Page 48 of Lust
Despair focused on the plant but shook her head.
“You were carrying it when we escaped the laboratory. You left it behind when you ran back for Gloria.”
Vague memories washed back. Therehadbeen a plant Despair cared for in their locked observation room. It was the only plant they had in the entire suite. The only plant they’d ever seen. Despair sat up and reached over to lift a leaf. She found a flowering bud. Somehow it had managed to grow beneath the shade of the top leaves.
“It’s a daisy bonsai,” Mary said. “We kept it alive, but it belongs to you. You should have it.”
Despair didn’t know what to say. They had left her. They’d thought she was dead, just like she had thought they were dead. But they’d kept her plant alive. Her throat dried.
“When you’re ready,” Mary said. “There’s food in the kitchen. It’s just Flint and me now, so take your time. We want you to feel comfortable.”
Despair watched Mary leave and rubbed the ache in her chest.
She took the flower bud gently and leaned close to inhale deeply. A nostalgia she couldn’t describe entered her body, and she quickly sat back.
“What do I call you?”came a strange, disembodied female voice.
Despair surveyed the room. The door was closed again. Mary had left. So who spoke?
“Who are you?”
Her head tilted up and found a white speaker in the ceiling.
“Who areyou?” Despair snapped back.
“I’m AIMI. The Lazarus’s Artificial Intelligence Management Interface. I manage this household. Usually Sloan or Parker update my system, or I scan relevant databases using facial recognition software to find an identity match for house guests, but you are listed with multiple identities. Are you Daisy, The Falcon, or are you Despair?”
The truth was, she wasn’t sure. Before the computer had the chance to ask again, Despair left the room.
15
Butterflies flutteredaround knots in Liza’s stomach as Joe followed her into the elevator that would take them up to her apartment level. This was the first time she’d invited anyone up, let alone a potential—
Her mind shut down. She couldn’t let herself entertain the thought of intimacy. Not yet. Not when she wanted it so badly. Not when she still felt the residual effects of battle riding her system. It was more than adrenaline and more than her recent training session. It was the flashes of horror behind her eyelids, more terrifying because she hadn’t just served and protected, she’dendedlives. Dead. Gone. No judge. No jury.
This was her future.
She could kill with her breath. And she could do it without even knowing it, blacked out in a berserker rage.
She punched the button to her floor and leaned against the cool wall as the elevator doors closed. Her gaze shifted to Joe and immediately softened at his familiar face. Once again she was struck by how it had changed. There had always been a hard edge to him, but now it was razor-sharp, honed by the same sort of trauma that she dealt with. Gone was the hope, the glint she’d seen in all rookies, the dream of making a difference. She knew the kind of work he’d done at the bureau was soul-crushing work. He faced the worst humanity had to offer, and he still showed up to work the next day.
When he’d come to the basement door and demanded entry, there had been a wildness to him. This was not the boy she’d grown up with, not the youth she became friends with, and not the man she came up in the Force with. There were things about him she was still discovering, just as he was learning about her. How much did one really know the other? The notion sparked another round of anxiety. Memories of the battle.
Foaming mouths.
Face masks sliding off.
The fear in eyes as death came. Then seeing her reflection in their eyes.
Heat swarmed her palms. She looked down. Yellow. It was pooling in her pores.
“No,” she gasped. “Not now.”
“Liza?” Joe reached for her.
She shut her fists, avoiding him. “Don’t, Joe. You can’t touch me.”
“Why?”
