less than a second and I think I might have imagined them. Then she stops right in front of me and my eyes can’t help but drop to her lips.

Those pouty lips that keep sassing me every time they can.

Those beautiful pouty lips that I imagine would be so soft against my skin if I could feel them.

It’s the first time since I woke up in that room in Notre Dame that I really wish I could feel something.

But there’s something else, because I shouldn’t have felt that simple brush of her hand against mine. Well, I normally feel that something is touching me, but it can’t elicit any reaction in my body. Be it pain or pleasure.

And unless my mind is making up things, I’m pretty sure I can say that short moment in time did happen, that I felt more .

It almost felt electrifying. Not that it was strong, because it definitely wasn’t. It was more like a subtle wind stroking my skin, but I felt it spread goosebumps up my arm.

But now, Florentine is looking up at me, wetting her lips like my mere presence is making her antsy, when my brain is conjuring ways of tasting her lips instead.

But then, a small blush spreads on her cheeks and I’m not so sure anymore that Florentine is anxious, or maybe not for the same reasons I initially thought.

Fuck.

I want to kiss her.

But then, I stroke the side of her hand again with my pinky and the tingles are back and suddenly I realize it’s all too real.

And that shouldn’t be happening.

Before Florentine’s cheeks darken some more, I’m in the middle of the lab.

Why?

Because I can’t start wanting things I’m not supposed to want, but more than that, I can’t start wanting the only person who could make my situation change.

But she makes you want things … the devil on my shoulder whispers in my ear.

Yes, but I want to be back to normal.

What if it never happens? What if the only thing you’ll ever feel again will be from the hands of the woman you so blatantly flew away from?

There is a saying in old French ‘Un “tiens” vaut mieux que deux “tu l'auras”’ that translates to ‘The one you have here is better than the two you might get’ and right this instant, it’s tearing at me, because what if I never recover?

I might have lost my only chance at kissing Florentine, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

She takes an entire minute to follow me to the center of the room, as if my leaving so fast spooked her and she doesn’t know how to act next towards me.

But then she looks around and I can see in her eyes that she likes what she’s seeing—at least way more than the first lab—and yet it’s like any other lab. It’s even similar to the other one in this castle.

But I can understand why this first one can be unsettling for some, even if for me it only exists as a reminder that if they managed to change my brain through science once, I can’t give up on having it changed back.

I might be completely wrong, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.

Or, to be exact, from making Florentine try.

Except for the pictures on the wall I don’t really see any difference, but I‘m not the one who set the room. I’m the one who ordered it be turned into a medical room and a nerd haven, but to be honest I’m not exactly sure what I ordered.

I just know I spent a small fortune in holo-puters that I can’t even see in the room.

I know they’re here, built inside the wood of the desk that’s at the back of the room, though.

“Do you like it?” I ask Florentine to break the silence.

She’s looking at everything with wide eyes and I have no idea what it means.

Still without answering me, she walks up to the desk and swipes her finger on the surface. It lights up and a holographic screen materializes against the entire wall.

Florentine types on the holo keyboard and a dozen documents appear on the screen.

“Milton, upload the infernal device files on this computer,” she says out loud, and I realize she does it for me, because I’ve already seen her converse with her AI without needing to talk at all. Her outburst last time was proof of that.

Wait.

The infernal device?

Does she mean the machine the birds used on my brain to change it?

I find it … almost endearing.

I’m not about to tell her, though.

She touches another part of the desk and a voice answers her, “All set, Miss F.”

“This is so much better than having to work directly on the infernal device,” Florentine says to no one in particular before sitting in front of the desk.

I almost feel like I’m intruding now that she is hitting the keys, typing pages and pages of text I don’t understand.

“I’ll get the machine,” I tell her. I don’t think she hears or pays attention to me, though.

Five minutes later, I’m back and put it at the right side of the desk and then I take a couple of steps away.

“Thanks,” she says out loud and then mumbles to herself—and probably her AI too—things I don’t understand.

I back against the wall, next to the door, but I don’t leave.

She’s so absorbed by what she’s doing and by the new holo-puter that she forgets all about what’s around her. And for the first time since she arrived, I can actually observe her without needing to hide.