Page 7

Menace guides my head into a better drooling position against the mound of his pec and speaks with an approaching Titan. I see it in the way their eyes flash. Morbid glances at me then ahead again. They walk and talk in complete silence.

The tunnel is full of whispers, lit with the light from Titan eyes, digibadges, and periodic lanterns carried by humans. I can tell by the way the group moves that something is wrong.

“Wha—?”

Morbid glances at me. He’s a hair thinner than Menace with red eyes and smoky synthskin. “Change of plans. We’re loading into the BlazeStar directly. The Welvirs have caused us to close off too many tunnels. We’re going to end up surrounded and unable to escape if we stick with the plan. And…”

“Don’t.”

Menace sways his head. “Not right now.”

Morbid closes his mouth.

“Tell—ee.”

“It’s not a good time.”

Menace is stern.

Morbid rubs his neck like it aches. With the number of bags he carries, I’m not surprised. “You would deny her the truth?”

“She needs time.”

“We don’t have that.”

Menace fumes. “We must give her as much time to heal as possible.”

“I don—wan—ime.”

Menace sighs through his nose like he’s beyond irritated with both of us. “Your incision is still bleeding. The mission must wait if I am to take you with me.”

I don’t want to go with Menace on any mission anywhere and wriggle myself free from his arms. I fall to the dirt and land on my hands and knees, but it’s my head that hurts the most. I wince and brace my throbbing temples.

Menace crouches beside me. He’s nearly three times my size. But I’m bigger and taller than most of the women here. “Get up since you’re so hell-bent on walking on your own two feet.”

I get an unstable foot under me and waver as I push myself up. Blood leaves my head and makes my vision blackout for a few seconds. Menace has me in his arms again when I wake as if I never left.

“Do you really think you can fight a welvir off in this condition?”

Menace challenges while Morbid watches.

“I f—king hate this.”

“You’re a real piss ant, you know that?”

Menace jabs me with another needle. A flare of panic races through me as I melt into his arms.

He is such an ass. I hate being vulnerable, weak, injured. I hate that I’m not strong enough to protect others or myself and that I need help. And I need it—badly.

The pounding in my head makes me curl up in his arms. I can’t hold back the tears. They come from pains too powerful to think through. So I listen to Menace and Morbid talk.

“Savage will send coordinates based on what Clover believes is the part she needs,”

Morbid continues.

“And I have to take Sefi, why?”

Menace asks the question on my mind.

“You know, it’s odd you gave her a pet name when you supposedly dislike her so much.”

I already like Morbid. Yeah, Menace. Why?

“Shut up. I—”

Menace doesn’t finish. He growls so deeply that I can feel it in his ribs.

Morbid sighs. “Anyway, it’s because it’s a Titan communication module, a range extender for tracking Titans in battle. Sefina can probably sense it like us, especially now with that hindrance out of her head.

“We are stretched thin for help. We have to move the shield units from the deep valley since our loading zone has changed. Just get her topside. I’m forwarding the map now. Kelta will pick you up in the FeatherLite and get you to the location.”

“What about her?”

“Kelta will have some dermal repair gel from the BlazeStar.”

“Understood.”

Morbid disappears.

My vision fades in and out. Menace takes the next tunnel away from the group, sending us into darkness. Soon the only sounds are from my breath and Menace’s.

I’m terrified to be left alone with him in such a condition. He could do anything to me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

Throbbing pulses in my head ratchet up and down in waves for what feels like hours. I am so cold yet simultaneously sweating. I shiver and fight the ache in my neck to adjust my head against Menace’s chest.

He carries me without resting or stopping to take advantage of me like hunters and junkers would have.

I sway in his grasp, drool on his chest, and wish I was dead instead of enduring this humiliation. But the realization that without him, I would be lost, lying in the dark tunnel alone, unable to fight an animal off to protect myself, makes me tolerate it.

Then, I wonder why I should even bother fighting to live. I am broken, worthless to the rebellion in this condition. What purpose do I serve if not to protect my people? It’s an instinct, a duty passed down by generations of my family. There is no other purpose for me. And like a Relic, I am frustrating to retrain.

We have always and only ever been sentinels to the resistance. I finally crack under the weight of my failure and my current state. Tears fall, but I’m too weak to lift a hand and wipe them away.

“Easy.”

Menace slows and whispers calmly to me in a tender regression I don’t expect. “Deep breaths. We’re almost to the end. Kelta will have medicine for you. Yours got coated in welvir blood, but Poppy said Cara has more, and she will get some for you.”

Something about Menace’s low voice and the way it rumbles through my body from his is soothing. I drift off to sleep again. I fight it, but I’m starting to trust him. He has carried me for hours, put up with my bullshit, and not once used me for his benefit.

When I wake next, I can finally keep my eyes open. I adjust my head for a better view and study the angles of his body, lit only by the red light of his digibadge and irises.

“Tell me what you see,”

he says. I don’t know how he knows I’m awake when he hasn’t looked at me.

It is only Menace and me. “Nothing.”

An ass being nice to me and making me wonder what he wants.

“I mean when there are monsters in the dark. What do they look like without the shitty Hunter mod CSP communications relay jammed in there?”

Is that what Rebel cut out? “Welvir shapes shimmer. Humans pulse. Titans ripple but slower.”

“Two beats for humans, three for Titans?”

“Except Diesel because of his modified ultromotor,” I offer.

“How do you see what I see when I close my eyes?”

Menace asks.

“Same augment? My family has built and perfected them for over a century. You don’t think they just up and built Titans one day, do you?”

Menace eases us into the light at the opening of a tunnel shrouded by dense bushes and trees. “Do you know exactly how your parents made you?”

“Well, sex, duh.”

“But what position? What toys did they use?”

“Ew, stop. I don’t want to think about it.”

Menace shakes his head as he crouches by the entrance and looks out. “I think you can figure out what I mean.”

He doesn’t know how he was manufactured, just that he was. That, I understand. “Look, we all got together and pooled our best ideas. We didn’t put experimental tech in you until we’d first tried it on ourselves.”

“Why?”

“Ethical testing. Unlike Solcrue, we don’t like pain, so we tried to spare our creations as much as possible, giving them only the good stuff. Because war was going to be enough misery. At least that’s what my great-great-grandfather said.”

“You met him?”

“Yeah, well, his consciousness.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

I encourage Menace to set me down, then sit on a nearby rock as my body wakes up. “The cyberpsyche’s initial design was developed by my great-great-grandfather’s grandmother. He transferred himself as a test. His body died, and they initiated the upload.

“Are we copies or actually who we were?”

When feeling disconnected, I look down at the dirt and run my fingers through it the way Grandma taught me to do. “He said he remembered dying but that there was no way to tell if it was him or a copy without waking the dead body. Except they couldn’t. There was zero brain activity, even with artificial cortex stimulation. So the evidence suggests you are transferred.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

“No. I think we are inherently tied to our meat processors’ neurons and shapes. My great-grandmother did, too. It’s why she worked on the recreation of a brain with nanosolution in place, a transformative process so that a mind could become cybernetic without needing transference. I think she saw something in the initial upload design that made her experiment with CyberGuard processor recreation.”

“I thought you were from a family of sentinels.”

“Yeah, my mother’s side. My father’s family was in noggin design. I think you know which parent I took after.”

A distant growl makes me turn and scan outside.

“I hope you’re rested enough to fight since you want to so badly,”

Menace says. “Because we might need that side of you if we’re going to make it to Kelta’s ship.”

“Give me a gun?” I ask.

Menace looks me over, pulls a familiar handgun from a thigh holster, and hands it to me. “I know you want to shoot me for sedating you, but I think you’re going to want to save your bullets for the real monsters out there.”

I smirk. “Don’t be so sure you’re not with one.”

Menace’s gaze falls to my lips before he tears it away.

“What’s that for?”

“Checking your teeth.”

He grins, and I watch several of his elongate. “You are with one.”

I stare at him for a moment, unsure if I want to run from him, shoot him, or kiss him. He’s done more for me in a few short hours than most men have done for me in my whole life. And the way the sunlight glazes his contoured body stirs something primal in me I fight to block out.

“Sorry. Too much?”

Menace retracts his teeth and closes his mouth. He eases through the brush and points in the direction we’re heading. “She’s cloaked. Can you see it?”

I find the shimmering ship in the field. “You sure it’s not a trap?”

“Nope.”

“Great.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he says.

“Forgive me, Menace, if I don’t believe you. It’s kind of in your name.”

He studies me for a moment. “You don’t know why they gave me that name. I will protect you. Keeping humans safe is our prime purpose, before everything else. Hate me if you have to. It won’t change my priorities.”

“Then, I guess we’re in a predicament because my job is to protect humans and Titans.”

Menace eases closer until his breath warms my face. His every muscle is tense and ready for action. “I am sorry that I am not more like the other Titans. I just don’t want to talk about the past, but it is why I am so angry all of the time. Can you forgive me? I am trying to be—kinder.”

Sincerity dances in his red eyes, and it stifles the urge to snap back at him. I think he copes like me. “We’ve all been through some shit of one kind or another. But thank you for telling me. Sometimes, I fear I’m crazy for thinking the way I do. But then again, I’d never wish for my terror to wreck anyone’s life just so I could have a friend who understands how messed up I am.”

Menace’s eyes trace the features of my face as if he’s searching for something. “Good Creators built me with good intentions and a goal to preserve life. Then evil caught me and tried to turn me into something else. And I held out for so long, Sefi. So many months. And each day, they would ask if I was ready to turn the torture over to someone else.

“They’d offer to stop hurting me. I couldn’t decide if it was a test or if someone truly demented had stolen us. It was a game of survival to endure procedures I’d never seen in my worst nightmares. And then, one day, I became that nightmare.”

“Hunters and junkers can be ruthless, too,”

I mutter, hoping no one ever sees my scars again, or I fear they’ll run from me like they do Menace.

Menace turns to scan the area, but I don’t see any approaching welvirs, even if I can hear them. “I’m glad you’re okay. Because if I’m honest, I was scared.”

“You, scared?”

I laugh softly in disbelief. “Impossible.”

Menace looks down, and I realize he truly was.

“You’re serious.”

“Yeah. Usually. Macabre was more of a joker than me.”

“What could possibly scare an alpha monster like you?”

He runs a hand over his mouth and thinks for a moment. “Losing hope. Without it, down here where we have so little and have lost so many, it brings back a lot of bad memories that could easily swallow me. They dig in with some pretty big teeth.”

“And what gives someone like you hope?”

Menace drags his eyes back to mine. “Someone who understands my kind of pain but fights anyway.”

“Ah, yeah. I feel like all I do is try and fail, lately.”

He slinks back to the opening. “Same for most of us. It’s why hope is so important.

“Are you awake enough to make a run for it?”

I draw in a deep breath. “My pride hates to say it, but I’ll follow you.”