Page 37 of The Bleeding Woods

The Hummer was never missing. It was hidden.

The first of my senses to reawaken was my hearing, and unbeknownst to Grayson, I picked up on his signature baritone reverberations barking orders to someone unseen.

He was likely using the cell connection that we also never lost to request the vehicle’s safe and speedy return to our location.

Now I sit in the passenger seat, Grayson at my left, his foot pressed ferociously to the gas pedal.

The look in his eyes is one I’ve never seen before.

It is a look of icy fire, a look of pure, unfeeling dutifulness.

My wrists are bound, my head spins, and worst of all, the man beside me does not look like a friend.

“Grayson?” I croak. “What is going on?”

My own blood stills. “How . . . how do you know what they called him?”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls a card out from it, and flicks it onto the dashboard. Agent Grayson Warner is spelled out in bold beside a photograph of him wearing a clean gray suit with an embossed tie clip.

I stare at him, at a loss for all words save for, “You knew about him . . . you knew about me . . .”

“There’s a triad of intelligence organizations assigned to clean up the massacre that came out of Project Undergrowth.

Your parents tried to keep your secret, and we let them think they could.

” He pauses, blinks edged with unreadable steel.

“A lot of people know about you, Clara. AV-7D, if you’re curious.

There’s been eyes on you since you were born, agents like me stationed everywhere.

Babysitters, teachers, tutors—you name it.

Usually, they’re more covert than the gentleman who tailed us into Blackstone, but the stakes have never been higher.

He got nervous, sloppy. I almost slipped a few times myself. ”

He swallows hard.

“I promise it’ll all make sense soon.”

My head feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton packed against every corner of my skull. There is a roaring in my ears and blazing white fury obscuring my vision. “Why?” is all I can say.

“It was . . . necessary.”

“Necessary?”

Grayson presses on the brakes. I tip forward in my seat, unable to steady myself with my hands tethered to one another.

Without so much as a single waver, he looks me dead in the eyes and says, “We believe you’re the single thing on this planet capable of taking him down.

We’ve sent in forces—some disguised as road-trippers, some in full-blown body armor.

None of them have made it so much as a few hours here.

You’re the only one that might be able to match his strength, and that makes you our only hope.

That makes you the world’s only hope. There’s a particle barrier around Blackstone meant to imprison him, but he’s been pushing against it and spreading his forest beyond it.

If he finds a way to break through, there’s no telling what could . . .”

He takes off again, the car whipping through the landscape like a silver bullet.

“We knew he’d be tempted by you. You’re from the same facility.

You have similar biosignatures. He was trying to get you to stay with him because he needs an ally.

The barrier is matched to his DNA. As of now, he can’t cross it, but you can.

Winning you over would give him leverage like you wouldn’t believe.

It would give him a gateway, and then . .

. well, you spoke to him. I think you can imagine what comes next. ”

There are so many things moving through my mind, but only one claws its way to the surface, determined to be heard. “You brought Joey and Jade up here with us. You knew what we were walking into, and you brought them with us. You let them die.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. Lines of shimmering salt water manifest beneath his lashes. His mask cracks; he stops playing the part.

“JS-7R is smart. He knows what we’re trying to do.

If he suspected, even for a moment, that you were with us, it would’ve been game over.

I argued to bring you in myself. I fought for it, Clara, but there were too many risks, and .

. .” Grief spins in those icy irises. He shoves it away. “It wasn’t my call.”

“Whose call was it?” If it wasn’t for the pill circulating power-numbing effects through my bloodstream, that statement would have been the start of a massacre much worse than what I’d done to my parents on the highway. I’ve never felt heartbreak like this, not even back then.

“I’m not authorized to provide that information at the moment. I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

I muster every last bit of patience in me to steady my breathing back to a manageable pace.

I do not look at him; I cannot look at him.

He lied to me, just as my parents had. However, his lie was far more sinister and far less forgivable.

They had lied to keep my vision blurred by a dark veil, to provide me with a past tinted just a few shades too rosy.

Grayson lied because . . . because he’d been . . .

“Was any of it real?” I ask, hating the words the moment they slip between my teeth. “Were we ever . . . ? Did you ever—” All those longing glances, fleeting touches, and flustered blushes. They existed only to add another layer of deception to his already flawless facade.

Agent Grayson Warner.

Agent Grayson Warner, stationed to monitor Specimen AV-7D.

Hours pass before I gain enough composure to speak to him without weeping, tearing his head off his shoulders, or both.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a base beyond the northern edge of the forest, outside the particle barrier. It’s where we stored the car.”

“Why are we going there?”

“To regroup and form a game plan while JS-7R musters his strength.”

“And what, exactly, makes you think I’m going to help you, Agent Warner?”

He turns to me unhurried, his eyes as sincere as they are severe.

“You exist because the EHKI allows you to exist, Clara. For all intents and purposes, you’re an illegal specimen co-owned by every government that funded Project Undergrowth.

If you make them believe you’re incapable of the task they left you alive to complete, they will kill you. ”

“And what if I would rather die than help you.”

Something like anguish flickers onto his features, something that makes me feel safe again. Safe, against my will. Safe, despite all that’s been revealed.

“Please don’t say that,” he says. “You have every right to hate me. You have every right to want me dead, and after this, you’ll never have to speak to me again.

There just . . . has to be an after this for you.

None of this is fair. None of this has ever been fair, but after JS-7R is dead, you’ll get the chance to live your life.

If I have anything to say about it, you’ll get the chance to live your life. ”

I don’t even know if I want my life anymore. I’d give anything for someone else’s, but my own feels more like a curse than a blessing.

We don’t speak again. The silence is like carbon monoxide as Grayson drives.

He drives, and drives, and drives until an unimpressive white dome comes into view.

It is just large enough to conceal a truck, an unwelcoming outdoor toilet, a coffee machine, a microwave, and a small tower capable of picking up signals from whoever Agent Grayson Warner answers to.

Once we are inside, he busies his hands with the buttons on the coffee machine.

For himself, he brews a French vanilla latte.

For me, he makes a cappuccino with oat milk, two sugars, and a dash of cinnamon.

I scowl at it, but he sets it in front of me anyway.

My stomach burns with hunger. I hiss at every instinct crying out for sustenance.

With weary eyes and stature withered, Grayson leans against the table holding the appliances and takes slow, pensive sips of his beverage.

“So . . . what did you learn about JS-7R when you two were in private? Any weaknesses that might help you when you face him?”

I scour my brain. This is the last thing I want to think about, but I don’t have much of a choice. I either die at the hands of Grayson’s royal we or suffer at Jasper’s. Still, I sip my cappuccino at a defiantly slow pace before providing anything.

“When he was in my mind, he had control of it, and of me.”

An angry muscle feathers in his jaw. “He . . . has telepathic abilities, yes. Almost every squad we’ve sent in has succumbed to menticide one way or another.”

“When I was in his mind . . .” I continue.

“He couldn’t touch me. There was nothing for him to grasp on to.

I was just there, more of an awareness than an actual presence vulnerable to his sway.

If I can get in there again, maybe I can .

. .” I run both hands through my hair, frustration making me anxious and anxiety making me jittery.

“I don’t know. If we’re the same kind of monster, maybe I can menticide him too. ”

The ghost of a smile slips over Grayson’s lips. It is thoroughly weighed down, but it is there. “Menticide is a noun, Clara.”

I growl. He raises his free hand in surrender, taking another swig of French vanilla goodness with the other.

I almost can’t believe it. After all this conniving manipulation, after costing Joey his life and letting Jade fall off that ridge, here he stands, caffeinating himself and correcting my grammar.

We sit in silence for another terrible eternity, taking cyclic sips.

“Anything else?” He finishes off the remaining contents of his plain Styrofoam cup.

“He doesn’t want to be alone.” I send my gaze to the plastic wall of our glorified tent. Through its semiopaque texture, the silhouettes of Jasper’s trees loom. The darkness that emanates from them is nearly alive. It stares back at me. It always stares. “All he wants is—”

“Clara, listen to me. JS-7R doesn’t want company, or connection, or anything he tried to convince you of. He wants revenge, domination. He doesn’t want a friend; he wants to break out of here and massacre the world as we know it. No matter how human he looked, or sounded, or . . . f-felt . . .”

Is that anger, Agent Warner? Perhaps . . . jealousy, Agent Warner?

“He’s not human. He’ll never be human.”

“He and I are more alike than different.” I shrug.

Grayson grabs both of my hands in his, suddenly desperate, the most desperate I’ve seen him.

“I’ve been observing you for a long time, and I know for a fact that isn’t true.

Sometimes I think you’re the most human soul I’ve ever met.

Humanity doesn’t come with the costume. It’s a choice, one that we have to make every day.

JS-7R is a monster because he wants to be.

You’re Clara Lovecroft, not AV-7D, because that’s who you want to be. ”

I bring my gaze to the trees twitching in the wind, creaking like brittle bones.

Someone ancient and forbidden looms between them, just as something ancient and forbidden looms within me.

I find myself at the apex of too many choices.

A choice between human and monster. A choice between the greater of three evils.

A choice between forgiveness and fury. Between Grayson and Jasper. Between Jasper and myself.

I also find myself dreadfully dizzy.

When I sway to the side, Grayson’s arms are there to catch me.

He’s always there to catch me. My muscles feel like they’re melting off the framework set by my bones, and my head spins like a merry-go-round horse.

Every light comes in and out of focus, glimmering, twinkling, and dancing against the veils that crowd my vision.

“I’m sorry, Clara. I’m sorry for . . . everything.”

Grayson’s voice is an echo easily smothered by senses drowned in sleep. It steals me like a wave steals the shore, engulfing me in a breathless, timeless gloom.