The Unpaired (The Pairings Book 3) Page 18

  Even after everything we had been through, Syeth still held onto his charm, which I was incapable of ignoring. I bit down on my cheek to keep from smiling, but found it challenging.

  “I’m going to help with the supplies. Why don’t you go check on Jarid, and I can let you know when dinner is ready.”

  The bedroom seemed calmer, and goosebumps skittered up my arms. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Jarid’s heavy breathing led me toward him until my legs bumped against the edge of the bed. I stood still for moment, not wanting to jar him awake.

  The quiet room made my heartbeat sound as if it came in stereo. Loud enough that I could swear Jarid could hear it, too.

  The exhaustion I’d been fighting crept over me and I crawled onto the bed, slowly moving toward the other side. Jarid barely moved as I settled in next to him. There was at least a foot between us, but I scooted over until I was against the wall, leaving plenty of room between us.

  Closing my eyes, I let my vision fill with memories sifting through my mind. John’s death was the first image. The bullet ripping through his chest—

  My eyes flung open and I glanced around the room. It seemed darker than before. My vision blurred and I closed my eyes once more, trying to keep John from my thoughts.

  I wasn’t successful, as my mind wandered back to the scene. Mia’s incredibly fast form racing through the lab. Syeth and Jarid shooting at her before I ended up killing her myself. Jarid’s insistence on getting the hard drive. The explosions. The destruction. Us walking away from the rubble with Jarid between us. Me looking over my shoulder at the place where John would always remain.

  Tears leaked from my eyes, but I was determined to move past the memories and into my dreams.

  Losing John so quickly after I had met him wasn’t fair. We’d worked together a lot, and he had become a second father to me. He had wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and he’d worked to mentor me.

  My mind backtracked to us and the relationship we’d had working together the last two weeks on the cure. The more I dug into the memory, the more my senses flared. The scent of the crisp, clean air of the lab. The sounds of all of the computers buzzing and the fingers typing across keyboards. John’s voice, deep and low. Whenever he’d worked, his voice had held a hint of excitement, even during trials that had failed. “The more we fail, the more we know,” he’d said. The memory was crystal clear. Even the glow of the computer screen reflecting in his glasses made it seem as if I was right there with him again.

  His mouth moved, and his words jumbled together until the memory of his death came back with full force.

  My eyes snapped open. The inky darkness around me made my stomach swim. My hands dug into the comforter and I pushed up. My breathing intensified as I realized the most important part of John’s last moment.

  He had touched my forehead not in an emotional gesture, but to point out the key to us winning. My mind.

  I’d seen so much of John’s research. Equations, notes, formulas, ingredient lists, the programming language for the biomod machines, which created the real cure’s solution. His last words had been meant to tell me that I still had the formula for the cure in my mind. I was the hard drive that BioPure hadn’t taken with them.

  My entire body shook as waves of shivers rocked me. John had put a lot of faith in my mind. But I was also one of his experiments—one with a perfect memory.

  For once, suddenly, I doubted my mind and how much I could remember. And even if I recalled all the formulas, how much could I recreate? Though, could I let John’s final request go unfulfilled?

  Other than snippets of memories that I had lived through, I’d never remembered anything that large, or so precisely as this task would require. This would mean recreating thousands of lines of computer code and pages of lab notes. As they flitted through my mind, I wasn’t sure what all of it meant. Misremembering a single line or digit would mean the difference between success and catastrophic failure. As much as John had wanted me to have a perfect memory, I wasn’t sure if it was that perfect.

  I crawled off the bed carefully, so as not jostle Jarid, who still slept. The living room was darker than it had been when I’d lain down. Four of the group were asleep on the floor in sleeping bags.

  I walked around them and peered through the shades. The moon shone above the house, throwing beams of light across the lawn. I must have been in the bedroom longer than I’d thought.

  Warren let out a grunt and rolled over, tucking his head into his hands. I took a moment to appreciate how hard they had worked to help keep us safe during the production of the cure and while supplying the safehouse.

  It would be for them and Jarid, who had risked his life so that I hadn’t needed to. I had to try.

  Quiet voices carried from outside. I walked through the kitchen, which led to a small screened-in porch. The screen had enough holes for it to have become obsolete in keeping out bugs or other critters.

  Syeth and Harper sat on rocking chairs holding mugs of dark liquid. Next to Syeth, on a small table, was a can of instant coffee. I knew without touching it that the coffee would be cold. They wouldn’t risk a fire alerting anyone to our location.

  “Hey,” Syeth said, standing.

  Harper offered a brave smile.

  “How are you feeling?” Syeth asked.

  “Better,” I said, holding onto the strength building within me. “And, more importantly, I’ve got a plan.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  After I spent time explaining the revelation I’d had, which might turn the tables on the war, Syeth and Harper seemed as excited as I felt. They wanted to inform the team immediately and get started. It was the last hope we had for the cure since going into BioPure territory to retrieve the hard drives was a suicide mission, especially with our limited numbers. As far as Sledge knew, whatever remaining hard drive existed had been destroyed in the airstrike along with John and myself. He didn’t know that my memory of the cure he’d killed for lived in my mind. John’s brain and life’s work had been recorded into my perfect memory, and now we had the opportunity to replicate the cure without any of the hard drives.

  I had no time to doubt myself as Syeth and Harper woke the others and detailed the plan for them. They would work in teams to write down everything I said on their tablets, and then I would go over their notes later to make sure it was all correct. Any drawings would be made by me using a drawing app. Once we had everything together, we’d pass it on to the rebels working in our lab. We wasted no time as Yvette and Syeth took the first shift with me, set up their tablets, and we all settled around the living room.

  “Lora, lay down,” Yvette suggested, indicating the couch. “We need you as comfortable as possible.”

  I knew how grueling this process would be, and I didn’t argue with her as she propped me up with pillows.

  John was with me every step of the way as I drew out the memories deep within me. I homed in on the computer screens and all of the data I’d seen flowing and began talking.

  The first day was the hardest, and I lost my voice after talking non-stop for almost eight hours without any breaks. The next day, I could barely speak beyond a whisper without pain, so I excused the others and started entering the information into a tablet myself. My ten- to twelve-hour sessions lengthened, and I became used to the ache in my mind as I furiously pulled the information into my head and entered it all into the tablet.

  The house became silent as the others crept around me, eating outside for most of the meals to give me privacy and time to draw out the memories. Remembering the two weeks in the lab and every detail was grueling. Because my memory wanted to play everything out just as it had occurred in real time, holding images in my mind until I could record them wasn’t easy.

  I wasn’t doing much outside of thinking, but the process was exhausting. I fell so far into the memories that at times, when Syeth woke me to eat or stretch, the present crashed over me and I realized all over again that John
was gone. Those moments of doubt and anger overwhelmed me for a time until I could calm down enough to successfully enter my memory again. Eventually, the urge to fall back into the memories was an itch I couldn’t quite scratch. Along with finding each character of the formula, spending time with John again—even if it wasn’t real—was worth the ache in my head.

  The first few days, I’d been able to sleep around six hours per night, but as the formula became longer and more complicated, I tended to go back to the couch after three-hour stretches of sleep.

  Syeth waited until I came out for my breaks before encouraging me to rest more.

  “Your eyes are bloodshot,” he said once. “You need more sleep.”

  Eventually, I’d nod my head enough to get him off my back before sneaking into the living room to work while everyone slept.

  My headaches worsened as Jarid’s started to get better. He didn’t say much about what had happened in the lab, and Syeth and I had the idea that he was still embarrassed about trusting Mia. We could have died that day, and he blamed himself.

  On the fifth day, all hell broke loose in my mind. The encouragement from Syeth to sleep more moved to the front of my mind as memories flickered in and out of each other. One moment, I was with John at a station, and the next, he stood up straight as blood leaked from his chest. It pooled on the floor. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t move from my spot. I knew my mind was mixing up the memories, laying one on top of another, but I pushed through, wanting to get back to the computer screen to see the data.

  I moved to another memory, but John’s death followed me faster this time. The gunshots rang out, and his body fell on top of mine before we tumbled to the floor. The memories turned into nightmares, and I got so tangled in them that I couldn’t make them stop.

  The loop repeated so many times that I lost count. When I had the strength to break through, my vision went dark. My eyelids were heavy, but I could have sworn they were open.

  “Lora,” a voice said. It sounded like Syeth. But when the voice repeated my name, I thought it was Jarid.

  “Lora. Lora. Lora,” Syeth or Jarid repeated, drawing me from my nightmares. The darkness swallowed the voice, and then I was back into the loop of dreams.

  “It’s okay,” Syeth/Jarid said. “Sleep now.” One of them—Syeth, probably—rubbed his fingers over the back of my hand. I focused on the movements, unable to fully wake up. His earlier warning about my not sleeping enough broke through my stubborn refusal. Now was the time to listen.

  “I’m here. Come back to me, and don’t go back there again. I love you, Lora.”

  My mouth tried to form the words, but all of me was too worn out.

  The lab blinked into view again. I watched the soldiers fight each other, but the sounds of their gunshots faded away along with John’s dead body lying on the floor amid the fight.

  Then, there was peace.

  When I woke up, the room was dark. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. None of the others were sleeping on the floor. I put my hand down at my side, and the spot was warm as if someone had been sitting there seconds before I’d woken up. I smoothed my hand over the blanket, wondering where Syeth had gone and why. A part of me wondered if it had been Syeth at all, or if it had been Jarid. The voice had said he loved me, so it had to have been Syeth. I thought.

  Why wasn’t I sure of that?

  I lay back down, wondering if whoever had left—Syeth or Jarid—would come back once they realized I was asleep again. My head didn’t hurt as much now, but if I was going to continue with the cure, I had to rest. With a clear head, taking my time would only help assure the validity of the cure. I couldn’t imagine starting over again, pouring over all of the details to find out where I’d gone wrong with the formula.

  While I waited for someone to return to the rapidly cooling spot next to me, my eyelids started to get heavier until the entire room went dark once more.

  The next morning, I woke with sunlight outlining the thick curtains around the windows. It was enough of an indication for me that it was time to peel myself off the couch. My stomach groaned with hunger, but I went to the bathroom first to use the facilities and freshen up. The person staring back at me wasn’t anyone I recognized. My cheekbones were sharper than they’d ever been, and my skin was a grayish color.

  I splashed water on my face and blotted it with a towel before heading to the kitchen to take care of my growling stomach. Sustenance and sleep were necessary for my success in getting to the cure, and I wasn’t going to risk my health again. Not once during all the time I’d spent with John in the lab had he risked himself in that way to complete the cure. Sure, he hadn’t slept as much as everyone else, but he’d understood the need to have a clear mind.

  I held him tightly in my memory as I walked into the kitchen.

  Syeth, Harper, Albrecht, and Warren were squished together at the table. And, walking into the room, I noticed one more. He stood next to the refrigerator, leaning against the counter.

  “Jarid,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “The better question is, how are you feeling?”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t say fine,” Syeth said. He dropped his spoon into his oatmeal and stood. “Lora, you’ve been out for twenty-six hours.” He checked his phone for emphasis. I noticed it was a different one than the one he’d carried before. They must have traded their phones for burners. “You need to take it easy. The cure isn’t worth you hurting yourself.”

  I disagreed with that statement, but he was right about me needing to take it easy. “I’ll take today off. Then I’ll take it a day at a time.”

  “Good,” he said, kissing me. “Now, you should eat. You’re probably starving.”

  He went to the counter to spoon more oatmeal into a bowl.

  “It’s good to see you awake,” Harper said. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “You haven’t,” Warren said with a grin before turning to me. “Lora, you’ve been a big asset, but risking your perfect brain won’t help anyone. We appreciate you and want to keep you safe.”

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting the oatmeal Syeth placed in front of me as I sat at the table. I dipped my spoon in and started to eat. “Have we been in touch with anyone in the new rebel lab yet?” I wasn’t sure how much I’d missed since I’d been out.

  “Yes,” Albrecht said. “We’ve given them the data you’ve already retrieved. They want to be as prepared as possible when the final piece comes through. But take your time, Lora. They’re still in the process of gathering equipment and supplies to produce the cure.”

  “How are they doing that?” I asked.

  “We were hard at work while you were in the BioPure lab. We always like to have a Plan B.”

  It was a good thing, too, since I doubted anyone had expected the demolition and death we’d seen around the BioPure lab. Thinking of John made my chest pinch with pain, but none of the tears I’d become accustomed to came—not as they had before. Spending so much time with him in my memory must have helped the grieving process. But I wouldn’t know that for sure until I went back into my memories.

  “And some of the other research team members survived the airstrike,” Syeth said.

  “Really?” I asked. “How many?”

  “Only four, but they were all on our side. It took them some time to move through the border of the rebel camp, but they’re helping the cause.”

  “Isra doesn’t know about them, right?” I worried that, in her need for vengeance, she would want to detain them, or worse

  “If she does, they’re the least of her worries right now,” Jarid said. “She has her hands full rebuilding her army.”

  I played catch-up all morning and started to feel like a normal person. The task at hand began to weigh on me, though, as I knew I’d have to head into my mind eventually in order to continue my work.

  After breakfast, Syeth and Jarid sat with me on the couch and
we watched television for hours.

  Somehow, Syeth had been able to rig the satellite to pull in shows from inside the city. They had a lot more programming than we’d had in New Manhattan. The corporation strictly regulated the shows, but some of them were amusing. For a few hours, I was able to forget the desperate situation we lived in while most of the country was suffering and I was able to relax. The cure would come to me in time. John had never rushed in his process, and in order to be sure I recalled it with perfect clarity, neither would I.

  With the two brothers there, I was still unsure which one of them had sat with me and brought me back from the brink of my memories.

  The process of getting back into my memories was easier than I’d anticipated. After an entire day of resting, I was refreshed and ready to start again.

  Right away, the difference between the memories was stark. By the end of my memory binge before, they had been blurry and jumpy. With rest and nourishment, the memories were crisper… as if I was living them in real-time.

  It took another week, as I moved slower and more purposefully through my mind to complete the research. Harper and I reviewed the wealth of data: formulas, memos, and coding that encompassed the entire process of creating the cure. The information was being plucked straight out of my memory, and my mind and gut knew it was all perfect. John’s final gift to mankind would be the cure, and I felt as if I was honoring him by bringing it all together.

  “Are you sure that’s everything?” Harper asked as she packed the tablet into her bag to drop it off at the rebel lab later that afternoon.

  I paused, thinking through the last few hours to make sure we hadn’t left anything out. Nodding my head, I gave her the go-ahead. “That’s everything I have. The rest is up to the researchers in our lab.”

  With my part completed, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I’d given my all to finding the cure, and as it walked out of the safehouse, I collapsed on the couch with a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of my lungs.