I blink back tears.

“Seeing you at the asylum, sweet girl, knowing what they planned to do to you, how much they would hurt you, I’m overcome by sorrow. The only thing I should have done was love you. You’re a beautiful girl, inside and out, and I want only the best for you. But I wasn’t the best mother. I didn’t give you the best life, despite the money and fame, but I will give you the best future.”

The tears cascade down my cheeks now, rivers of remorse and sorrow, leaving hot streaks behind.

“I’ve arranged to get you out of Prynne and bring you home. Your future—your Everlife—is your own. I wish...well, it doesn’t matter now. Take care of Jeremy. He’s your brother, sweet Ten. He’s going to need you. Your father sees him as a second chance. A chance to meet the conditions of his contract without you. Loophole. Because of population control, the contract doesn’t mention you specifically, merely his child. I’m so sorry, sweet girl. I want Jeremy to live. I want you to live. My prayer is that you have a long, long Firstlife, happy and content, and in your Everlife you are free of regrets.”

I hunch over to contain a sob. Does my mother know she and Jeremy are going to die together? And soon? Is she trying to tell me that my dad now wants me dead?

Is he the one who arranged the plane crash? The car wreck? He must be.

I am bleeding inside as I stuff the device in my pocket.

Archer opens the door; he’s back in his Shell, his expression grim. “Your father is here. You were noticed on camera. He’s being told of your presence right—”

“Ten!” My father’s voice echoes off the walls.

Chapter nineteen

“The future belongs to us.”

—Myriad

“Ten!” my father shouts. “I know you’re here.”

My mother is sleeping so deeply, she doesn’t stir.

Maggie rushes to the crib and gathers Jeremy close. “I’m sorry to abandon you, but I don’t want the senator to notice the boy and take him away from me.”

“I understand,” I say even though everything inside me screams to keep the boy near me.

“Don’t worry, dear. The nursery is your mother’s walk-in closet.”

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Archer says.

As a Troikan, he can’t harm a human without punishment and that’s what it will take to get me out of here unscathed.

Trust him, a part of me cries. He’ll find a way.

No. Sorry. I won’t trust him, not about this. “Stay in the nursery,” I tell him. “Do as you promised for my brother. You and Killian taught me how to fight for a reason. Now let me fight. I’ll be okay.” At least physically.

My father has a way of wounding my heart.

“Ten!”

Archer looks as if he wants to argue with me.

I shake my head. “Nursery. Now.”

He scowls, but as my Laborer, he can’t stay where he’s not wanted and he does as I requested. Perfect timing. My father storms into the room—and stops.

He actually smiles at me. “You’re here.” He closes the distance and draws me in for a bear hug. “You finally did it. Ten, I’m so proud of you. Thank you. Thank you for signing with Myriad.”

Frowning, I wrench away from him. “Why would you think I signed with Myriad?”

He blinks at me. “Because you’ve been released.”

“No, I escaped.”

His brow furrows with confusion, as if I’m speaking in a foreign language. “But you signed with Myriad first.”

“No. I’m still Unsigned.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you trying to hurt me? Is that it?”

A bomb of rage detonates—I have thousands on tap, collected over the past year. “Me hurt you? Daddy, you paid people to torture me. And I think... I think you tried to kill me.”

His cheeks redden. “Everything I did, I did for your own good.” He grips me by the shoulders and shakes me. “I wanted you happy in the Everlife. I wanted to be a family.”

“We could have been a family here, in this life!”

He continues as if I said nothing. “But you wouldn’t cooperate. You weren’t just ruining your life, you were ruining ours.”

It’s as good as a confession. Every internal wound he’s ever given me splits open once again, and I cry out. “Did you poison Mom?”

“No! I would never hurt her.”

He truly sounds offended. “But you can hurt me, right?” Something my mom mentioned peeks through the dark mire of my thoughts. “Lifeblood.” Black market, I bet. “You fed her Lifeblood, and it healed her reproductive organs. And just in case that didn’t work, you got yourself a girlfriend and got her pregnant.”

His eyes beseech me to understand. “You don’t understand. Every day, Madame Bennett pressured me.”

Boo-hoo. “I know a little something about pressure!”

“Not like this. Every day she threatened me and cajoled. She even gave me a tour of Many Ends, which is where I’ll end up if my contract is voided.”

How could she give him a tour of Many Ends when the Myriadians have no way inside it? “To save yourself, you were willing to send me to Many Ends.” How has the man who carried me on his shoulders so I could reach the sky become this? “You’re a coward!”

He shakes his head as he backs away from me. “You don’t understand,” he repeats. “Madame Bennett was right. Prynne stripped away your weakness and left you with strength. You’re going to be an indomitable Abrogate, and I helped you. I played a part. I should be praised, not castigated.” He’s not listening, choosing instead to focus on anything but the crux of the matter.

“If happiness is dependent on outside variables, it can’t last. Variables always change. Real happiness has to come from within. Right here.” I hit my heart with my fist. “Sometimes you have to dig for it, and you have to dig deep. I know because I managed to find glimpses of it even when I was locked inside a cell, spied on and beaten.”

“Enough!” He stalks to the door, but pauses to glance over his shoulder. “You’re making it difficult to love you, Ten.”

As long as there’s breath, there’s hope.

I’m not sure that’s true. “I’ll kill you before I allow you to use my brother.”

The muscles between his shoulders bunch. “I’m going to lose everything. You get that, don’t you?”

I dismiss him and stalk to the bed to wake my mother. I’m getting her and Jeremy out of here. As I gently pat her cheek, the coldness of her skin makes my stomach twist. Her lips are bluer than before...lips that are now curved into a smile I haven’t seen since I was a little girl.

Dead...no. No, no, no. “Mom. Momma.” I give her shoulders a shake.

Her eyes remain closed, her body as limp as a noodle.

I look to my dad, but he’s already gone.

“Maggie,” I shout.

She bursts from the closet/nursery, Jeremy tucked in her arms. Her eyes are red-rimmed, as if she’s been sobbing. Pink lines streak her cheeks. Like me, she’s been crying.

Archer is stoic.

“She’s not responding,” I say. “You have to help me...” What? Perform CPR? Baiser de la mort decimates the heart, reducing it to tattered remains. There’s nothing to resuscitate.