![]() There was a time when my big brother could have fixed anything. The realization hit me like a fresh kick to the ribs. “No, you can’t.” There’s nothing you can say that will fix this. “Phil, please, I promise I can explain everything.” It didn’t matter anyway-no one was listening to me.Įphesus grabbed my hand and tried to drag me back down to the ground beside him. My throat burned, and every breath made my bruised rib hurt. “Protect me?” I screeched, but my voice broke at the end. “And you would be dead if it weren’t for that file my husband forged for you. You planned it this way all along, and you know it. “My own good? You used me as blackmail, and now the government wants to kill me. The butter-the sugary compromise that I knew all too well-slipped back into her voice, and my stomach hurled. “Sweetheart, you know it was for your own good.” Why did I have to justify my feelings? Why didn’t anyone understand? “They kidnapped me! They drugged me and took me to another planet,” I screamed, as if I had to justify it. “What did you do to me? Do you have any idea how much hell your husband put me through?” I gaped at her as the rejection filled my lungs like water. Nolan crossed her arms, expression calm and pale. “Trust her? You have no idea what she’s done!” His words pierced my chest like a needle. I sucked in a breath but didn’t get any air. His dark eyes were guarded as he said, “She helped us find you.” Jayde, the soldier who was supposed to be in charge of this place, just shrugged. ![]() I glanced at the others in the room, willing them to discredit the story. The hallway flashed out of focus as the universe shattered around him. “Philadelphia,” my older brother Ephesus called to me from where he sat on the floor. “No, no-you need to leave me alone.” I’d spent the last several weeks fighting to get away from the Nolans I wasn’t going back. She took me in once, twice I swore I saw her grimace in displeasure. ![]() “Andromeda,” she said, using my adopted name. Her hair had been flat-ironed into submission, and her lips were a perfect shade of pink. She looked exactly the same as she had the last time we’d met. She studied me, not saying anything for a cold minute. I scrambled up from the floor and braced myself, feet apart. Now I was beginning to wonder if I’d walked right into another prison. It was supposed to be a safe place, or at least that’s what my old classmate Stanyard had said when he’d brought me here. We were in an office building on the fringes of downtown Boston that had been converted into a base for the underground. Why was she here? She had no reason to be here. Nolan again, but now she stood at the end of the hall, between me and the only exit. That’s why I altered my fingerprints, assumed the identity he’d created for me, and ran. That’s why I recorded a video and revealed his identity to the government. He’d let me take the blame and turned my whole family into public enemies. He’d sacrificed me as a scapegoat so that the United wouldn’t know he’d been manufacturing a world-ending superweapon. I’d had no choice, because Thames had forced me to record videos taking responsibility for the destruction of the factory on Rott. ![]() Nolan-had forged for me.īut I’d had no choice. ![]() I hadn’t wanted to change my name and use the file Thames-Mr. Nolan was my mother in name only, and not by choice. She wasn’t my biological mother, of course that woman had been dead for years. The last person I wanted to see was my mother. ![]()
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