“I liked it,” she whispers. “Thank you… I want to learn more… I wasn’t sure you’d remember that part.”
“I do—did, I think.” I frown. “Everything feels blocked, fuzzy, like amnesia I’m just getting over but won’t ever fully conquer.” It’s the best I can do.
“Okay.” She nods. “Okay.”
“Was this our goodbye?” I hate that I’m asking this. I hate that I have mere moments left with her.
“No.” She actually smiles. “I was just meeting someone for the first time…”
I flinch. “Shit.”
“I think Sim’s smarter than you.” She says it like she finds it funny then winks. “All that science and you can’t even remember, what a waste.”
I squint. “Are you teasing me right now?”
“You’re the funny one. What do you think?”
I sigh and hang my head. “I think I did a really good job tying these knots.” I graze my fingertips over them. “And I think I’m turned on again, which is probably sick—”
“Nothing between us is sick,” she says. “Nothing.”
I nod and then pull her in for a hug and slowly start to undo all of the knots, then reach for her boxers and pull them over her hips once the rope falls to the ground.
I’m weirdly upset I only remember parts of that experience, like little fragments my brain allows me to see and keep.
“Come here.” She pulls me against her and holds me there.
A knock sounds at the door.
I wonder how long we’ve been in there; I still feel cheated.
The door bursts open, and it’s Chase. I know I can’t shield him from the smell of sex or the rope at our feet.
“Maksim?” he asks like he’s testing if it’s me. Does he know that it will always be me? Just a different part of me.
“Yeah.” I almost roll my eyes.
“There’s a problem.”
I freeze. “What?”
“King snuck off to meet the Baratta Family and stay good on his promise without any protection—without any of us, and nobody knows where he is.”
“Sergio can’t track him?”
“No.” Chase’s brow is furrowed, and his eyes hold a haunted look, as though he’s really worried. Not something he ever shows.
My breathing grows ragged as a chill seeps through me. I know what he will ask before he asks it. The cold is welcome as it flows through my veins, fragments of killing in cold blood assault like memories I want to keep. My hands covered in blood. Choking the life out of someone. I shake my head, shoving the cold away from me the only physical way I know how as I grit my teeth and listen.
“You’re the only one who we sent on those assignments, and we have no clue if they’ve moved… I would never ask this…” His entire body shudders as he glances at Izzy, then focuses his intense stare on me. “Maks… we have to find him. We can’t trust them… I’m so sorry.” He never apologizes. “I need to talk to Sim.”
I just got back, and already I have to go.
To save King, I’d cut out my own heart.
I’ll miss Izzy.
I wonder if I’ll come out of it again. If I’ll come back. Nikolai said he has no clue. I’m a fucking lab rat.
No promises.
I nod. “It’s not like I can turn it on and off.”
“Nikolai mentioned…” He lowers his voice. “That stress or emotional moments can trigger it, especially without the medicine.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Having sex would have probably done the trick since it switched back, but I’m not sure I can sit here and make love to the girl I love when I know I’m walking toward certain doom and may be like this forever.
So, I kiss Izzy hard on the mouth, I taste her, and memorize her. Then I walk up to Chase and punch him in the face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“His affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
Izzy
People don’t punch my dad and live to tell about it. I was so shocked that my gasp filled the entire room and seemed to linger. My body still felt Maksim; it felt both of them in a weird way that I couldn’t explain. He was still him, and while I thought I would be scared, I wasn’t.
Because no matter what, Maksim was still Maksim, and it broke my heart that he felt like he needed to separate himself or that he was ashamed that his brain had no choice. Had anyone told me a year ago that Maksim would literally, in his brain, be two people, I would have been confused as hell and super alarmed. And then I probably would have throat punched them for making up stories.
But now? Even being clueless, part of it made sense.
He was always the one who tried to make everyone happy, to bring laughter and his unique intelligence into the world. His laser focus was a joy to watch.