Page 50 of The Program

A chuckle trickled out of me at her surprisingly apt description. ‘Kind of,’ I admitted. ‘Libby and I started jokingly using the termcyborgsand it kinda stuck. They implanted cybernetic enhancements inside us. Nanites, chips, that sort of thing.’

‘By the stars…’ said the blonde, her words breathy with shock. ‘So that stuff that was on your skin…?’

I didn’t see any reason to hide what I was. It was clear now that some truths needed to be revealed and boundaries put in place.

‘It’s some sort of metallic substance, yes, but I don’t know what type. It seems to only appear when I’m being threatened. I don’t know much else. It’s new.’

‘It’s what got us out of the facility. If it weren’t for Artemis and her enhancements we would still be stuck there,’ Libby cut in.

Her comment seemed to provide enough reason for them all to relax. A few even decided they no longer needed to be a part of this conversation and left. I hoped they weren’t only here for the fight. Anyone who wanted to break up the tentative peace of our little community could cause irreversible harm to what we were trying to build here.

Obviously staying here probably wasn’t in the cards for us. The Program would find us eventually since we were still too close to their facility for them not to search here. Sure, we could stay hidden for a little while but I was underno illusion that we were completely safe here. Honestly, nowhere was safe from The Program.

The only thing I did know was that if we were going to continue to dodge themandthrive then we would need to work together. There could be no weak links. I chose to believe that everyone here was aware of that fact, which was why no one tried to prevent those two pairs from leaving that first day of freedom. I could only beseech fate that they wouldn’t get caught and rat us out.

Something told me we wouldn’t be so lucky.

CHAPTER 17

ARTEMIS

‘Do you have your holo-tab?’ I asked Libby for the umpteenth time. She’d proven to me that it was still safely within her possession enough times that I shouldn’t have had to ask, but the anxiety over leaving her again was overruling any sense. The persistent whisper in the back of my mind kept insinuating that she’d lost it and I’d be leaving her without a method of contact.

She pulled it out of the jumpsuit’s front pocket and waved it in front of my face, making sure I watched as she placed it safely back inside, zipping it closed again. ‘I’ve got it, A. Don’t worry about that.’

I glanced between her and the miserable Dave Junior who was a quivering mess beside her. Every ounce of my being told me it was wrong to leave them, but there was no other way. Junior couldn’t come with me because he was just a baby and The Program would be more than eager to get their filthy hands on him.

I was just going to have to get back as quickly as I could.

I knelt in front of him, spreading my arms wide in an invitation for a hug. He took it, leaping inside my embrace and rubbing his soft cheek against mine. His snout nuzzled at my neck, tangling himself in my now shoulder-length hair. I giggled, the action tickling me, and he nipped at my shoulder as if he wanted to latch on and never let go.

Me too, buddy.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ I promised him as I pried him off. It physically pained me to do it, and from the whining that emanated from his chest he felt the same way. When I put him on the ground, he bent his legs at the knees asif preparing to jump right back into my arms, but I levelled him with a stern look.

‘No, Junior. You need to stay here and be good for Libby until I come back.’

It was as if I’d ripped out his heart and stomped on it, and his answering whimper brought out the same feeling in me. Hurting him like this was torture, but I simplycouldn’ttake him with me.

The crack in my heart widened even further when he turned and ran off into the trees, his thundering footsteps disappearing into the forest as he headed in the direction of the cave. He accidentally knocked a few of the women over on his way past, and they shot disgruntled glares in the direction he’d disappeared.

Libby wrapped herself around me in a constricting embrace and buried her face into my neck, mirroring Junior’s previous motions. I turned my own face into her hair to hide the fact that tears were falling freely from my eyes like a leaky faucet I couldn’t turn off and squeezed her right back.

She wheezed out a groan of pain, and I immediately gentled my grip. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, still holding her to me but allowing her to breathe.

‘Take care of him for me, yeah?’ I asked of her again, my voice wavering with barely contained emotion.

‘If he doesn’t eat me first,’ she joked with a watery smile.

‘I’ll call as soon as I’m up there,’ I promised.

‘You’d better.’

She pulled away from me then and headed back to the cave, taking the same path Junior had used to run off. She didn’t look back, not because she didn’t want to but because we both knew she wouldn’t be able to let me leave if she did.

‘You sure you can get our babies back?’ asked Francesca, her tone uncharacteristically small. She was an enigma, her reactions and emotions typically inconsistent, but even when she was quiet she had a silent strength to her that told you she was a force to be reckoned with. Now, she looked small and frail. Afraid.

And it wasn’t just her.

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