Page 221 of Because I Killed Him
Henry’s eyes flutter, seeming slightly more alive. “My pleasure, Miss Waldsten.”
I smile, then reach for the door when the robot speaks again.
“It would not be the first time.”
I frown, confused, until Henry lets out a low, clear whistle of only four notes, yet they’re etched into my memory like a brand. It’sThe Last Walk, the song played at executions and death duels. They’re the same notes someone whistled on the Roaring Rails Express platform, warning me that Vincent Lee was planning to gut me in front of an audience.
“It wasyou? On the platform?”
Henry smiles faintly. “The Professor and I happened to be passing by.”
“But why?”
“Because I am programmed to help humans.”
Henry leans back into the chair, its eyes closing in a perfect imitationof rest. Then the robot slips a hand into its jacket pocket and pulls out a yoyo—matte black, larger than the toys sold in stores—and loops the metal strap around its index finger.
With a flick, Henry drops the yoyo. The string spins down to the floor, then climbs smoothly back into the robot’s palm. Each rise and fall syncs oddly with the slow swell of its chest, the artificial breath Pinkies are programmed to imitate, often making us forget they’re just parts and wires. On the third pull, Henry’s mouth curls into a small, satisfied smile.
“Goodbye, Henry,” I whisper.
“Goodbye, Miss Waldsten,” the robot says, the yoyo still rolling in patient circles.
I turn and slip out the door, my shock cooling as I step into the hall. But the moment I activate my Bond and pull up the home screen, it all rushes back.
Where Edmund’s entourage badge once sat, the Aegis badge gleams instead. The name of the Blue who owns it is redacted, hidden behind layers of clearance I’ll never see, but the permissions are visible, scrolling down my feed in stark, impossible lines: Access to ninety-five percent of campus grounds, up from the old seventy percent. Exemption from the behavior laws that keep low-citizens obedient in public, including formal speech and introductions. And my civil credits aren’t just topped off; they’ve exploded into a number so large it exposes the fraud behind it all.
Two million.Enough to live on, to pay my debts and those of countless others, for the rest of my life.
Those advantages alone feel like a miracle. But when I scroll further and see the note about my weapons restriction, my chest clenches so hard it shudders. The crossed-out saber on my record—the punishment that made me stand there while Irene and Rosamund ripped out my spine and beat me with it—is gone.
I can carry a saber now. I can fight. I canwin.
My hands tremble, my vision swimming as my pulse kicks in, dragging me forward with unstoppable force. I skip the elevators and break into a run, my feet slamming against the stairs so loudly they echo. I’m vaulting ten steps at a time, swinging around the rails, breathless as laughter tears from me.
I burst through the doors of the Genetic Engineering Facility and into the sunshine, shouting something wordless into the street. Students, Pinkies, professors all stop and stare, but I don’t care. I don’t have to.
Not anymore.
My blood might be green, but my power is blue.
Betrayal doesn’t come from strangers. It’s a close-range shot, fired by someone who knows just where your heart is—and pulls the trigger anyway.
—FRANK, A BARTENDER
CHAPTER 53
I don’t want to lie to Charlotte. I already lied about where I was the day I saw Edmund’s mother attack him, and doing it again feels like drilling secret holes in the walls of our friendship. But this is what I signed up for. Charlotte is only the first of many people I’ll have to deceive before Jerome’s job is over.
The problem is that she already knows someone sabotaged my civil credits. She heard me accuse Rosamund, so the lie has to carry a sliver of truth. I tell her someone tried to kill me with a Section Twenty-Seven, but I managed to stop it. I tell her I went to the campus Copper Headquarters, reported the attack, and that the Coppers shut it down.
“The Coppers said they have no way to track who did it,” I add. Then I ask about Edmund, even though I don’t truly believe he’s capable of trying to kill me. I need to hear how impossible it sounds when I say the words aloud.
The suggestion completely sets Charlotte off.
“No damn chance, Lore,” she snaps, pacing my salon like she’s trying to grind a hole through the marble. The scratches on her face from Rosamund’s monkey are sealed under rejuvenation cream, but the green wounds beneath are still visible. “Edmund’s a payback junkie, sure. He doesn’t forgive. But tanking your civil credits is too far, even for him. It’s like you said—he hated Charles, couldn’t even look at the jerk withoutwanting to swing. The only reason any of it blew up is because Charles was Irene’s old fiancé. But how does that make it your fault? I get that Edmund wants revenge, fine, but killing you? No. Fucking. Way.”
I nod and let her vent, comforted by how unthinkable it is to her. Yet the thought still needles at me: if she knew about what I saw that day on Edmund’s balcony—if she’d seen his mother’s nails dig so deep into his face that muscle showed through the blood—if she knew what he keeps buried beneath all that calm, would she still be so sure?
