Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1)

by Snow, Sheena

  I closed my eyes against his shoulder and heard the idle of the car engine.

  “What did I ever do?” I whispered, my lip quivering along his shirt. “Why do they want me?”

  “I wish I knew,” he said, resting his chin on my head. “I wish I knew.”

  His heart beat through the fabric of his shirt and against the side of my head. “Do you think they’ll ever stop looking for me?”

  His hand closed over my arm. “I think they’ll eventually give up or move on to something else. Something more important.”

  Is that our only hope? Something more important?

  I swallowed.

  He rocked us back and forth, and I inhaled the earthy sent of pinecones as it filled the car.

  “You must live outside or be rolling around in forests all day long because every time I’m around you, you smell like pinecones.”

  He laughed, deep and husky, and the sound reverberated against my chest, leaving a warm and soft feeling in its place.

  His laugh drifted away and I realized his laugh was the first laugh I heard a robot make.

  A robot.

  That’s right. He wasn’t human. He was still and would always be, one of them.

  Not of my kind. He was something else altogether.

  I slipped out of his arms and tucked my hair behind my ear. My arms tingled from his embrace.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” He hunched in front of the steering wheel. For the first time I saw bags under his eyes and areas where deep lines were soon to form.

  I rubbed my arms. “I’m fine.”

  “If you need me to pull over”—he started up the car—“let me know.”

  I nodded. “Maybe if we stop or something. Find a fast food place. I could use something warm.” To calm my twisting stomach.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He shifted the car into gear and I rubbed my hands together.

  We got off at the next exit.

  The air felt cold, blowing through my body as I shut the car door but I welcomed it. The wind numbed me and I wished it could numb my mind too.

  I walked past Green Eyes and headed straight for the gas station. I was so aware of him, of each of his movements, yet I refused to look at him. It was weird. It was odd. It was strange.

  I was walking around, like nothing was wrong—like I wasn’t being hunted, like I wasn’t walking around with a half-human half-robot thing-person, like everything was okay, and like I wasn’t totally aware of Green Eyes’ every movement behind me.

  I tried to bury myself in studying the different snacks until deciding which one to choose and then realized I had no money, for them or the hot chocolate. I closed my eyes and wished I could sink to the floor.

  Ugh. Why didn’t I think to grab some cash before I left? I had nothing now. I would have to rely on them, on Green Eyes, totally and completely. For everything.

  I put the cookies back on the shelf, took a deep whiff of the hot chocolate scent mottled in the air, and hoped that would be enough. I tucked my hands into my pocket, and walked back toward the car.

  The car was locked, just as well.

  It had stopped snowing and I walked to the end of the street, kicked off the snow, and sat on the curb facing the lights of the city below. The city below. Something I could never be a part of anymore. The simple joys, the simple lows, family ups, family downs.

  Now my life would be filled with robots, running, and secrets.

  “Vienna,” Green Eyes shouted my name.

  I turned and he waved me over to the car with two cups of something warm in his hands.

  My heart thumped around in my chest as I got off the ledge. The beats of my heart synchronized with each step I took toward him.

  He handed me the steaming cup and I could smell the hot chocolate before I even brought it up to my mouth.

  “Th-Thanks,” I stammered.

  “You said you wanted something warm.”

  I nodded and dipped my head. “Yes. I forgot to bring money. I remembered . . . just now.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I nodded again and opened the car.

  On my seat were three books and a box full of the chocolate chip cookies I wanted.

  “You?” I swallowed.

  “I didn’t know what book to get you so I got you three. I figured, hopefully, you’d find one”—he fingered his hot chocolate—“that you might like, to read.”

  I laughed. “I’ll probably read all three.”

  The breeze blew through his midnight hair, ruffling it.

  “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover,” he said. “I wanted to get there before morning.”

  I hopped in the car and read the back of the books while I sipped my hot chocolate and took a bite of the chocolate chip cookie.

  “Any of them sound good?” he asked.

  “They all do actually.” I opened the back cover and read about the author.

  “I’m not much of a reader so I . . . just guessed. Figured if I got you three you’d at least have something to pick from.”

  “You picked well,” I said, and my heart warmed, a little. “No one else is a reader in my family anyways. Well, maybe my dad but he’s more into business news.”

  “Actually.” He hesitated and then he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “What? Now you have to tell me. You can’t just say well actually,” I put on a manly voice, “and then not tell me. That’s cheating.”

  “Cheating?”

  “Yes. It’s cheating.” I tossed the books on the floor. Come on. Spit it out then.” I waved at him. “Tell me.”

  “It’s about your Aunt Tamera,” he said, “your mom’s oldest sister. She was a reader too.”

  Time froze as my heart stopped in my chest.

  He knew. He knew about my Aunt Tamera. The aunt that no one would talk about, the aunt that everyone pretended never existed, the aunt Sydney and I used to stay up at night wondering about.

  “What about her? Wait”—my breath hitched in my throat—“what do you mean was?”

  “You don’t know,” he said softly, “do you?”

  My stomach twisted. “I know nothing about her other than she was my aunt.”

  He snorted but kept whatever comments I could see swirling in his mind about my family to himself.

  “She died. Five years ago.”

  I slumped against the seat and shut my eyes.

  Damn it. I would never get a chance to meet her. Never get a chance to know her. Never get a chance. It was over.

  “Does my mom know?” my voice croaked. Did my mom even care?

  “I have no idea.”

  Unbelievable.

  “She had two kids, though,” he said.

  My heart plummeted into my stomach. I had cousins. Cousins that I didn’t even know about.

  “Lester is twenty-nine and London’s twenty-five.”

  A boy and girl.

  I felt numb.

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re out there. Somewhere. I could find them for you, if you really wanted.”

  I pressed my lips together. I wanted to find them. I did.

  “Then I will find them,” he said.

  I swallowed and dipped my head. “Thanks.”

  His warm hand slipped into mine, and I didn’t mind. That he was a robot, that he was human, that he was an it. It didn’t matter.

  I closed my eyes and allowed someone to be there for me. I learned so much more about him, in these last few hours, than I had from anyone else. He was truthful, he was honest, and he answered my questions the best he could. It was more than I had ever received from my mom. And it was more than I ever r
eceived from my dad. Openness and honesty were not traits that our family shared. And of all things, a robot was showing me how to do these things.

  A robot, my voice hissed.

  I need him now. Let me hold on to something . . . just for now.

  I opened my eyes and leaned against the cool pane of the window. I wove my fingers into his and he squeezed, locking our hands together.

  I latched on to him. On to his support. On to his strength. Trying to make it flow into me.

  His hands were warm on mine. I don’t know why I expected them to be different. His hands were like mine, hard and strong and warm.

  We drove like that, for some way. My head pressed against the cool windowpane, our hands clasped together, his eyes focused on the road, and my eyes . . . my eyes focused on nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  My head smacked against the window as his phone rang.

  “Ugh.” I rubbed my forehead.

  He whipped out his phone with some crazy super-speed motion and answered it.

  Robot, the voice whispered, there’s so many things you still don’t know about him.

  I gritted my teeth and leaned back against the cool window.

  “Yes,” he said. “And everything’s been taken care of?”

  I dozed off as he spoke, letting my brain go into idle mode. I heard him shut off his phone and from the corner of my eye watched as he put it back in his pocket, with normal human person speed.

  See, he’s trying.

  “Vienna, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Of course there was. I had a feeling there would never be an end to the things he had to tell me.

  I stretched. “How much more is there about you guys I still don’t know?”

  Did I even want to know?

  Yes.

  Yes, I did.

  He shifted. “It’s not that. It’s about your parents.”

  My stomach dropped, all the hot chocolate I had just drank dropped along with it.

  “There was another attack—”

  My heart plummeted. I was freefalling, the air below me racing past my body, my limbs flailing in midair, the sickening twist of my stomach.

  My parents. My parents?

  “—after we left. Everyone’s fine though and everything is now officially done, and officially taken care of.”

  My hands shook. I didn’t even think there would be another attack on the house. That was why I left. So they wouldn’t attack. So this wouldn’t happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “One broke into your dad’s study, while the other waited at the front door.”

  My mind raced with all the possible different scenarios. “Are-Are they . . .?”

  “Whoa!” he said, clasping my hand in his. “They’re fine. They’re okay. Everything is okay.”

  I sucked in gulps of air but the air didn’t go anywhere, it stayed lodged in my throat. My heart pounded against my lungs, forcing them to suck in oxygen. I hunched over and clutched my stomach. “I . . . can’t . . .”

  “I’m pulling over.”

  The car came to a frantic stop of the side of the road, and I bolted.

  “Vienna,” he said, “Vienna, wait.”

  I ran. Ran and ran and ran. Through bushes, through leaves, through trees, through branches.

  My parents. Dad. Mom. Dad’s study. Broken glass. A knock on the door. Them lying on the floor. Dead. Dad’s gray eyes, still. Mom’s painting hand, rigid, a paintbrush lying limply against her fingers. And the reason for it all:

  Me.

  I would be the cause of their death. I would be the link. The cause for the effect. I would be their downfall.

  I retched beside a tree.

  Sobs choked in my throat. My legs shook and I buckled against the trunk of the tree.

  A hand rubbed up and down my back.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  I leaned my head against the bark and heaved some more.

  His strokes on my back slowed into smooth circles.

  “Everything’s okay,” he repeated, “no one was hurt. Your parents are completely fine.”

  I nodded, and clutched at my stomach again.

  “How are you feeling?” He ran his fingers through my ponytail.

  I groaned against the tree. “I’ve never been better.”

  “I thought you knew they would attack again,” he said. “That’s why I left Robotatouille. We were expecting it, waiting for it.”

  But expecting is different from them actually attacking.

  I shut my eyes. “Will they attack again?”

  He shook his head. “They were never after your parents. By now they’ll know you’re no longer there.”

  “Won’t they ask my parents where I went?”

  “No. They won’t risk exposure. Come on.”

  He helped me up and the forest spun. Leaves weren’t in the normal places they should be and it looked like a branch was about to poke me in the eye.

  “I feel dizzy.” I reached wide and missed the purchase of the tree.

  “I got you,” he said, and swung me into his arms.

  He was warm, so warm. I closed my eyes against his chest and listened to the sound of his breathing as he carried me through the woods and back to the car.

  For being a robot, he was so human. So human. I wished I could feel the metal of his bones, the electricity running through his veins—the robot in it. I wished he wasn’t so kind to me. I wished he wasn’t so warm and I wished he didn’t have such green eyes, and silky black hair.

  He sat me down on the seat in the car and rubbed my back for another fifteen minutes as I sat with my feet on the snowy grass, feeling the wind across my face.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I nodded and moved my feet into the car. He shut the door and we started moving back onto the road again.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Here.” He handed me a piece of gum.

  “My breath reeks that bad, huh?” I popped it my mouth.

  “You’re welcome,” he said softly.

  I twisted the wrapper in my hand and let the steady hum of the motor fill the car.

  I was indebted to him, twice now. Not only had he saved me but he had saved my parents.

  His people were there, saving my parents, when I wasn’t. They had been there. He had allowed them to be there. He was the reason they were safe. Not me. Certainly. Not. Me.

  I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest.

  My world had completely flipped upside down, leaving me lost, trying to find the way back up, not even certain if the way back up would even bring me up.

  And not only that but he was nice. He was kind. He was there for me. And he was a robot.

  Robot.

  My eyes opened, flickering over his perfectly sculpted arm, following the white scar that protruded from under his sleeve, ran along his hand, and ended at the base of his middle finger.

  I watched the rise and fall of his chest. I watched as he breathed in and out. I watched as his body lived, moved, and breathed . . . like a human. So alive. So real. It was if I could see the life coursing through him.

  He’s still a robot, the voice whispered in my head, and my stomach tightened.

  But these parts of him seemed so real.

  “What about love?” I asked.

  He gave me a crooked smile and I wanted to smack myself, especially as tingles traveled through my stomach.

  “What about it?”

  “How far . . .?” My voice trailed off. “How far do your emotions extend? All . . . all the way?”

  His smile vanished, and I bit my lip. “You don’t have to—”<
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  “All robots have rubber for muscle.” He flexed his arm. “Synthetics for skin, metal for bones, and electricity for veins but our minds are different. We have the full range of emotions and thoughts and feelings that humans do. In that way, we’re wired, I guess you could say, the same.”

  “The same?” I breathed.

  But could we really be the same?

  “What about your hair?” I stroked the silky strands between my fingertips.

  “It’s real.” His voice caught. “It grows.”

  “Do you feel this?” I let my finger trace the smooth tan skin of his neck, warm and soft, like human skin.

  “Think of it like a clone of skin, it carries all the same properties,” he whispered, “of real skin.”

  Heat spread across my face, and I snatched my hand back. An electric zap traveled through my hand, and I rubbed my hand against my jeans.

  “So.” I played with a thread on my jacket and changed the subject. “Where are we going?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I pressed my tongue against my teeth.

  Way to make this more comfortable.

  I shrank further into the chair. “I thought we were going with the other . . . robots.”

  I pressed my fingers to my lips. I’d almost said people . . . other people.

  “That sounds about right,” he said and switched lanes.

  I pursed my lips.

  Well, thank you for being so forthcoming.

  “Well?” I kicked off my boots. “Where are they?”

  “Behind us.”

  “Really?” I turned around to see no one following on the road. “Where?”

  “You won’t be able to see them. They’re really far behind us.”

  “So how would they know where we are?”

  “The cars have a device that links our location. They can find us no matter where we are, and I can find them no matter where they are. It makes it easy to see if someone else is following.” He pointed to the radio. “See those green dots?”