Page 1 of Uncontrolled

Allie

Someone’s in the apartment.

In the bedroom. Close. I only have time to tense before a hand clamps my neck in the darkness and shakes me hard enough to hurt. My splayed fingers claw the nightstand for anything I can use to protect myself. The only sound is my gasping until a sharp screech of pain blots it out.

Ploy.

My brain skips over the name. Ploy who sleeps on my couch, a human tripwire for anyone after my blood. Ploy who knew Jamison. Together they kidnapped me, kidnapped my friend Talia. Ploy, who betrayed me.

Who realized he was wrong.

Who saved us.

In my head he is two people, a before and an after. Ploy, who died near the barn of that old farmhouse, a bullet from Jamison’s gun to his chest. And Christopher, my sort-of boyfriend, whose blood I infected days before. Who resurrected in that open grave because of my genetic gifts. Who helped Talia and I kill Jamison and escape.

Christopher, who grates my name, one strained word before he yells in pain again.

“Where are you?” I mumble, my speech slurred. Whoever grabbed my throat is gone. It’s impossibly dark in my bedroom. I’m disoriented, growing desperate as I fumble my way across the floor. Where’s the wall? Shouldn’t I have hit the wall by now?

“Christopher?”

I still catch glimpses of Ploy in him. The way he eats with his arm curled around the top of the plate, as if he’s not sure where the next meal will come from; the backpack still sitting in the hall in case I kick him out; the way he hesitates before each kiss as if convincing himself it’s not wrong. Untrusting. Uncertain. As scared as I am.

“What did I tell you?”

The tone forces me vaguely conscious.

A throbbing in my wrist registers, an ache in my elbow joint where Christopher has it pinned against the headboard. Which can’t be right. He would never hurt me. Not after everything we’ve been through together. I shake off the last of the nightmare, hoping this scene will break apart, too.

“Ouch,” I whimper when it doesn’t.

“Tell me you’re awake,” he says in a voice that’s not quite a yell, but close.

“I’m awake?” It leaves me as a question.

The hurt sharpens my mind until I pull the pieces together. He’s in the boxers he sleeps in on the couch, eyes squinted as if he, too, isn’t fully alert. I stare in confusion at the deep slice on the sunburned skin of his collarbone, blood a darker red and dripping. There’s a staccato plop as the droplets strike the sheet tangled around me. He presses my knuckles against the worn wood of the headboard. My fingers are fisted so tight my bones ache.

“I’m awake!” I promise.

Exhaustion washes over him as he releases me and slumps, his hand moving to cup his injury. “Then drop the damned knife, Allie.”

“What?” I manage to sound indignant.

His eyes flick angrily to my fist.

It’s clamped on a penknife. I toss it away like it’s some sort of rabid animal with ready teeth. No. Not again.

“Oh, God,” I whisper, tears already welling. “It was the dream again. I didn’t know what I was doing and—”

He blows a breath skyward, his head lolling in exaggerated annoyance. “And when you’re dreaming, you’ll stab anything close, which is why I told you I was uncomfortable with you sleeping with a knife under your pillow last time this happened!”

“I’m sorry,” I say, already knowing it’s not enough. I hurt him. Bad.

Again.

He doesn’t answer, wincing as he climbs to the side of the bed. Droplets of blood splash against the hardwood floor.

“You were sorry the first time,” he says, his back already to me.

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