by Snow, Sheena
“What’s your favorite color?” he whispered.
My body shook.
“What is it?” His voice softened.
“Yellow,” I croaked.
“Yellow?” His lips caressed the word. “Mine’s red.”
“R-Red,” I stuttered, trying to figure out what game he was playing.
“Red,” he reaffirmed, and then I felt his finger gently lift my chin. His breath tingled against my face. “Ask me what my favorite thing to do is.”
I hiccupped and my chin wobbled in his grasp.
He smiled, his green eyes glowing, devouring my face.
“What’s your favorite thing to do?” I asked.
I watched his eyes darken, turning a deep-forest evergreen. The soft pad of his finger traced my lower jaw. My stomach tightened.
“Nature.” His thumb continued to stroke my cheek.
I felt his warm breath on my face, his heat burning its way into me, his wood-pine scent taking over my body.
“Nature?”
He let go, and my face tingled.
“I like to watch, to learn the way things move, how they were created, how they live, how they adapt. The beauty in it. The way things crawl, the way they climb, how they hold on when the wind blows, how they glimmer in the sun. The ease they have.”
“The ease they have?” I stared at the delicate scar on his neck.
“The beauty in the simplicity.”
I frowned, trying to absorb his words. “And how do you see that?”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “It’s in the way the leaves turn as they blow, the way the birds arch their necks before they fly, the way petals float before they hit the ground.”
I stared at him. Mesmerized. I’d never thought of anything like that as beautiful before.
“I’ll show you.”
“You’ll show me?” I twirled a strand of my ponytail and envisioned us in a grassy plain with him trying to point out the little things scurrying, floating around that I’ve never seen before, or rather that I’d never cared to see before. Alec showing me the beauty in all the things I’d missed. And I wanted it. I wanted to see life the way he saw it. I wanted to see it—with him.
A robot, full of hard lines, ridges, and edges yet as gentle as a bunny, as sweet as a puppy, and as in love with nature as Mother Earth herself.
What a beautiful contradiction Alec was. What a beautiful juxtaposition. What a beautiful creation of Earth he always will be.
Peach and Alec needed to figure out strategy, which was why I was now I sitting in the passenger seat with Bonnie, my fingers white, clutching the seatbelt for dear life.
We cut off another car and dodged around two more that were clogging the lanes, riding the brakes down the highway.
I couldn’t stop my eye from twitching or my throat from gulping. It really would be a shame for it to all end here.
And yet, every time I went to tell her to stop, I couldn’t. She looked free, happy, and beautiful. The more I stared, the more beautiful she became, the more her skin shone, the higher her cheekbones appeared, the bouncier her hair became, and the more her eyes smiled. She was beautiful—for a human, for a robot, for anything—she was simply stunning.
With my free hand, I traced the planes of my face, feeling the incongruities and the blemishes.
“What’s going on in that mind of yours?” Bonnie asked.
“Nothing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure, I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
“And they’re all about your driving,” I said, and tightened my grip on the seatbelt.
She laughed, her bubbly voice filling the car. “Wait till you drive with Kyle. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Thank you for the warning. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Mental note: Never drive with Kyle.
“Are you excited?” she asked.
I eyed the sign. “For Texas?”
“It’s beautiful.” She beamed. “And the best part, only three hours left.”
“My back thinks that’s wonderful.”
“Mine, too. Believe me, I’d have stopped the twenty-five hours ago if I could’ve.”
“Don’t remind me.” I stretched. “I don’t know how you did it, all that time with only Peach in the car.” I shuddered.
“Peach isn’t that bad.”
I clicked my tongue. “Then why isn’t she nice to me?”
“It’s not you. It’s the decisions”—her voice caught—“others make.”
“You mean Alec’s decisions? Like the one to save me? Because now I feel even better.”
“Peach used to be much different. Peach used to be happier. Things . . . used to be so different.”
“Like how?” I tipped my head back and tried to conjure up an image of this “new” Peach, of this “nice” Peach.
“Well,” Bonnie said, “she used to sing.”
“Sing? Peach?”
Should I laugh?
“She had some voice, and when she sang, I would close my eyes”—Bonnie’s voice lightened—“and let it drift through me. I would stop and listen before I walked into the room. It was something to hear. Everyone loved it.” Bonnie shook her head. “I miss her singing.”
“Why’d she stop?”
“The day they took Alec. Sometimes, at night, I would hear her humming herself to sleep.” Her voice stilled. “But it wasn’t the same. Her voice could fill ballrooms and form goose bumps on your arms. Even her humming was beautiful, a lonely, broken, sweet melody.”
My heart fell into my stomach.
“But then she stopped that, too,” Bonnie said. “After . . .” She pressed her lips together. “After me.”
“You?” My eyes widened. “What had happened to you?”
“He’s not here anymore,” Bonnie said.
“Who’s not?”
“Steve. My Steve.” Bonnie’s lips trembled.
“Who?”
Bonnie’s eyes zoned off.
I pressed my lips together as I looked between her and the car that just switched into our lane, the car that we were suddenly approaching. Way. Too. Fast.
“Umm, B-B-Bonnie?”
We were going to collide.
I fumbled across the seat and grabbed the wheel. The car swerved, its wheels skidding off the road, turning into the ditch. My fingers cramped around the wheel. The car slid back and forth. Dust pitched against the windshield.
“B-Bonnie!” I screamed.
Her eyes snapped into focused and we flew back onto the road, into the flow of traffic.
I sagged into the seat and rested my palm against my beating heart, breathing in and out, in and out. I was still alive. Calm down. I was still breathing. It’s okay.
“Oh my god, Vienna,” Bonnie gasped. “I’m so, so sorry. Crap.” Her shoulders shook and tears filled her eyes.
“Bonnie? Hey? Shh . . . It’s over. It’s—”
“I nearly got us killed! Again,” she screeched, and all the joy and light fled her eyes.
A-Again?
“Crap!” Bonnie sobbed and slammed her hand against the steering wheel. “It almost happened. It almost . . .” She let out a cry.
“Nothing happened.” I rubbed Bonnie’s shoulder.
“No. No. No-No,” she whimpered.
“Pull over,” I said. “Pull over now.”
We turned off onto the side and the car came to a jolting stop.
“It’s over,” I said.
Bonnie shook her head.
“Bonnie, look at me.”
“I was the last straw.” Her chin wobbled. “I was the final thing. I’m the reason. I’m why Peach is this way.�
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“Bonnie you can’t blame—”
“No.” She shook her head. “This is exactly what happened last time. This was what happened after he died.”
“After who died?”
“Steve.” She clenched her fingers in her lap.
“Steve?”
She nodded. “My match.”
My blood froze in my veins. “Your what?”
My world was suddenly spinning. Bonnie had a match? Bonnie had a—
“He was human.” Her lips quivered. “Like you.”
“Like me?” I sat back in my seat.
Oh no.
“Steve was my everything. He was my shelter from the world. The place I could always be myself. The place I never had to worry. He was my everything. And now h-he’s gone.” Her shoulders sagged. “And I’ll never get him back. Never get to spend another minute with him. Never get to see him smile again.
“After I lost him . . .” Bonnie’s eyes clouded. I lost everything that mattered, they said. “I lost myself.”
My fingers traced the smooth leather of the door handle. She lost everything that mattered.
“I left the crew,” she whispered. “Really they asked me to leave. It was good they did. I was a liability. Sometimes, like now, I wonder if I’ll always be. I almost killed everyone on a mission. It was a simple mission. It was an easy one, in the bag, but I blacked out . . .” Bonnie swallowed. “The loss took too much from me. That’s why Peach hates you, because of me, because of what I did, because she’s afraid of the same thing happening to Alec.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s afraid of losing Alec. She’s afraid of what he’ll become, what he’ll do—if he loses you.”
“But Alec’s fine. He would never . . .” I looked into Bonnie’s heartbroken eyes, like large pooling orbs holding nothing but destruction and pain, and the words fled my lips. “Bonnie . . .” I crushed her to me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I wished I could have been there.
“Steve was my everything.”
I tightened my grip. “How long ago?”
“Two years, nine months, and twenty-two days. That’s the terrible part about loving a human.”
“We die?” I whispered.
“That you’re so susceptible to death.”
I sat back.
Susceptible.
So human, the little voice whispered in my head.
Stop. I ground my teeth together. “Why love us at all then?” I asked. “If we are so susceptible.”
“For the time in-between.” Bonnie smiled.
I tilted my head. How could she be smiling?
“I’ll always have that,” she said. “I’ll always have the memories of him. And that’s the only reason I’m still able to function. It’s the only reason I’m still able to keep going. I have his smile, his booming laugh, and his tender eyes. I’ll carry them with me and that’s what makes it bearable. It’s what makes waking up every day without him, bearable.”
Bearable?
“I don’t understand, with all this pain, how can you be so happy all the time?”
She smiled, and this time, I peered closer. I could see it now, buried deep within her eyes, a throbbing loss.
“It’s my shell.”
And then I understood.
Because the real Bonnie was buried underneath.
Chapter 24
“This is it!” Bonnie rolled down the window and waved at the sign as we drove past.
“Tyler, Texas?” I asked.
“Yup. The one and only.” Bonnie smiled and I wondered if I could ever look at her like I did before. The pain, the scars, the loss were now all too prevalent in every expression on her face.
The car rolled to a stop in the parking lot.
“This is one of my favorite places. You should see what our cottage looks like here. It’s gorgeous. Flowers bloom under the window, pots hang from the walkways, and petals litter the sidewalk.”
“Then why are we parking in front of a motel?”
“Because Alec won’t let us stay there.” She sighed. “They’ll attack there first if they’re following us and this way, we can monitor it, and maybe catch a few of them.”
“Why would you catch . . .?” Bile slithered its way up my throat. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. “Oh god,” I breathed.
“I’m sorry, Vienna.” Bonnie’s face dropped. “It’s the only way to find out how much they know.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no.” I slammed the car door closed behind me. “That’s inhumane. That’s us becoming the demons we’re running from.” I stopped, causing a patch of dirt to spray up behind me. “I thought we were better than that.”
“Vienna.” Bonnie glanced around and locked the car.
Everyone in the parking lot was staring at us. Peach’s eyes flashed a you’ll-regret-this-later look.
“I can’t believe this is something you guys even considered,” I hissed and stalked off.
I kicked at the rocks on the gravel, spinning dirt in different directions. This wasn’t okay. It wasn’t acceptable. For all they knew, those robots were only following their orders. They didn’t deserve to be tortured for it. Especially by us. Rays from the setting sun blinded my eyes and I shielded my face against them.
“Vienna, wait?” Alec laid a hand on my shoulder.
I rolled his hand off me.
“I tried to tell you,” he said. “I’m not what you think I am.”
“You are what you make yourself to be.” I spun around. “You want to be a murderer? Simple, you murder something. You want to be a torturer? Simple, you torture something. You want to be a new beginning? You want to be a new start? You want to live the way you want? It’s simple. You live it.” Air shook as it made its way down my throat. “What’s the point of even saving me when you’re going to turn around and torture one of your own for information?”
“Fine, Vienna.” He threw his hands in the air. “How would you go about getting information from them? Invite them to coffee?”
“You don’t start a revolution with fear. You start it with hope.”
“Whoever told you I was trying to start a revolution? I don’t want to start anything.”
“That’s how it happens. You do something you think is right and everything unfolds from there, whether you want it to or not.”
We stared each other down, neither giving in, neither backing away.
“And through it you bring others hope,” I said.
“Hope? And how far do you think this hope will get you?”
“You’re a fool then, Alec. That’s all life is. Hope. Hope for a better today. Hope that you don’t repeat the mistakes of yesterday. And hope that the future continues to grow and evolve and doesn’t fall back into old, negative patterns.”
He sighed, and it sounded like the weight of the world flew out of him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re the most wonderful woman in the world? That you never stop fighting, you never give up trying to save the world from its own injustices? You never settle for no. You keep thinking of a way around everything? You hope?”
“I haven’t thought of a way around everything.” I shrugged, all my steam evaporating too. “I don’t know how to stop the running.”
He smiled. “Well, there’s always hope.”
I pursed my lips. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”
My robot was a cheeky little one.
“I promise we won’t touch the robots. We’ll think of another way.” He stepped forward and lifted my chin. “A better way.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. The sun set beneath my eyelids, and I felt the loss of the heat on my skin.
The cool wind whipped through my hair.
“There is good in you.” I wrapped my hand around his. “Even if you don’t see it, it’s there.”
His finger traced the edge of my jaw. “Let’s go inside,” Alec murmured.
I nodded, and we walked hand-in-hand back to the hotel.
The rooms were nice and simple with a door connecting them. I eyed the two double beds in each room, mentally doing the math. Someone would have to share.
The bathroom opened and Peach walked out. Her eyes glared blue flames when they found me.
“So I trust you’ve told her everything then.” Peach raised her chin. “The whole truth and she still accepted you for it.”
What?
“Now’s not the time,” Alec said, turning around.
I stood between the two of them.
“What’s the whole truth?” I asked, unable to help the hitch in my voice. “I thought you told me everything?”
See there are still secrets in the robot world, the voice hissed. They are worse than humans, worse!
“Tell her,” Peach’s eyes narrowed, “or I will.”
My heart dropped in my chest.
“Alec—”
I didn’t have to say another word. He grabbed my hand and led me outside.
My heart thumped against my ribs, every step with him making me feel farther away from him.
We walked down the road in silence. Me putting one foot in front of the other, him opening and then closing his mouth again.
He stopped and faced the distance, where the sun left streaks of purple in the sky. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I started watching you?”
“I thought it was so you could save me?”
“So you never wondered how I knew you were in trouble in the first place?”
