The Bane had pulled the line, and West went with a team to try and fix it.
I shifted from one foot to the other, again fighting the urge to run. I was having a hard time meeting his eyes. “You were attacked,” I explained. “The Bane got you. You were infected.”
“Infected?” he said, his voice breathy with shock and disbelief. “No, I couldn't… I can't… I made it this long!”
“I know,” I said, debating if I could walk away from the door or not. West was unpredictable when he forgot. He had a tendency to break things—and sometimes people.
I finally stepped away from the door and crossed to the small metal chair in the corner, opposite of where West stood. On the nightstand next to me, West’s grandfather’s notebook rested so innocently on it.
“The night you all fixed the power supply to the Pulse, you were infected. No one saw the Bane that was hiding. Royce and his men got you back here and put you under the Extractor. We weren't sure if you were going to make it or not. No one was sure how long it had been since you were touched.”
“Royce said it had to be under an hour,” West said. He rubbed the device in his chest absent mindedly. “That was the magic number.”
I nodded. I pressed my palms flat against each other between my knees, rubbing them together slowly. “We watched you for a long time, waiting to see if we could get all the cybernetics out. Normally the process takes about ten days. We waited fifteen.”
I’d fought Royce the final three days. He wanted to dispose of West, certain it had been too late to save him. The only living TorBane in the city was trapped in West’s body and Royce wasn’t willing to risk the safety of our people over one man.
In the end, Royce gave West a few more days. West had woken up just in time.
“So they fixed me, right?” West said, his voice full of hope and fear at the same time. “I mean, I'm alive. I don't feel like infecting everyone, so that means it worked?”
I tried to nod, to reassure him that he was going to be okay. But that glowing inhibitor was right there in front of me.
“Not exactly,” I said, my palms turning white as I pressed them together harder. “They thought they had everything out. But Dr. Beeson did a scan, and saw one small piece left. A half inch long, an eighth of an inch wide. That's all that's left. It’s relatively tiny. But it's formed in your heart. They can't get it out, not without killing you.”
West stared at me, almost like he hadn’t heard me. I wondered for a moment if he was lapsing again.
“And this?” he finally said, so quiet, even I almost didn't hear him. Then he glanced down at the device.
“Like I said, it’s keeping you human,” I started explaining. I rubbed a hand over my eyes, just wanting to skip the rest of this day and go home to bed. “That scrap inside of you is still TorBane. It still wants to spread throughout your body. That inhibitor is keeping it from spreading. Well, slowing it down.”
“Slowing it down?” West asked as he sank onto his bed. “Not fully stopping it?”
I shook my head. “It keeps it at bay for about two weeks at a time, but no. It doesn't stop it permanently. You have to go back in the Extractor every two weeks.”
West stared at me in disbelief for a moment. “How do you know all this? How… How long has this been going on?”
“Just short of two months,” I answered him hollowly. I sat back in the chair, my arms crossing over my chest. “You've undergone extraction three times now. And every time you come back out, you don't remember what's happened.”
West shook his head, squeezing his eyes closed tightly, like maybe he could shake the memories into focus.
“You should probably get some rest, eat some food,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I will walk with you to the kitchen, let them know you're okay.”
“Did I hurt anyone?” he asked. “They’ve got me locked up. There must be a reason for that.”
I stilled by the door. The first time he had woken, Dr. Beeson had been there, as well as some of his team. He had broken three of Dr. Beeson’s fingers and the arm of his assistant, Addie. “It doesn’t matter,” I said after too long of a pause. “We just need to focus on getting you better.”
West turned toward the mirror that hung on the wall. Or what remained of it. He had thrown a book at it the second time he woke up and broken it pretty badly. His face paled when he saw his reflection. One of his hands rose to touch his skin.
“Come on,” I said uncomfortably, trying to draw his attention away from what he was seeing. “Let’s get you some food.”
“I'm not hungry,” he said, still studying his reflection.
“Fine,” I said. “Help me get the door open?”
West didn’t respond. His head whipped to the right, toward the small window that looked out to the sunny street below. He crossed to it, looking out.
“It worked?” he breathed. “Didn’t it?”
I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Yeah, the Pulse killed them all off. We’re safe, for now.”
West took a deep breath and continued to stare out the window for a long moment. “I can’t believe I missed it.”
It was my fault he had. He’d been trying to protect me when he got infected.
Finally, he turned. With his help, we forced the door open. I stepped out into the hall.
“Are you going to terrorize anyone, or do I need to send up an armed guard?” I asked, shoving my hands into my pockets. It might have sounded like I was making a joke, but I wasn’t.
“I feel okay. Freaked out, but okay.” He shook his head when he looked out into the hall, realizing he was on the blue floor and not the residential second floor.
“Good,” I said, turning to go.
I'd only taken two steps away from West when he called out to me.
“You chose Avian, didn't you?”
I hesitated mid-step, a sharp, biting cold spreading through my veins. I had hoped we could avoid this part for just a little while longer this time around.
“Yes,” I answered simply. Without waiting for his reply, I kept walking down the hall.
TWO
“Are you okay?”
My eyes jerked to the right, finding Lin walking out of room 104. The room behind her was filled with children. They sat in a circle, reading books and coloring pictures. Lin was the new-age elementary school teacher.
I’d been standing in the lobby, zoned out, trying not to think about West or cybernetics or Bane or the complexity of love. She stopped at my side, her arms folded across her tiny frame. “West woke up, didn’t he?” she asked.
I nodded, pressing my lips tightly together. My eyes searched the lobby.
“I think Avian went back to his room,” Lin said as she too scanned the space. It wasn’t as busy as it had been a few weeks ago. The day-to-day operations of New Eden had changed. We didn’t have to worry about the Bane falling down on us. For now.
“West was pretty calm this time,” I said, looking back toward the classroom. Parents came to collect their children. Wix took Brady by the hand and led him out into the sun outside. “Once I got there anyway.”
“Are you okay though?” Lin asked. Her eyes searched for the truth I knew she’d find.
My eyes rose to the ceiling and I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “He asked about my decision almost immediately.”
“It’s still fresh for him,” Lin said.
“It’s always fresh for him,” I said, wrapping my arms around my midsection. “That’s the problem. I keep trying to move on, to let go of the guilt I feel. But him forgetting every time makes that impossible.”