Page 24 of Never Lost (The Unchained #3)

HIM

I n the jungle river town, life unfolded like a dream—the dream of freedom, the one I’d never before allowed myself to have.

The place was painted in emerald and sapphire.

The air hung heavy, pregnant with the scent of hibiscus and orchids.

In town, taco stands and handicraft shops dotted every corner as locals whizzed by on motorbikes, engines humming with the rhythmic splash of fishing boats cutting through the aquamarine river that spliced the town into two.

A stroll along the dock revealed marinas adorned with boats of all sizes and colors, their masts standing tall against a backdrop of lush foliage.

Monkeys and parrots shrieked and chattered from deep within. In short, it was paradise.

That is if the postcard someone had taped to a cabinet in Langer’s lab was anything to go off.

It didn’t make sense. And not just the formula.

I had to be the biggest idiot alive to trust Max Langer , of all people, to keep my sister safe until I could get to her. And if I was that much of an idiot, it went without saying that I didn’t like my chances of reaching an earth-shattering scientific breakthrough in a matter of hours.

For the millionth time, I glanced out the window at the murk of the empty office park. Silence. I was alone. The helicopter was gone, the Porsche left behind. From now on, any getaway I made would be on foot.

In other words, I was doomed.

“I had a feeling you might say that,” was Max’s response on the helicopter, when I told him my plan—the plan I should have told him about right from the start. The plan that would, like no plan before, help all of us: Maeve, Louisa, her father, Max, and the girls.

I had neglected to mention myself. But if Max had noticed, he hadn’t said anything. He’d just listened closely, nodding. Reassured me that he’d look after Maeve, no matter what.

He knew my mind was made up.

He’d also told me how to change the entry codes but also that Resi knew a hack to get around it. So when I’d arrived at the lab, I not only did that but checked the locks and even pushed furniture in front of some of the doors. That wouldn’t hold forever. But hopefully, I wouldn’t need forever.

Hopefully, in coming back, I hadn’t signed my own death warrant.

But I very well might have. Which probably explained the compact Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter that now sat on the steel table next to me.

I’d never touched a gun before tonight, of course.

Not like I hadn’t been curious, like many red-blooded males.

But it had never needed to be spelled out for me that slaves handling firearms was Not Allowed.

Of course, a lot of things had changed. But that hadn’t. Because the world hadn’t. Yet.

Anyway, I was already so far outside the law at this point it didn’t matter. Besides, Max Langer had given it to me. I wasn’t sure how much credence that had, though, now that the former corporate wunderkind was outside the law, too.

“Were you armed this entire time?” I had demanded when Max suddenly whipped open his jacket and pulled the pistol out of a holster.

“I was not. And why are you shouting?”

“Oh. Sorry,” I said, realizing that the whole point of the headset was so we wouldn’t have to shout.

My eyes followed his manicured hands as he demonstrated deftly unloading the magazine and toggling the safety. My eyes grew wider by the second.

“Normally, I leave this stuff to my security staff, but I’m going in alone from here,” Max said before chambering a round and handing the loaded pistol over to me like a stick of gum.

I stared down at it uncomprehendingly.

“Well? Give it a try. You’re right-handed, right?”

“Yeah, but?—”

“Then that’s likely your dominant eye. But let’s find out.” After demonstrating, he signaled to the pilot to unlock the door and pushed it open.

Palms slick, heart hammering, my fingers curled around the cold, hard metal of the trigger, gazing down the sight with both eyes open as Max had suggested, aiming for the moon.

“Physics says it has to come down, you know,” I said.

“It’s bare desert below us now. Shoot.”

So I aimed a single bullet at the throat of that cold purple-black horizon, the jolt it returned as deep as if the projectile had lodged itself inside me .

“Thanks,” I said grudgingly. “I guess.”

Max smiled. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Back in the lab, I decided Max must have Maeve by now.

They must be on the plane, my sister’s golden eyes soon to reflect the promise of the horizon at first light, winging toward that postcard paradise I’d just thrown aside.

And that did let me breathe a little easier, to think of Maeve safe in the clouds.

But not enough. Because I should be there.

I should have been there. I should have been the first one she saw, the first arms she ran to when they opened the gates for her.

Because even though Max understood what freedom meant to the world, I was the only one who knew what freedom meant to her , and to myself. And it would be my only chance, ever.

“Hey.” Back on the copter, Max had recognized that same look in my eyes. “Kid. Look at me.”

Max had told the pilot to touch down in an empty wash about a mile away from the lab, and as much sand as the rooftop landing had churned up, it was about a thousand times worse now.

It rattled the reinforced glass windows and made chaos of everything onboard, clothes and hair included, spraying grit in our eyes and down our throats.

Still, I lingered, while the pilot’s annoyance practically vibrated through the engine.

A bullet hole in his fuselage, and now this .

But Max hadn’t seemed to notice. I met his icy blue eyes one last time. Blinked. Held a steady gaze, the same one that had first made him pause and look twice, all those months ago.

“I might be the one buying her, but you’re the one who saved her,” Max had said. “I know that. And so does she.”

I nodded and swallowed.

He held out his hand, and here it was: that weird half-handshake, half-hug that men engaged in when they both felt emotion, knew they felt emotion, and knew neither one wanted to acknowledge it.

“Don’t get yourself killed, okay? It would be bad for business,” he explained.

“And say hi to Curly Sue for me. Maybe someday I’ll get to meet her properly. ”

I smiled, despite myself. “Like I’d ever let her near you.”

Max grinned. “See you on the other side, kid.”

I threw off the headset. Closed my eyes, blinking away the desert grit, clearly the one and only reason why they suddenly felt misty.

Then I leaped—gracefully enough, I liked to think, stumbling only once as I landed in the dust of the wash.

As I did, I could have sworn Max shouted something else, but if so, it was lost in the chaos.

So I kept moving, out of the swirling storm made by the dragonfly wings.

The ones that would have been, could have been, my ride to freedom—not like there was any point dwelling on that .

And I made it all the way across the dry river and toward the lights of the industrial park below before pausing to turn back. But the copter was already gone.

Now an hour had passed, and I was still in the lab, jumping at every noise loud enough to cut through the rhythmic hum of machines and my own pounding heart.

The lights overhead flickered like fireflies in a jar, casting eerie shadows on the walls. I paced back and forth, my mind racing as I scrutinized the molecules, examining and manipulating them from every possible angle, and the clearer it became—I was fucked.

Theoretically, the solution I’d put on the screen should work.

The basic hypothesis, based on what I’d read in those lab reports I wasn’t supposed to see, was that the formula Resi had found, when injected, would depolymerize the chip and magnetize the components with the help of nanotechnology.

At that point, it could then be drawn safely out of the body, intact, physically degraded but theoretically still transmitting, by the use of a neodymium magnet.

That was the idea, anyway. The problem was, that only got you halfway.

You couldn’t examine or experiment on intact chips without first pinpointing exactly where they were in the body.

And you couldn’t do that —or at least Resi couldn’t—without lopping off limbs and, uh, killing people.

Which—as arrogant as it sounded—must mean the formula was wrong, not me. It was missing a part, I realized. The one that could actually attract the polymer and somehow locate the chip, and prove my solution correct.

My weary mind bushwhacked back through the intricate web of chemical knowledge the old professor had long ago cracked my head open to pour inside.

I recalled the lamplit nights hunched over the desk in the professor’s cluttered study, and couldn’t help, for a second, but wonder what old Jurgen himself would think if his former slave were to actually pull this off.

The pompous, pie-eyed old bastard wouldn’t give a shit whether my discovery helped slaves.

But he sure would give a shit that it was right .

Yeah, I stood by my loathing for my old master and always would, but we’d had that in common.

That longing for that rare, curt nod of approval.

The professor from his abusive stepfather, me from the abusive professor.

The one that in a million years I would never admit to wanting—wouldn’t admit to wanting it from Max, either. Or even Keith , bizarre as that seemed.

But that, I supposed, was the sad lot of all fatherless boys.