Page 78 of The Program

I didn’t know what it was about Artemis, but I struggled to focus on anything else when she was around. Perhaps it was my instincts sensing the predator in the room, or perhaps it was something else entirely, but I felt no small amount of frustration that she was taking up so much space in my head.

‘Reece,’ Artemis brightened when she saw her friend awake and upright. But when she stood back up she started scanning the room instead of giving him her attention. I thought it was strange until T held out her discarded jumpsuit.

‘Here,’ he spoke up for the first time since Demari had appeared again. His tone terse and his scowl fierce, but there was a gentleness in his eyes that I wish I’d missed. It was obvious that their history was convoluted with emotion, and his turmoil was evident in the way he treated her. One moment they were sniping, and the next they were comforting one another. Their warring emotions were giving me whiplash just from observing them.

She took the outfit from him with a grumbly gratitude, but quickly donned the unattractive garb. I relaxed a little when she was covered, though the tight fit didn’t leave much to the imagination, especially now that I was aware of the lack of anything underneath. How anyone could pull off a maintenance uniform, I had no idea.

Bromm came to stand beside Reece, resting a hand on his shoulder. He was still stark naked, but I didn’t think he noticed. Reece, however, did, and scrunched his nose up in disgust.

‘Put some clothes on, man,’ he said, leaning away from the Griknot’s still-hard cock, glistening from being inside Artemis.

‘Hmm?’ Bromm hummed the question, then looked down at himself. ‘Oh, right.’

While he hunted for his own clothes, helped by a smug-looking Cadmus, Artemis approached her recovering friend.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, her concern genuine.

‘I’m feeling like I have no idea what’s going on. Arty, last time I checked, you were a man.’ He seemed particularly distressed over the revelation, and though I could understand it to a certain extent, I also knew the reasons behind her lies. She wasn’t necessarily being deceitful, and it wasn’t personal so I wasn’t holding it against her, but I wondered if Reece would view things differently.

I hoped things weren’t about to get even more complicated…

‘Well, I was never really a male,’ she admitted, and if it weren’t for what I’d already learned about The Program and their experiments I would have believed it an unnecessary statement. Now, though…

The silver-haired man eyed her as if she were a complete stranger, and my chest ached a little for her when I saw the heartbreak in her eyes at the reaction.

‘Do you want the long story or the short one?’ she asked him, but the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway outside put a halt to the conversation before it could continue. I expected Demari, but was surprised – though equally pissed off – when another face appeared instead,

‘She’s been a subject within The Program her entire life, for some reason she was pretending to be a boy, and now you’re all trapped by The Program again. The end,’ he said, obviously having heard our conversation. Were they watching us, or did our voices simply travel that far for him to hear at a distance?

Reece locked eyes with the very man that had put him behind bars in the first place, but my attention was on the cowering figure behind him. I recognised her as the original victim of the assault charges Reece had been convicted of, and my back snapped straight, unease coursing through me. She may have seemed timid and helpless, her head bowed low and her hair covering her face, but she was still Tarren Christianson’s sister. There was no way she was as helpless and pathetic as she was making herself out to be.

‘Tarren,’ Reece spat the name out like a curse.

‘Mutt,’ the other man responded. ‘You’ve gotten yourself in quite the pickle, haven’t you?’

Oh, how I hadn’t missed this racist asshole.

‘Come to gloat?’ Reece needled, but something in the way the siblings were holding themselves caught my attention. They were jumpy, as if afraid they were going to get caught.

‘No. I’ve come to help.’

Reece snorted in disbelief. ‘You?Help?’

The Terran man’s face scrunched in disgust, as if even he couldn’t believe the lows he was going to. Yet, I believed him. I was just waiting for the catch.

‘I can help you get out,’ he offered, and I waited for thebut.

‘To what end?’ I asked, getting annoyed at the run-around. I just wanted him to get to the point.

Tarren looked physically uncomfortable with this conversation, but he was the one who came here. He could get over it and spit it out. Thankfully, he did, though he seemed to drag it out of himself kicking and screaming.

‘I want you to take us with you.’

A beat passed with nothing but stunned silence, and then Reece burst out laughing. It wasn’t humorous, but dry in disbelief. ‘You cannot be serious. I’m in here because ofyouand your lying bitch of a sister, and you want me to let you tag along when we leave?’

Tarren’s nostrils flared at the insults, the muscles in his jaw ticking as he ground his teeth. But he didn’t back down. Instead, he raised his chin even higher, the resulting look even more haughty than before.

‘If you take us with you, I’ll help you remove the barrier, and I’ll take you to the children,’ he bartered.

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