Page 29 of Even Robots Die
18
Brice
It’s been three days since I delivered the machine to Florentine’s room and I’ve stayed away all those days.
I didn’t even join her at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
I let her be.
I’ve had the urge to go, but I restrained myself.
She’s been working all those days from what Daniel and Charles are reporting to me, and I don’t want to change that.
We agreed on terms that I can uphold, but if I end up in the same room as her, I don’t think I’ll be able to contain myself.
I’m going to want to prod and poke at her mental limits just to see that beautiful shade of red on her cheeks again.
I might not feel much lately, but I’m not stupid either.
She’s my only chance at getting my brain back to normal.
And I can’t jeopardize that. Not even to feel something again.
I have to remind myself multiple times a day that if she can do what I need, if she can reverse Michaël’s treatment of my brain, then I’ll be feeling a whole lot of emotions again.
Way more than that little rush of pride I have when I make her mad.
I can’t fold now or I might end up with nothing at all.
You’ll still be able to annoy her,the devil on my shoulder tells me.
“She asked to see you,” Charles interrupts my thought as he enters the room I’ve turned into my office since we arrived in the castle. It’s in the same corridor as what she called the ‘mad scientist lab’ and next to the new one that should be finished by tomorrow evening.
“Did she say why?” I ask him.
If it’s about the lab, I might manage to avoid seeing her.
“No, she refused to say,” Charles answers.
Didn’t you want to annoy her just a few seconds ago?That little voice whispers in my mind again.
Am I talking to myself now?
“I’ll go see her later today,” I tell him with a sigh.
“I’m not sure she’ll wait that long,” he answers me with a small smile that tells me he’s sorry to announce this.
I raise an eyebrow at his words.
“She’s already at the door, isn’t she?”
“Yep, I’m here,” Florentine says as she passes her head through the door frame. “I guess now will do.”
It’s not a question, and yet it feels like one. It sounds like she has to make violence upon herself to assert herself, as if doubt is part of her everyday life. Yet, I have trouble seeing her doubting herself.
Maybe that’s because I only ever met her in work related conditions. Not that I was working, but she was.
I’ve been meeting her mainly with brain problems. At least the first time around, it wasn’t about my own brain.
