Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Saving from an existence of uselessness,” Dr. Heathrow spit out. The man stood taller, as though remembering his own importance. He straightened his shirt. “I did that. I made you what you are. I gave you purpose, an ability to provide something to the world few others can. What would you have been otherwise, Sam? A bottom-feeder. A drain on society just like your mother and your father. Nothing.”
“I would have been free,” Sam said, and his voice sounded as dead as his soul. My body would have been mine.
“Free? Ha! Like your mother who was probably a slave to drugs? Just another whore who spread her legs for pocket change? Like your father who must have begged strangers for any measly scraps they were generous enough to throw his way? Free like that? All you damaged mistakes born from low-IQ addicts and thieves. I shouldn’t have expected more from you, Sam, but I did. I did.”
“You had no right,” he said, and his voice sounded less dead this time, his breath a mingled growl. The monster was coming to life. “No one gave you permission to do what you did to me.”
“Who had a right then? Who was going to give permission? Your parents? They couldn’t have cared less that you were alive. Your mother threw you in a dumpster! Did you know that, Sam? Some bum found you naked in a reeking pile of trash! She didn’t even put a blanket around you.”
Dr. Heathrow laughed then, high-pitched and dripping with cruelty, and Sam withered inside. He’d never let himself hope that his mother had loved him, or he hadn’t thought he had. But in that moment, he knew that he’d lied to himself. Because deep inside, he’d held the silent, secret wish that someone out there loved him from afar. Remembered him. He knew the hope had existed because he felt it shatter, and he suffered as the shards of the dying dream cut his inner flesh.
How many more of his own lies, his own miscalculations would he have to confront? It was too painful to consider.
“The program rescued you. Do you have any idea how much money was put into you? Each surgery, even the ones we thought would surely fail, you survived. You were made stronger. You should be grateful! What a disappointment you are. You couldn’t be trained. Always daydreaming. Seldom paying attention.” Dr. Heathrow made a sound of disgust in his throat. His face was regaining color as though his own righteousness was boosting his vigor. “Even so, we put you in the field, ever hopeful you’d take to the work once you got your feet wet.” That same sound of utter disdain. “But you proved a disaster. Even worse, here you are, having failed your final command. The one drilled into you since birth.”
The part of Sam that might have kept control bent and surrendered to the reeling, spinning, sickness and rage swirling inside him. It was the monster, and it was clawing for release. Everyone, all his life, had lied to him. Vicious, unthinkable lies. And then they’d stolen his body and twisted his soul. He was a freak and a monster. Because of them. A growl emanated in his chest, rising. He took a step toward the doctor, then two. Dr. Heathrow had grown confident with his words, but now he faltered, his eyes flashing fear.
“Whatever you’re thinking, I’d tread carefully,” the doctor ordered, attempting to sound commanding and failing miserably. “We gave you some time. But your time is up. We know where you’ve been. There was a tracking device on one of your ribs. It was damaged in the shooting, but even you should know we have methods of finding anyone, Sam.”
There was a tracking device on one of your ribs. The news hit him like a blow. They’d known where he was all along, every moment of his life, even the places he’d found a moment of freedom—or so he’d thought. But that too had been a lie. They’d tracked him like a dog. They could have swooped in and killed him at any moment. And they probably would have if he hadn’t disappeared—into New York City first and then to the cottage with Autumn.
“We know where you’re living, Sam,” the doctor said, his voice high-pitched and squeaky. “And we know with whom.”
With whom.
Autumn.
No!
They’d used those methods and tracked him to the house on the river? Had they been casing the area, and he hadn’t even known? Sam’s chest rumbled as his jaw clenched, the growl bursting from his mouth. The doctor let out a squeal, ducking and cowering, attempting to slink along the wall.
Red-hot rage incinerated Sam’s blood, hot enough to melt the metal he was made from. The monster rose from the molten river of what had once been Sam, reforming himself from fire. And Sam surrendered.