I had been shot. I had been stabbed. I had fallen through a floor and dislocated my arm. I had burned my hands. I had been in a house that literally exploded, and succumbed to mild hypothermia. I had nearly died multiple times.

            That was why this did not make sense.

            August’s betrayal was not supposed to hurt more than any of those.

            But it did. Pain and depression curled me into a ball and furrowed my pathetic body beneath the heavy blanket. Shame drew tears from my eyes. Stubbornness ignored August’s protests and apologies. Eventually he stopped passing by my room. Stopped beating on my door. Stopped begging for me to understand.

            And I was alone.

            Like I should be.

            With nothing else to do, and nothing my body wanted to do, I was forced to ruminate. On everything. My fake hometown. My fake parents. Meeting August at Yale and parting ways, and returning to my hometown to find Jim . . .

            Who was probably waiting for you, not because Tia asked him to care for you, but because the government wanted him to keep an eye on you.

            And I wondered, did Jim and Esme ever really care? Did they ever really see me as anything other than an assignment?

            I recollected Jim’s warning about falling for August, and everything began to make sense. All the pieces began to fit together. He knew of our place, which wasn’t together, and tried to keep it that way. To divide us. To keep me ignorant and driven and inhumane.

            The facts were simple, and obvious to anyone looking on. August opened my eyes and shed light on my black soul, in more ways than one, and without him, I could succumb to the darkness. To the evil. Maybe it was sad, maybe it was evidence of a crucially-flawed soul, but that was just how it was. And everybody knew it.

            Even Jim. Even Esme.

            Everybody.

            “Ellie.”

            Her voice sent unwanted shivers down my spine.

            “Ellie.”

            “Go away.”

            “Ellie, we need to talk. We never finished our conversation.”

            An unladylike snort gurgled from my throat. “We didn’t have to. I learned all that I needed to know. Leave me alone.”

            I didn’t have to see her face to know she was growing impatient. “Open this door right now, or I will get someone to break it down.”

            “I’ll be waiting, then.”

            She tried to hide her exasperated sigh, but I definitely heard it. Silence followed, and then moments later the door slammed against the wall, and Liz’s agitating heels clopped into the room, resembling a freaking horse and grating at my nerves. “Well,” she huffed, wrenching the blankets away from my face. “That was unnecessary.”

            I pinned her with the most murderous glare I could muster in my depressed state, and rolled over.

            “Ellie, please. I need to check your wound, and we need to finish our conversation.”

            Angry frustration knotted me up inside, cramping my back, crunching my spine. The feeling was abominable. With feeble strength I pushed myself up against the headboard, gazing emptily into her face. “You told me my life was a lie. That every friend I thought I had was really a government pet watching my every move. That the man I love was no better than any of them. So, yeah, I think you’ve said everything you need to say.”

            Liz perched on the edge of the bed, face contorting into an expression that might have attempted to be empathy, but failed miserably. When she tried to touch my leg, I drew my knees into my chest, wrapping protective arms around them. She sighed, smoothing her hands over her immaculate hair, not a single strand out of place. Perfection like that unsettled me, because nothing was ever so perfect without something gory and grotesque to hide underneath.

            “I’m sorry about August, but you needed to know,” she said, sounding anything but apologetic. “The truth is out. There is nothing left to hide.”

            Except me. Can’t I hide? Can’t I run off somewhere and hide forever, and let the world collapse around me?

            Never.

            Because this mess was my fault.

            And I would clean it up.

            I didn’t have any other choice.

            “You brought me here for a reason,” I said, staring down at my fingers, knuckles blanching as I tangled them together in tight, suffocating knots. “Why?”

            “To tell you—”

            “Don’t give me that lie. Just don’t. Why am I really here?

            Liz’s lips pressed thinly together, mouth pinching at the corners. Her self-control was admirable. “Straight to the point, then. Fine. We need you, Ellie, and technically, you belong to us. So you’ll do as we tell you, when we tell you to do it.”

            That was the hugest load of bullcrap I’d ever heard in my life. “I’m sorry, is there a contract somewhere that says this?”

            “Yes.”

            To be honest, I didn’t expect that response. At all. It caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure what to think.

            “The numbers on your back,” Liz stated. “Angel told you they were a—what was it? Yes, that’s right—an expiration date. Laughable, really. You’re nothing more than a product, Ellie, and that number was stamped on you representing the day you came into this world. Think of it as a birthday reminder.”

            Another fit of chills consumed me. I recalled a moment in Esme’s house on her couch, with Augie, so long ago, showing him the tattoo, listening to him say, “It’s four numbers, like a month and a day. Maybe when you were born?”

            Something like that, August.

            “Like it or not we own you, Ellie Armstrong, and we have the papers and the leverage to prove it.”

            I winced at the word ‘leverage’. “What do you mean?”

            She smirked. There was something sinister about the action. “August Masterson was supposed to leave for a special ops mission in the Middle East. He never boarded the plane.”

            No.

            “Any guesses as to why he never left?”

            So many ideas came to mind. They overpowered my brain and threatened complete catatonia. Of course I remembered. I remembered everything about that night, that changed the course of our futures and crossed a dangerous line and left us vulnerable and damaged. Because there was a kind of brokenness in realizing how deeply you were invested into another person, considering our situation. A desperation for something bigger and more wholesome. Something brighter. Something better.

            A demented hope only a battered soul could wish for.

            I knew why August never left. Because I veered in the wrong direction and disobeyed my soul. Our soul. He thought me dead, and he did everything I would have done had our situations been reversed.

            Blood-thirstiness.

            Madness.

            Revenge.

            “I take it you know,” Liz continued, derisive smugness lacing her voice. “Excellent. So you should know that, because he disobeyed direct orders passed down from the President, he will suffer the resulting consequences.”

            My body tightened.

            “And let’s just say . . . they aren’t good.”

            Damn you. “You’re a horrible person.”

            “It’s how I make my living. So what will it be?”

            She didn’t need to ask, because she knew how I felt about August, regardless of our fights or arguments or avoidances of each other.

            As far as I was concerned, there was only one option.

            “If I agree, you’ll let him go?”

            Liz didn’t look at me. She tracked her hands as they smoothed over her skirt, a smile ghosting her lips. “He will be completely pardoned.”

            Eyes closed, I drew in a deep, cleansing breath, and exhaled slowly. “I have one more request.”

            “And that is?”

            “Jessica and Blake. I want them brought here and protected.”

             I half expected her to put up a fight, but she offered a stiff nod instead. “Fine. That can be arranged. Anything else, while I’m in such a giving mood?”

            My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. “No.”

            “Excellent. The orders have been given for your first assignment.”

            So soon? “I can’t—”

            “You will,” Liz interjected, killing my words with an icy glare. “Remember? You just gave yourself to us. You’re first assignment is to find Lucille Bates and bring that batty wretch in. We need her.”

            The mention of my mother nearly had me heaving. “I don’t know where she is.”

            Liz snorted, or as close to somebody as stiff as her could come to snorting. “We already took care of that. All you have to do is bring her in.”

            Bring her in.

            My mother.

            My torturer.

            My killer.

            Liz closed the fragmented door behind her, splintered slightly from being kicked open. I sank beneath the blankets, unsure if I should cry or scream or ram my head into a wall.

            Truth be told, I kind of wanted to do all three.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lucille was no longer in Nebraska. I emerged from my room the next day dressed and more or less ready to go, when Liz told me this, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. They also mentioned something along the lines of a harrowing descent into madness, which also didn’t shock me. My mother was already one scoop short of an ice cream cone when I stumbled across her in Angel’s clutches. The six months with her proved her imbalance. God only knew how she was without me there to drive through hell.

            Considering my freakish ability, they didn’t need to allocate any government resources for me for weaponry, so that ought to put them in a good mood. I stood in the lower level of the building, waiting for the car that would take me to Lucille’s undisclosed location. Everything about everything was suspiciously hush-hush, but I was done questioning it. One question led to three more which led to zero answers, and that was excess confusion I didn’t need right now.

            A tingle raced down my spine, the hair over my neck prickling, and the moment I looked up, my eyes locked with August’s. He stood half-way down the stairs, wearing holey jeans and his holey socks and a rumpled gray t-shirt. His hand gripped the banister so tight I thought he might splinter the wood. His gaze bore into me with such ferocious intensity I thought he might splinter my soul.

            Liz sidled up beside me, presence exuding caution and warning. “Remember what I told you,” she murmured, eyes lifted the same direction as mine. “Remember what we discussed.”

            My hands balled into fists, and even after swearing to myself I wouldn’t let anybody else control my life, I had released the reigns to them once again.

            “Ellie.”

            “I know,” I snapped, lowering my gaze as he began descending the rest of the way. “I know.”

            “Good.”

            The black SUV pulled up outside and Liz pushed through the doors to speak with the driver. August’s feet entered my field of vision. I didn’t know what to do.

            His fingers skimmed my wrist, circling around and running down my palm. “Ellie.”

            My head ached. I wanted to cry. Even though I demanded my body to move away, it wouldn’t listen. “August, please.”

            “Just be careful, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            I turned my head. Outside Liz beckoned me, the frown on her face insinuating her displeasure at my conversing with August.

            “Remember what I told you.”

            Her voice was like acid running through my brain.

            I wished people would quit telling me stuff.

            She returned to my room last night, to debrief me on what to do with Lucille and where I would find her. And her parting words were unforgettable, because the sensation would stick with me. Because they were like knives puncturing my gut.

            “Stay away from August,” she had said. “Whatever fairy tale you two created is over.”

            Of course I rebutted with everything in me, but ultimately, Liz had the advantage.

            “You’ll stay away from him, because you’re our property, and because I told you to. And because you aren’t human, Ellie. You aren’t meant to live a normal life. You’re meant to carry out your duty for the government—for your country—and then die. And nobody will notice. Nobody will care. That’s the reality, Ellie. Nobody will care, and we can continue making more weapons like you, only better, and nobody will care about them, either.”

            But standing by the door, feeling August’s breath rustle my hair, I had to believe somebody would care. I had to believe somebody would miss me when I was gone.

            I had to believe, because the moment you stopped believing and hoping and sustaining faith, some crucial part of you died, and you could never recover that part again.

            “We’re talking when you get back,” he whispered, running his knuckles up my arm. “Whether you want to or not.”

            Outside Liz waved me on again, eyes narrowed to slits.

            August pressed a slow, tender kiss to my temple, murmuring, “I love you,” before breaking away and disappearing from sight. Cold air ensnared me without his presence. Liz looked just about ready to throw me over her shoulder if I didn’t hurry, so on shaky legs I slid into the back seat.

            As the car rolled away, I caught Liz’s eye through the window, and she gave me that look, like she knew. Like she knew my weakness and my brokenness; that there was no chance of me following her orders.

            I turned in my seat, acid bubbling in my gut, resolve clenching my hands.

            If she dared touch August, I would kill her.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was by a dilapidated shack about an hour down the road when the SUV pulled to a stop. Trees were the only things surrounding it, a perfect hole of isolation and nothingness. The driver said nothing, like the entire trip, and offered only a nod in the rearview to let me know this was the place. Perfect.

            My mother was holed up inside somewhere, cracking, losing her mind.

            And I had to deal with it.

            I slipped noiselessly out of the SUV, creeping toward the shack on the pads of my feet. Dead grass crunched beneath my boots. Stalks of weeds rose and wilted around the perimeter of the building. A couple flowers struggled to break through the deadened mass of their fallen brethren. August would say it was the perfect setting for a horror movie. And then his eyes would light up and he’d go on a tangent about them, and even if I didn’t understand half of it, I’d listen, and smile, because I could listen to his voice forever.

            Stop it, stop it, stop it.

            The door gave way after a miniscule push. The floor creaked unsettlingly beneath my weight. A single naked bulb strung from the ceiling lit the room. Flies dusted the walls. Some putrid odor of sweat and urine slammed me in the face, inciting a gag.

            I stopped when my foot kicked an empty beer bottle.

            My hand covered my mouth, and the empathetic sorrow that stirred within me was instinctual, because this woman was my mother, my blood, and I had to feel something, whether I wanted to or not.

            In the middle of the mess, draped in a tattered, grimy, soiled dress, was my mother. Her hair resembled scraggly rat tails hanging about her face, which was especially gaunt and ashen. Bones protruded through her skin, stretched tight, like Kleenex, barely holding everything together.

            She whispered mindless nothings to herself, curled in a ball, toe nails jagged and yellow.

            “Mom?” I whispered.

            She flinched, grew silent, animalistic eyes drifting my way.

            And that was when she attacked me.