Page 71 of Obsession

Until Kann.

As the sea churned below me, I sucked in a breath of salty air. I'd told him I loved him. The words had slipped out when I thought we might die, and part of me hoped he hadn't heard them. What were the chances that someone like him—notorious flirt, academy legend—would fall in love?

I kicked a loose stone, watching it tumble over the cliff edge. Part of me wished I could go back to being the old Britta. The one who wasn’t roiling with emotion. The one who didn’t get attached. The one who’d kept herself safe by keeping to herself.

I cursed under my breath. "This is what I get for letting someone in."

As I turned again, I heard shouts on the wind. My hair whipped across my face as I spotted two figures running toward me across the rocky ground.

Fiona and Jess.

Jess's voice reached me first. "It's Kann!"

My chest lurched as my world narrowed to those two words.

Chapter

Fifty

Kann

The sharp smell of antiseptic was the first thing to penetrate the darkness and quiet. Then it was the unusually bright lights. I blinked sluggishly, my eyelids still heavy and my eyes gritty. My head throbbed, and when I tried to move, pain arrowed up my leg.

I sucked in a breath, biting my lip in response to the pain.

A chair scraped against the stone floor, and Volten appeared at my side. I took in the circles under his eyes and his messy hair. He looked as bad as I felt. "About time you woke up."

"Where...?" My throat was like sandpaper as I tried to talk.

"Surgery.” Volten put a hand gently on my shoulder. “You lost a lot of blood."

Fragments of memories flickered through my mind. "The simulation?"

He nodded. “Do you remember being chased and struck with a blade?”

My leg throbbed, as if reminding me of exactly where the dagger had punctured my flesh. “I remember the pain.” Then more memories drifted to the surface. “And the dungeons. I was taken to the dungeons.”

Volten tilted his head at me. “What else do you remember?”

"Tov helped us escape." I put a hand to my forehead. “I knew him. I knew the name.”

"Not-real Tov did help us escape. You were muttering about him and Zokren starting Inferno Force, so I looked it up. You were right. They did team up to create the elite band of fighters, even before Drexians had spaceships.”

“Zokren,” I said, his words jogging my memory of the Drexian who was also my ancestor. “He was there, too.”

“I have to say, I have never seen such realistic characters in a simulation. They were acting far outside any parameters that could be set in a design.”

“They did feel real.” My chest twisted at the thought of the holograms we’d befriended vanishing.

“In a way, they were,” Volten said. “Since the program started to iterate, the characters developed far beyond their programming, which is why Nav made sure to preserve them.”

I felt an inordinate amount of relief. “He did?”

Volten grinned. “We can return to the program now that the safety protocols have been restored.”

I thought about my ancestor in the program. I would not mind spending more time with him or the other illustrious founder of Inferno Force. “But we do not have to do the hunt, do we?”

Volten frowned. “No one is going to be doing the Silent Hunt again, but Zav is keeping the ancient academy as a permanent program.”

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