Page 87 of Amethyst Flame
She looked over, an eyebrow lifted. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Scary bad.”
She turned fully toward me, pot forgotten. “Tell me.”
I heaved a sigh. Here goes nothing.“Turns out Will—that’s William Teller from the internship program—he’s like me.”
“Ah. I suspected. Dr. Shah owes me a hundred dollars.” Adley’s gaze sharpened. “What’s the scary bad part?”
I told her about his condition, the fact that he thought I was deteriorating too, and his nonsensical scheme to have me blast it out of him. Or vice versa. I finished off by describing how he’d attacked me and fried my trusty ride. But I left out Jacob’s rescue and the Artemisia Protocol.
“You said he has a team of doctors working with him?”
“The Best Minds in the world or something.”
“The best minds are already working for me.” She stepped away from the window. With a subtle flex of her hand—not unlike my [shield] command—a screen materialized out of thin air in front of her, icons shimmering in the morning light.
Aaandmy brand-new computer at home suddenly felt all kinds of obsolete.
She selected an icon, initiating a video call with a middle-aged man. “Good morning, Drew. An intern named William Teller is due to arrive any moment. He’s a level-four security risk. Discreetly watch him—but don’t tip him off—and be prepared to neutralize him should he attempt to flee or grow violent. I’ll have Selma give a tour of the white lab, and we can detain him there.”
Detain? Adley didn’t fool me. She meant contain. Like she contained me last week.
The screen disappeared as she regarded me again. “As to Teller’s claims that you are deteriorating, yes, there’s some indicators that your cells have been stressed by the symbiosis. But please remember you’ve survived longer than anyone else. I think you were meant for this technology. That I designed it for you. That we were destined to come together. Tohelpeach other.”
“How much coffee did you have?”
Adley’s lips twitched. “I’m going to find a way to stop the cellular degradation. We’ve got everything we need right here. Saving your life is my priority.”
“That all sounds nice”—and it was definitely what I wanted to hear—“but what if you run out of time?” Because it could happen.
“I won’t.” Spoken with conviction.
“It’s just that Will was seriouslynotokay.” I went ahead and voiced Dane’s suspicion. “I think he might be losing it.” Hint. Hint.
But Adley didn’t bite. “He’s a terrified young man with nowhere to turn. Will you help me convince him that he can trust me?”
So either she didn’t know his sanity was going to avalanche or she was holding out on me. Maybe she didn’t want me to freak, and, considering I’d done just that on Friday, I supposed her concern was warranted.
But fuck, I hated secrets. “What do you need me to do?”
Ten minutes later, we were down in the white lab—where not too long ago Adley had trapped me and even longer ago, I’d had to blast my way out—but instead of waiting in the repaired and remodeled NASA-like main workspace, we were tucked in a security room with a giant wall-sized matrix of monitors that gave us a vantage of just about every inch of BantaMatrix.
Like a god, I could look down upon people at their desks, staring at computers, congregating in small groups in the open areas to chat, playing on their phones. And there was one couple who sneaked into a supply closet—yeah, there was a camera in there, too—and without any foreplay, had their clothes in knots, hands groping skin, and then one of them got down on his knees…
Adley tapped something, and that screen turned off. She turned to the man on her left and said, “Have someone issue another reminder about keeping workplace romances off the premises, please.”
“So you were watching me the whole time I was trying to steal your tech?” It made me feel foolish…and skeevy to be the one watching now.
“We’ve had several incursions over the past six months,” Adley told me. “You got the furthest. I was particularly impressed with how you were able to infiltrate security, trigger the elevator, and cover your tracks—and all while you were riding down the elevator. But yes,watchingis one of the security measures we use.”
I wondered if she was still oblivious about Jacob and Dane or if she were hinting at me—giving me an opening—to tell her that I wasn’t alone. Regardless, I now knew that they were watching me in my office, in the café, and probably the bathroom. I mean, of course they were. I was valuable and dangerous, so it made sense. And yet…sitting in front of this screen made me itch to be waiting for Will. I didn’t like it.
“Maybe he won’t show up,” I said.
“He doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Adley answered.
Something deep in my chest twinged…probably because I could relate to that. Ever since I’d been infected or, actually,infestedwith the butterflies, I’d felt pushed into bad or only choices, scared to death that I was going to get caught by someone.
