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)
“She’ll tell you to go, but be persistent. She doesn’t mean it,” he thought he heard her say. And “…encourage him, but if he resists you, lay off or he’ll get annoyed and go out of his way to…”
He had no idea what any of that meant except that whatever it was she was instructing Bill to do, it was because she couldn’t do it herself. Because of Sam. He also thought Autumn and Bill might be arguing a little, and it made him feel bad that he was causing trouble for her. It was the last thing he wanted.
Sam dozed off for a while, and he woke to the sound of the door closing and Autumn’s footsteps as she came inside. “Is everything okay?”
She nodded, looking slightly troubled. “It’s a relief to hear that the authorities don’t have a description of us,” she said, though that worried look remained. “But…the program covered for the shooter, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Sam said.
Her shoulders dropped. “They’re very powerful,” she murmured, obviously considering what a cover-up of that magnitude would take.
“What about Dr. Heathrow, Sam? I keep thinking about him. You sounded…grateful to him for healing you, but he’s part of this too. The program. The treatments. He knew about what was happening to us in the woods. He stayed silent about that at the very least.”
Sam stared at the wall. Yes, Sam knew that the doctor was caught up in the web of lies and cover-ups too, just like Sam himself was. He knew Dr. Heathrow had done wrong and looked away when he shouldn’t have. But he’d also healed Sam and so many others. He’d fathered him in the only sense of the word Sam understood. Loyalty rose up in Sam for the only person who’d known who he was and been on his side. Before now anyway. “He was used for his skills by the program too,” Sam said woodenly.
She looked away worriedly and chewed on her lip for a moment before her gaze came to rest on him again. “I’ve decided something, Sam.”
“What?”
She raised her chin. “You keep saying you’re going to leave when you get better, but I’m not going to let you.”
He felt a tug at his mouth. “You’re not going to let me?” How would she stop him? Maybe in his current condition, she’d have a slim chance. But once his strength was back, she’d have no way to stop him from leaving. Or doing whatever he wanted to do for that matter.
“No. I’m not going to let you.” She sat on the side of the bed and took his hand in both of hers. “We need to team up. You and me. Once it’s safe to leave, we need to find answers. I’m asking you. Please stay with me, Sam.”
Oh. So that was how she was going to stop him. She was going to look at him with her beautiful dark eyes and ask.
And Sam was completely helpless to deny her request. Completely helpless to deny her anything she wanted. Anything at all.
Autumn didn’t belong to him, but Sam belonged to her. He had for a long, long time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Morana watched the screen and then glanced at the one next to it, numbers and letters scrolling by that indicated the back-and-forth chatter about Sam. It was somewhat incomplete, but Morana knew the language enough to understand the gist: the program was hunting Sam.
Had Sam not realized that he wore a tracking device under his skin? Perhaps most of them didn’t consider it; after all, they’d been trained to be obedient. What reason would they need to be tracked? They posed little to no risk of disappearing, and if captured, they understood well they wouldn’t be rescued lest it put the program in jeopardy. Maybe they believed their phones and other devices provided any tracking they might require as it related to communication.
But Morana knew. And she also knew that though they’d known Sam hadn’t completed his final mission, they’d allowed him to bide his time on an apple farm, postponing the inevitable. They’d have stepped in and taken over where Sam had failed when they deemed his time was up. It was difficult for them, she figured, destroying that which they’d spent so much time and money on. In many ways—though obviously not all—Sam was the living embodiment of their vast intelligence and tremendous superiority. Their egos had gotten in the way of their best interests, however, because the pause had given Sam time to commit the cardinal sin of interrupting a mission and potentially exposing the program. To Morana’s knowledge, nothing like it had ever happened before.
Not only had Sam interrupted a mission, but he had also gone and gotten himself shot to pieces, apparently damaging his tracking device so that it was ineffective. Lucky, Sam. Only for those of them in the program, luck could only hold out so long.