Page 47 of Never Lost

“My owner’s dead, and no one else knew he had me. It won’t be easy, but if I lie low, I’ll be fine.”

It would be half a life, at best, a pale shadow of what she’d been promised. But it would also be away from Resi, so it might be okay. And it was no consolation at all.

“What are you here for, anyway?” I growled. “A hug goodbye?” I’d rather hug a king cobra.

“No,” she said, squinting at me curiously. “You worethatshirt to dinner?”

With a groan, I remembered Felix’s contempt toward my wardrobe. “Youtold me to buy it! And not the point.”

“Sorry. Anyway, I’m here because of Maeve.”

“Maeve?”

“She really was my friend.”

“Oh,” I said. “So then it makestotalsense that you betrayed herandus because you wanted to marry a millionaire.”

“Okay, yes. I did want that,” she blurted out. She was sounding younger by the minute. “But I loved Max, or at least, I thought I did. And Resi said he loved me, he just wouldn’t admit it, and that if I gave her more time, she couldmakehim admit it. And that’s why I went along with her, at first. But once I realized she was lying about everything, it was too late.”

“Too late? How?”

“Either I did what she told me to do, or she’d kill me.”

I supposed I should have gathered that.

“Anyway, I wasn’t lying about Maeve. I-I don’t lie about everything.” There was desperation in her voice. To be believed. To be trusted. To be looked at as more than a con artist, as more than what the world had made her be. Something I inherently sympathized with, despite everything. “She was my best friend. My only friend, probably. And if there’s one thing I regret about what happened, it’s that I’ll never see her again.”

“So what?” I said stubbornly. “You want me to take the message?”

“No, I want you to take this.”

I turned completely, and she approached with a computer printout with a jumble of letters and numbers.

I scanned it rapidly. “But this is—” I snatched it out of her hand. “The formulawaswrong.” I raced to the computer, rapidly punching buttons until the molecule burst onto the holographic screen, staring at them in disbelief.

Nowmy solution worked, of course. Cue the professor’s nod. “How did you know about this?”

“Because I’m the one who left you the formula to begin with.”

“What?”

“Well, after Resi found out Corey wouldn’t be coming back, she ordered me to go comb through his office and take back anything he left that looked like it might be important. And I found the tablet. And I almost took it, but I decided to leave it there. For you. I-I mean, Max told me you were good at that kind of thing.”

“Well, shit,” I said, jaw hanging open. “Thanks for almost getting meandLouisa killed before I could do anything with it.”

She grimaced, then asked in a tiny voice, “Water under the bridge?”

I groaned and ran my hands through my limp hair. “We still need to synthesize a catalyst. To make the serum.”

“Good thing we’re in a chemistry lab, then.”

“I’ll need your help,” I said, returning to the cabinets and removing more compounds. “What do you know about electrolysis?”

“Surprisingly? A lot.”

I turned back, raising my eyebrows.

“I worked here for like a year, you know. Ammonium persulfate, right?”