Page 110 of Love, Nemesis
Tick.
Tick.
No one spoke. She scanned the crowd, looking for answers.
She grabbed her Atlas.
“It’s out,” she said, scanning the room. “Is it out?” She pushed it toward Diane, who scrambled with it in her hand.
“Ana,” Diane said, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s out.”
A few people in the room eased back as if she were a ghost.
Tick.
Tick.
“Who has the watch?” Ana shouted. They moved farther back. Someone scrambled to take off their watch and toss it to her.
She snatched it out of the air. It wasn’t the one she was looking for. She dropped it on the bed.
A whirring sound purred in her ears. She looked down at her metal arm and then up when several people looked back toward the door.
Hailey stood in the doorway.
“You.” She glanced down at her mechanical arm. She looked back up at him. “You!” She charged toward him, the bed slamming back up against the wall as she pushed off it. Guards intercepted her, Ana wrestling through them as she shouted, “How dare you? You monster!”
Hailey didn’t blink. He looked her in the eyes and this time, for the first time, she felt that he saw more than puppets and lights. He saw her.
“One day, you’ll understand,” Hailey said. “We needed someone who’d already run out of time… That was the missing piece, the perfect match.”
“I’m supposed to be dead!” she screamed.
“Consider yourself dead,” Hailey said, backing out of the house. “Bring her,” he said, “Malik, go ahead and tell the physicians it worked.”
“You don’t own me!” She fought against those who held her, unable to employ anything beyond her blind rage. “I’ll use it against you. I swear—I’ll use it against you!”
“You’re too good for that, Ana,” Hailey said. “As quick as you were to use your own time, you couldn’t bear to abuse others for selfish reasons like revenge.”
“Ana!” Diane called as they started to drag her off. “You can’t do this!” she shouted to Hailey.
“Ana had her life,” Hailey said. “She should be grateful. As Chronos, she’ll get to experience many more.”
“Take it off!” Ana shouted. “Take it off me now!”
“That’s not possible. Sedate her,” Hailey said, crossing his arms behind his back as he looked back at her.
Ana broke loose, busting the nose of one of her detainers as another one approached with a needle.
She snatched the needle, preparing to use it against another person holding her before she heard the whir of an Atlas and time swallowed one of her shoulders. She tried to break away from it. Another activated over her legs. They wrapped her wrists in rope, forcing her forward. She dropped her weight, thrashing as they dragged her outside.
They held her down as they shoved her into a carriage. Hailey looked out the window as she stared at him in sheer hatred from the floorboards. The emotions flooded her with heat, the constant pressure of her detainers keeping her still. One of them shoved a rope into her mouth when she tried to bite. They shut the carriage doors, and it started off.
Ana didn’t take her eyes off Hailey, breathing savagely through clenched teeth on the rope.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ana,” Hailey said after a while, still looking out the window, chin propped up on his fist. “You dedicated your life to the Numbers. This is an honor you’vebeen selected for. We need Chronos, and after the unfortunate…results of the previous hosts, we needed to try something new.”
She didn’t move her eyes from him.
