Unforgotten (27 page)

“It doesn’t make sense,” I say aloud. “They have the transession gene. They don’t need her anymore.”

“Unless,” Cody says, tapping his pen on the circled text that reads
Capable of Disabling Malfunctioning Gene,
“Zen isn’t the only one who’s sick.”

There’s a creak in the floorboards and we jump and turn in unison toward the tall, statuesque figure joining us in Cody’s lab. I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there or how much he’s heard. But I have a feeling it’s too long and too much.

A disconcerting smirk dances across his perfect features as he opens his mouth and remarks in that irresistibly deep and velvety voice, “Smart man.”

43

WAR

I can’t explain what happens to me in that moment.

It’s almost as though my body declares war on itself. Half of me is terrified. Angry. Wanting to transesse right back to that guest room, scoop Zen into my arms, and leap from a tenth-story window. Regardless of whether we’ll survive the fall or not.

But the other half …

That’s the half that disgusts me. The half that feels an overwhelming rush of relief. The part of me that has been sickeningly
hoping
that he will find me. That I will see him again. It’s the part that wants to run to him now. Touch him. Feel that glorious surge of energy that charges me every time our skin connects.

It’s the part of me I don’t understand.

That I fear I will never understand.

Back and forth they battle. Reasonable hatred and inexplicable desire. He is my sworn enemy and yet I could never bring myself to defeat him. He is despicable because he was made by the hands of the people who seek to destroy my happiness. And yet we are the same.

“Kaelen,” my lips whisper his name. It slithers out of my mouth, filled with a venomous longing. A maddening fascination. A repellent attraction.

He stands motionless just across the room from me and, despite my better judgment, I let my eyes find his. Settle in. Lock.

The exhilarating sensation that runs through me is overpowering.

What is that?

Why can’t I fight it?

Why can’t I hate him? The way I want to hate him. The way I
yearn
to hate him.

I feel my feet tingling. Commanding me to him. As if the path between us now—the measly ten steps—has been carved in stone. As if there is no other way. No other road.

But I won’t.

I won’t.

I won’t.

I finally compel myself to look away, breaking the bind. Snapping the invisible wire strung between us, leaving me with the distinct sensation of falling.

I can hear his breathing. And not just because my hearing is exceptional. But because his breath is labored. He is struggling, too. And yet I didn’t need to hear it to know it.

Part of me already knows.

Part of me reads his emotions as easily as I read my own.

“Cody’s right, isn’t he?” I demand of him, finding my voice. “Alixter gave himself the gene when he came to get me in 2013. He’s sick, too.”

Kaelen remains stoically silent.

“That’s why he sent you,” I go on, undeterred. “That’s why your orders weren’t to bring me back right away. Alixter needs the cure, too. You lied,” I accuse him. “You told me you had it.”

“I told you I knew where it was,” Kaelen corrects. He still hasn’t confirmed my theory but he doesn’t need to. I know it’s the truth. I can
sense
it from his body language. From his energy. The same way I knew what he was feeling that first time we touched.

And it doesn’t matter if I’m right or not.

If Maxxer can help Zen then I have to find her. I have to go to her. Just like she wanted me to. She’s been calling to me since the beginning.

And now there’s only one thing standing in my way.

Or one person, rather.

I glower at Kaelen. “How did you find me?”

“Sera,” he says. And there it is again. My name on his lips. “You should understand by now, I will
always
find you.”

His tone is sinister. Full of warning. It’s something Alixter would say. And that makes perfect sense. He’s following
his
orders. Responding to
his
programming.

And yet, in Kaelen’s words, spoken by Kaelen’s mouth, I hear something else. Something far less sinister. Something reassuring.

“I will always find you.”

And I feel that rebellious half—that half that I despise—silently rejoice.

My mind is reeling. How
did
he find me? There were no documents. No records. I left no trail. Did someone take my picture without me realizing it? But something is telling me that there’s still a piece to the puzzle I don’t have. That there’s more to this. That it’s much bigger, much more complicated, than simply scrounging through historical records.

And that’s when the other part of me—the sane, rational part that
knows
Kaelen is an enemy who shouldn’t be trusted—starts to panic.

He takes a slow purposeful step toward me and I feel it start all over again. That pull. That energy. Like the molecules in the space between us are being spun into a frenzy.

I close my eyes, attempting to fight it.

And then I feel them. His fingertips. Grazing my forehead. Pressing against me. Showering me with tingles. My whole body is alive. I never want his hands to leave. I never want him to stop.

But then he does.

It’s over too soon and all I’m left with is the fading glow of his touch. Like the glorious pinks and grays that the sun leaves behind after it disappears over the horizon. And the sorrow of knowing why he really touched me, what he was really after.

The memory.

He took it. Those magic hands that somehow are able to caress my spirit also stole a piece of my mind.

And when I open my eyes, I see that he’s taken something else as well.

My locket is dangling from the tip of his finger, binding my fate with his for the remainder of this journey. He swings it up and catches it deftly in his hand, bringing his clenched fist close to my face. “I would strongly advise against trying to escape again.”

This time, the menacing quality of his voice is not lost. It’s not muffled by some confusing filter and made to seem dreamy and heartening. It’s a clear message. A warning from his creator.
Our
creator.

I can almost hear Alixter’s voice crossing time and space to speak through Kaelen.

He falls still for a moment, seemingly lost in deep contemplation. When he speaks again, he looks angry. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

I look to Cody for the first time since Kaelen’s surprise arrival, taking in his paralyzed expression. I imagine after everything he’s seen in my memories, everything he knows about Diotech, the sight of Kaelen in his lab is terrifying.

“I was just trying to save him,” I defend, assuming he’s still referring to my thwarted escape effort.

I watch Kaelen’s fists ball at his sides, as though he’s trying to keep from punching something. Me.

“You’ve destroyed our only chance of finding Dr. Maxxer and the antidote.”

“What? That’s preposterous.”

“You don’t seem to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation or the extent of your error.”

“My
error
?” I repeat in disgust.

“The memory clearly indicated that you were to contact Mr. Carlson
last
night, in his lab,” Kaelen says, and I immediately realize what he was doing during that brief moment of stillness. He was watching the memories he stole from my mind. He was catching up on everything he’d missed since I left him in that cab. I lean to the right, just able to make out a new receptor disk secured behind his ear.

“Yeah, so?”

“But you insisted on intercepting him earlier than the memory instructed,” he goes on, his gaze flashing momentarily to Cody. “And now the opportunity to ascertain the next clue has been lost.”

I shrug. “So why can’t we just go back to last night and get it?”

Of course, as soon as the suggestion is out of my mouth, I recognize the flaw in its logic.

“The basic laws of transession don’t allow you to occupy space in the same moment of time more than once.”

I’ve already been there. I’ve already occupied space in the time period of last night. I was at Cody’s house, with him and his wife. Making it virtually impossible for me to go back to get the memory.

“Even if you
were
capable of transessing there,” Kaelen clarifies, “which you are not, the memory is no longer valid. Mr. Carlson would not be where he is supposed to be—”

“Okay,” Cody interrupts, “can we stop talking about me like I’m not even here? And what’s this whole thing about me in your memory? Did she lead you
to
me? Is that how you found me?”

But I ignore him. “Why not?” I ask Kaelen.

“Because you effectively altered his course. The memory specified that Mr. Carlson was supposed to be in his lab last night. Working late. But he was not.”

Cody appears pensive. “Actually, he’s right. I
was
planning to work late last night.”

“But I showed up with Zen and we went back to your house,” I realize aloud.

“Yes,” comes Kaelen’s vacant response.

It
is
my fault
.

I did this. I went against what the memory told me to do and I messed it all up.

“You have prohibited us from obtaining the final clue, which we believe would reveal Dr. Maxxer’s whereabouts,” Kaelen says, solidifying my guilt.

I press my fingers to my temples. “Wait.
Final
clue. Are you saying Cody was the last stop on the map?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Like I’ve already stated,” he drones, “we were able to identify the time-delayed recalls implanted in your brain; we simply could not decode them until they were properly activated. We counted three in total.”

Three.

Chinatown.

Fifty-Ninth Street station.

Cody.

“But if there were only three,” I rationalize, “then Cody couldn’t have triggered another memory. By the time I found him there were no more memories left to trigger. So how could Maxxer’s whereabouts be revealed?”

Kaelen hesitates for a moment before finally admitting, “It would seem the final piece of information is not implanted in
your
brain.”

I draw in a sharp breath, feeling the weight of everything come crashing down on me.

“Hold on a second.” Cody jumps in before I have a chance to speak. He turns to me. “Is he implying what I
think
he’s implying?”

I feel my head fall into a stunned nod. “I think so.”

The last clue.

Maxxer’s hidden location.

The key to healing Zen.

It’s buried within
Cody’s
mind.

44

BURIED

That’s why Maxxer sent me to him. That’s why he’s involved. She must have implanted the last piece of the map in his brain when she was erasing his memories. She must have set it to trigger when I showed up. Which was supposed to be
last
night. In his lab. But now I’ve ruined that. Now it might never be triggered.

“No. No, no, no, no, NO.” Cody is pacing the length of the room. “There’s been some sort of mistake. I don’t know anything. I swear.”

“Cody,” I say, reaching out to him as he passes by and attempting to rest a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It wouldn’t be something you know
now
.” I turn to Kaelen. “Are you saying Maxxer put one of those time-delayed recalls in
Cody’s
mind, too?”

“Actually, that would be impossible,” Kaelen responds.

I squint up at him, confused.

“TDRs cannot be implanted in the average brain.”

Cody stops pacing and glowers at Kaelen. “Hey! Who are you calling
average brained
? I’ll have you know I have an IQ of 172. I went to Harvard.”

But Kaelen promptly disregards this. “They can only be implanted in enhanced neurological systems.”

“Like you and me,” I say numbly.

“Precisely.”

Cody glances anxiously between us. “I don’t get it. So what does this mean?”

“It means,” Kaelen continues stuffily, “that the memory has always been active. You may just not recognize it for what it is.”

“Then it doesn’t matter that I didn’t come here last night!” I say, a mountain of guilt lifting right off my shoulders. “If the memory is already active, he already has the information we need.”

“No, I don’t!” Cody yells. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know ANYTHING!”

Kaelen juts his chin toward him in agreement. “Just because it is active doesn’t mean he knows how to access it. He said so himself, he doesn’t know what we’re looking for. Which means Dr. Maxxer directed you here last night with the specific intention to draw the buried memory out of Cody’s brain. But because you failed to follow her direction, the proper stimulation was never introduced. Therefore, our only option is to find the information another way.”

Kaelen takes an ominous step in Cody’s direction and I watch his hand rise slowly in the air, reaching toward Cody’s forehead.

“No!” I leap between them, my arms splayed out to the sides, protecting Cody. Protecting his mind. I won’t let Cody become what I’ve become. A human database. A hard drive. I won’t let Kaelen scrounge around in his brain like he’s searching through a drawer.

I remember how betrayed Cody felt when he found out what Maxxer had done to him in that storage unit. I won’t make him go through that again.

I won’t.

“There must be another way,” I say.

“There isn’t.”

I spin around and face Cody, placing my hands urgently on his arms. “Cody, please. Try to remember. You’re Zen’s only hope.”

Cody shrugs my hands away. “What do you think? I’ve been holding out on you? That I know where she is and have been keeping it all to myself? I don’t know how many times I can tell you this. I. DON’T. KNOW. ANYTHING! You’re barking up the wrong tree.”