Page 37 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Léandre

W hy is it so much scarier than I thought?

Maybe because I can see with my own eyes that the tendrils that are supposed to erase my memory aren’t in their best shape?

Or because an insidious voice in my mind is making me hope that—maybe, just maybe—there is a chance that with the tendrils damaged, there is a chance that the microchip can’t be activated ever again?

That shouldn’t be scary.

Except it is.

Because hope is scary. It gives those beautiful feelings and all I can think about is how things could get better.

But it’s scarier for one thing precisely. Because it is so easy to crush hope and I have a feeling while looking at the doctor’s face, studying closely my scans, that it’s exactly what is about to happen.

Because there is no light on the man’s face .

His white eyebrows are bent together, and it looks like he might be chewing the inside of his cheeks. Not really the face of someone who is hopeful.

“It’s too random,” the doctor says.

I know what this means.

He’s not even sure that if the microchip is activated this time, it’s not going to erase more memories, like functional ones.

“What is too random?”

I’m surprised to hear that Cassiopé is the one who asked.

I’m even more surprised when she adds, “We can see all the breaks and length that have changed. You know where they are. How can you say it’s too random?

You know how the brain works. You know which part is supposed to hold what. So, how can you say that?”

She’s breathless by the end of her monologue as if she didn’t even breathe the entire time she talked.

“It’s random, little miss, because this and this,” the doctor points at parts of the scans, but I’m not looking at his hands, his pissed off expression holding all my attention, “could make him forget how to walk, but it could also make him forget how to talk depending on the strength of the electric shock. It could even make him go back to the same level of knowledge as a newborn. But it could also just give a limp for a few weeks. Well, in addition to his life being erased.”

Here.

This is when all my hope is crushed and walked over.

I sag against the wall.

That doesn’t sound good. Not at all.

I feel like my heart is melting all over the floor or shattering to the wind. I’m not sure which one.

All I know is that I’m in deep shit.

“Do you see a way to get everything out?” Elhyor asks with concern.

Yeah, I’m concerned, too .

“We could open his skull and get the broken pieces out, but it looks like what’s left is still pretty much hooked in the new parts it reaches, so it would prevent miscellaneous parts of his brain from being ‘blurred’ in his mind, but it would still not solve the problem at hand.

And like always with brain surgery, there are risks,” the doctor says.

It’s not much more reassuring.

Except what can we do now? I’m not ready to disappear again, but this thing isn’t going to disappear from my brain, either.

“Do you know of any place that doesn’t have any service?” Cassiopé asks the room.

I don’t see why that question just popped, but I wait for the others to answer all the same.

“Everything in France is covered, no?” Angélique asks, but Elhyor seems to be deep in thought.

“I think there might be one place. It doesn’t even have a name except for his former owner’s species.

Otocyon. It’s somewhere in the south of France.

The land can’t be reached by flying car unless you’re willing to jump from it in flight and there is still a chance you’d break your legs during the fall.

It’s been described as a cabin in the woods, but knowing the man who used to live here, it has all the amenities necessary.

If you don’t count electricity and service. ”

“Is it really empty?” Cassiopé asks, and I’m still not sure where she is going with this idea.

“Léon left a while ago,” Elhyor says. “The weather in France wasn’t warm enough for him. He went back to South Africa. But why do you ask?”

Cassiopé tugs at the bottom of her shirt and fidgets with it.

“Why did he pick somewhere without electricity or service?” I can’t help myself from asking before she can answer Elhyor’s question.

That doesn’t make much sense. Who would want to live that way? I can’t even count the number of things I use daily that need electricity.

Elhyor doesn’t seem to mind and answers my question as he glances at Cassiopé. I have a feeling she’ll answer the question at some point, anyway .

“Léon is a bat-eared fox. They have the most sensitive hearing on Earth. Well, it was already the case on Aléa, but they didn’t have to deal with electricity and holo service there.

Because when we arrived on Earth, they discovered they could hear those…

and it drove some of them bat-shit crazy.

They usually live in parts of the world that are more desert than anything else, but Léon liked forests, and he was smart, too.

He built a faraday dome on top of his part of the wood. ”

“Wouldn’t that be made from electricity?” Cassiopé asks.

“The thing is powered from the outside and takes its energy from the sun and the ground, so it’s more like a blanket—an invisible one—that protects a huge area of the woods.

And if he could probably hear it next to the border, Léon seemed content when he was home and far enough from the limits of his territory. ”

“What’s your idea, Cassie?” Angélique asks when her husband finishes explaining.

“I realize that might not be your choice of life,” Cassiopé says while looking at me, “but if there is no service, then nothing can communicate with your microchip. And if nothing can communicate with your microchip, then no one can activate it. If we can’t find a way to destroy it and be sure we really destroyed everything that can activate your chip, it might be the only way for your mind to stay intact.

Or you can move to one of the African deserts… ”

She finishes her last sentence with a flinch, and I do the same. I’m a cockatoo. I need things to perch on in my animal form.

But above it all, I’m a city boy.

Without knowing my previous life, I know that without a doubt.

Being in the forest without electricity might already become a whole ordeal, but the desert? I don’t think I’d survive.

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Elhyor says after thinking about it for a few more seconds.

And that’s all that was needed to know that my life in Paris basically stops here.

Before the electrician girl leaves, Angélique stops her in her tracks.

“Any chance you could take a look at that?” she asks as she lowers the back of her shirt at the neck.

I see a small bump there that strangely looks a bit like my chip.

“Sure,” Miss F. says before talking again to her AI system.

My holographic brain disappears and in its place grows what looks like the top of a spine, but except for the small square of light materializing the chip, nothing glows.

“Zoom in, Milton,” the redhead demands, and then we can see the chip from up close.

It has small claw-like legs, but other than that, nothing seems to hold it to Angélique.

“You don’t need me for this one,” the electrician says before waving in the doctor’s direction. “Just him and a scalpel. It might hurt like a bitch because of the way it’s attached, but no damage like him.”

She packs her AI and her bag and then tells Elhyor, “I’ll wait for your transfer for both of them,” before she disappears through the door.

“I don’t mind the pain,” Angélique says to no one in particular before addressing the doctor. “Can you remove it now?”

“I’ll get my materials and will be back in a minute,” the man says.

I guess Angélique is about to be free of her chip, but I don’t plan on being here when this happens. So, I just slip through the door.

I have a bag to pack, it seems.