by Snow, Sheena
“They took him and cut him open like he was a piece of meat—from his jaw, to his neck, down his arm, stopping at his finger. He was in their lab for weeks lying on that stupid operation table. They only let us see him once.” Bonnie dropped her head. “His skin had been sliced open, his metal bones exposed—picked at, prodded at, burned at. All to discover what he was made of.”
My throat dried up. “Oh god.” His scar.
“They never made any headway, and eventually, Alec became weaker and weaker. They had to make a decision. Save the robot, or harness his metal.”
I felt nauseous.
“They decided he was worth it because if they lost him, they would have lost the use of us all.” Bonnie pressed her lips together. “And you can’t tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That I told you about everything that happened to him.”
“Why not?”
See? They do keep lies.
“He’s ashamed.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my fingers against my lips. “But he shouldn’t be. He should be proud of everything he was put through and still survived.”
“Yeah,” she said but she didn’t hear me. Her fingers whitened as she gripped the edges of the countertop. Her foot nervously tapped against the cabinet, the quiet vibration echoing through my body.
Bonnie’s normally bright eyes were vacant. Probably seeing distant memories of . . .
I closed my eyes. My stomach hurt. Peach was right. They truly were like a family. A family that had gone through tragedy, twice, and lived through it. Together.
I suddenly felt like a stranger. Like the cold invader Peach had accused me of being, coming in here knowing nothing about them and hoping I could fit in. Pretending to be friends with them. I bit my lip. They were robots. Far apart from what I was. And I had the audacity to give them names, act like I was their Dr. Seyfer, like I was part of the Seyfer clan.
Peach was right. I knew nothing about watching a loved one hurl himself off a building. I knew nothing about watching helplessly as your commander was picked apart, prodded at, like a cadaver sitting on a cold, sterile table.
Images of Mom’s face ran through my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. Willing her away. Why, of all moments, did she have to resurface now? Her rejection stung, of my poor abilities to be the family she wanted, to be the daughter she wanted. My heart constricted in my chest. She’d said she loved me, but did she mean it?
Bonnie’s silent vibrations against the counter stopped. Her foot dropped against the wood floor. Color returned to her fingers as she eased her grip.
I reached out and held her hand.
She squeezed my white fingers between her brown ones.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I—”
“Come on.” Bonnie released my hand. The sadness pushed away through over-bright smiling eyes. “We should do something fun. And remember”—she poked my shoulder—“I never told you any of this happened. Right?”
I nodded.
Be careful who you ally yourself with, Vienna, the voice said. They are called robots for a reason.
Chapter 17
The door banged against the wall and voices drifted into the room.
My face brushed against the pillow. The fire crackled. A log split and fell on top of another log. I rubbed my face and looked around the moonlit family room, where Bonnie had carried in my mattress.
Bonnie, with dark circles under her eyes, stirred on the couch next to me. Apparently, they needed sleep, too.
My hair fell into my face as I sat up.
“Hey, guys.” Bonnie yawned. “You find anything?”
Alec, in his flimsy turtleneck and jeans, walked in and collapsed onto one of the couches. Bear and Kyle strode in with their thin T-shirts as well, messing with my perception of how cold it was outside.
“We covered everything within a ten-mile radius. All clear.” Alec frowned when he saw me. “What are you doing out here?”
I tried to smooth my hair down. “There isn’t a heater in the room.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry about that. I’ll sleep on the couch then.” My heart thumped around in my chest. “I want someone in the same room with you.”
Oh.
Peach slammed the girls’ door shut.
Bear and Kyle exchanged looks.
Alec ruffled his hair. “I’ll take it that means everything’s fixed between you.”
“Wishful thinking.” Bonnie stood and stretched. “I’m going to bed. I feel like I’ve been running on overdrive.” She hugged me and went into the girls’ room.
A robot just hugged me.
And it felt kinda nice.
She took a chance and shared something with me. She opened up to me.
She’s asking you to keep secrets!
Maybe she’s asking me to be her friend?
You can’t be friends with things like that.
I huffed and scrunched the sheets between my fingers.
“Goodnight.” Kyle cracked his knuckles and disappeared into the boys’ room.
“Well, I guess you two are stuck with me.” Bear rubbed his hands together. “And lucky for you, I still have tons of juice left in me.” He stretched his massive body across the sofa.
I yanked the blankets up, trying to cover my yellow monkey pajama pants.
“What were you guys looking for?”
Alec stretched his body across the sofa, encompassing the space Bonnie had slept in. My eyes traveled the length of his torso, watching his muscles tense under the fabric.
Stop it! the voice urged.
I hastily found a groove in the floor and tried to make it more exciting.
“To find anything out of the ordinary.” Alec said.
“Tracks.” Bear winked at me.
I couldn’t tell if the wink was from his catching me ogling Alec or just because.
Bear leaned forward, his brown hair ever darker in the soft glow of the fire. “Most tracking robots can jump thirty feet, which makes it hard to see their prints, to know if someone’s been following you. Trackers are also supposed to be good tree climbers. What normally happens is tracking robots go out first, find whatever they are searching for, and then report back to their unit, to the big guns, the intense robots. But”—he shrugged—“if we don’t see any signs of trackers, then that means we’re doing well so far and no one has found us.”
“For now.” Alec opened his eyes. “They might have found a way to cover their tracks, by using tracks we would assume are animal tracks or simply by covering them.”
“Do we have a tracker?”
We? the voice asked.
Yes. We. They’re helping me. At least give them credit for that.
Alec’s green eyes laughed. “We do.”
“Me,” Bear mumbled. “I was supposed to be the tracker.”
“Supposed to be?” I frowned. That didn’t sound good.
“I was the first robot made,” Bear said. “So, I was the guinea pig. I can jump fifteen feet but no more than that and . . .” he added sheepishly, “I get tired fast. The point of a tracker is to track, and I can’t really do that if I keep getting tired and needing to rest. You know what, maybe I’ll just go to bed, after all.”
“Come on.” Alec laughed. “We don’t care about that and you know it.”
“It’s all right, really.” Bear smiled. “’Night, guys.”
I watched Bear go into the guys’ room. “I would’ve never thought he was supposed to be a tracker. He’s so big.”
Alec smiled. “That’s the whole point.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest. “Dr. Seyfer must have been quite the scie
ntist.”
Alec stilled. “Who told you about that?”
Way to go, Vienna.
I rubbed my forehead. “Bonnie.” And now I was going to have to tell him that . . . “I asked about you.” I played with a loose thread on the sheets. “I wanted to know what your specialty was.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me?”
Perfect question. Why didn’t I just think of that? I twirled the thread around my fingers. Maybe because I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of the way you make me feel. I’m afraid of the way you look at me? Because . . . “I was afraid you wouldn’t tell me.”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. He walked over to the window. “You seemed so overwhelmed last night and I didn’t want to scare you, anymore.”
I slipped out of the sheets and stood beside him. “I was scared for my parents. For the danger I’ve put them in. For the attack, for my aunt, for the things that I don’t know, for the things that I don’t understand. It wasn’t you. You were the only one telling me the truth, in a world full of lies.”
The vibrant stars glimmered overhead, twinkling and glowing against the velvety sky. They reflected and bounced off one another. A Starry Night.
Cold air slithered through a crack in the windowsill and skimmed across my back. I rubbed my arms. Alec shifted closer to me, and I felt heat radiate off his body.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
The moonlight washed over his face, highlighting the angular planes of his cheeks, the strong nose, hard jaw, and the white line of his scar. His beautiful scar.
My heart squeezed thinking of him lying all alone, on a table with half of his body open, exposed to doctors picking, tormenting, pulling, and burning, Bonnie had said burning. They’d tried to melt his bones.
Alec tugged at his turtleneck, pulling it higher. His hand rested on his jaw, concealing his scar from my view, his damaged finger buried in his hair.
My heart flew around in my chest.
He was embarrassed.
And that was the last thing I wanted. I closed my eyes instead, focusing on his warmth running through my body, and on the little bit of moonlight that played against my eyelids. I could feel the closeness of his shoulders to mine. I could feel the closeness of his body to mine. I imagined the moonlight reflecting off his crossed arms, as his muscles constricted against each other. I imagined the way he’d looked at me today. The way his eyes seemed to growl, becoming dark and heavy. The way the wind blew through his dark hair. The way he stood, legs apart, ready, waiting.
The floorboards under our feet creaked and my eyes fluttered open.
“Wow. You looked so tranquil. I’ve never seen you like this before. What were you thinking?” he asked.
Oh my god!
My mouth dropped open and my cheeks flamed. “Nothing!”
“Nothing?” He cocked an eyebrow. “That didn’t look like a nothing to me. That looked like endless green pastures and wide-running rivers.”
I folded my arms across my chest. It was endless green eyes. “Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing,” he repeated and turned back to the window. “What else did Bonnie tell you?”
“What?”
“Did she . . . tell you . . .?” He shifted. “. . . anything else about me?”
Oh. Right.
He wanted to know if I knew how he got his scar. “The role of a commander,” I said, instead. “Something about being the glue—”
“The glue?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re the glue of the family. The Seyfer family.”
His eyes turned dark. “What did you say?”
Oh no.
I took a step back. “The glue of the family?”
“No. After that.”
I swallowed. “The Seyfer family.”
His nostrils flared. “You don’t understand. We can’t possibly be—” He ruffled his hair. “We’re not . . .” He paced back and forth. “We’re not—”
“Seyfers?” I whispered.
The muscles in his jaw moved. “Vienna—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut him off. “I shouldn’t have.”
“So she told you the whole story then? About my scar?”
Could I smack myself?
I wanted to smack myself.
Way to go, Vienna!
“You should be proud.” I squared my shoulders. “Not ashamed. Not everyone would have made it out. Would still be alive, even.”
He snorted. “That’s not why the scar is there. It’s to remind me of what I really am. And the things I’m not.”
“A robot with human parts?” I shook my head. “How could you even think that?”
“I am what I am, Vienna. Nothing more. I am at the government’s mercy. To be opened, to be used, to be their plaything, to be their puppet. I am robot.”
“No.” I stepped toward him. “You are not.” I narrowed my eyes. “And you know that’s not true because if you were, I wouldn’t be standing here, telling you to your face that you’re more than just robot.” My fingers clenched. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake sense into him. “You are more than what you think you are. You are important. You saved my life. You are caring. You are feeling. You are more.”
“Don’t glorify me.” He snorted. “You don’t know the things that I’ve done.”
“Don’t de-glorify yourself.” I stomped my foot. “And stop refusing to acknowledge the good things you have done.”
“I don’t acknowledge them because they are so few and far between.”
“I’d say the good you’ve done for me and my family alone is more good than anyone I know.”
“I wish it worked that way, Vienna. I wish it worked that way.”
Silence fell in the space between us, hollowing out the words we’d said to each other.
I’d defended him. I’d defended him against himself. I’d defended a robot, I’d defended a robot against himself.
They are turning you! They are bringing you to their side.
No! No they are not. I’m just trying to show them that they have good inside.
They have nothing inside. They are robots!
Stop it.
No!
I said, Stop!
The voice silenced in my head, and I took in a deep gulp of air.
“You said you don’t want me to be afraid.” I grabbed his hand before he could pull away. Our fingers slid against one another. And then, just as quickly, I withdrew my hand from his and a jolt ran through me. “So I’m going to ask you, why when we touch does this happen? Tell me,” I insisted. “Tell me why this really happens.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“That’s not going to stop me from wanting to know.”
“Fine. When we touch, my electricity merges with the electrons in your body. We share each other’s electrons, bringing us both to completed states. But when our electrons are forced to break apart from their completed state—when we stop touching—it causes an electric reaction, causing the pain you feel. It’s our body’s way of reacting when we force it back into an uncompleted state. Which is why you probably shouldn’t touch me anymore.”
“Agreed,” I said, then backed away from him.
“I’m not contagious,” he said, trailing after me.
“I would hope not.” When I turned around to walk back to the mattress, I saw him reach a hand out and then pull it back. I smiled. “You’re just a walking lack of electrons.”
I yanked the covers over my body and tried to keep my face straight and I fluffed my pillow.
“Vienna?”
“Yeah?” I snuggled into the pillow and heard him collapse into the couch.
“You have a lack of them too.”
> I rolled my eyes and bit my lower lip as a wide grin spread across my face. “Goodnight, Alec.”
“Goodnight, lack of electrons girl.”
Goodnight, lack of electrons boy.
Chapter 18
“Let go of me.”
Black shiny boots crunched atop the snow and the arctic breeze howled across my face against his back.
He jumped.
My stomach slammed against the man’s shoulder and air fled my lungs. I groaned.
“Alec,” I whispered.
“He can’t save you. He is not like you. And he will never understand you.”
He’s saved me before.
“He understands me better”—I panted against his back—“than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“You keep telling yourself that then. The truth of what they are will eventually come out and you’ll see the sun for the first time.”
But he’s started showing me the light already.
I took a breath of air, twisted in his grip, and pounded my fists into his back, connecting against solid brick. I gasped as pain seared through my arm.
“You wanna try that one more time?” He laughed. “Who did you think I was? I am robot. I have a knot in my left shoulder that you couldn’t even get out if you tried. We are a better species than you humans. And there will come a time when all humankind will face the truth. Until then, we bide our time, chipping away at the block of humanism.
But that is not what I have experienced.
“I don’t believe you.” I pushed off his back, twisted my body, and smacked my elbow into the side of his head. Pain exploded through my arm. His head gently swayed, his feet wobbled, and he almost tripped in the snow.
