Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Addie
I’m crossing the parking lot of a German research hospital when I shiver with a gust of winter wind, the woodsy, warm depths of which remind me of Creed, and my footsteps quicken.
Nearly two years have passed since that dreaded day when Julian Rain led the rebellion and takeover of Area 51, two years since I last saw Creed, since my heart was shattered into tiny irreparable pieces.
He’s not here, I tell myself.
And I don’t want him to be here.
Sinking deeper into my wool-lined coat, my heels click on the now familiar red-brick path that leads to the building where I’ve worked for eighteen long months. I didn’t just leave Area 51 when Creed left. I jetted out of the country, though that certainly wouldn’t keep Creed away from me, had he actually cared to find me.
But he hasn’t bothered.
A flash of firecrackers splinter in the sky in a blast of yellow, red, and blue, a promise of a New Year’s celebration show soon to follow. My coworkers left hours ago for the New Year’s festivities that I have no desire to take part in. I don’t have the energy for social skills as of late, still exhausted from what felt like months of interest after the Area 51 mess. It’s not like I can date. Something about that mark on my neck seems to make me uninterested in anyone but him. It must not be the same for the male who’s been bonded. I might be cursed to want only the man I hate, to ache with an unexplainable need for him, but I’m certain he’s found plenty of female companionship.
It's a painful thought I shove aside.
None of that tonight.
Tonight, I plan to watch the old G.I. Jane movie my mother loved so much, microwave popcorn, and finish off with ice cream. I don’t want or need a relationship anyway. Alone feels more comfortable after the two people I’d thought I’d known—Creed and my father—have proven untrustworthy. I’d been bamboozled, as my mother would have said. Despite all my clinical skills, I’m incapable of properly evaluating those closest to me.
Even now, I catch myself replaying Creed’s parting words, trying to understand why he’d been so Julianant about hiding the mark we share if he wasn’t trying to protect me. Why wouldn’t he drag me along with him to reproduce, since we now know that’s one of the Zodius movement’s goals: reproduce and replace humanity. That’s the goal that’s circulating. That’s Julian’s intent, and I can only assume Creed’s as well.
It’s the gene mutation, and all I can think is that the mark made him protective enough of me to leave me out of it all.
Already, I’m going down this rabbit hole again, and I shake myself, murmuring a word of frustration. I’m tearing myself up inside with the unanswered questions, trying to make a traitor into a hero.
The few months I’d spent at a Texas Air Force base just after the Zodius uprising hadn’t been far enough away from Groom Lake. I’ve never considered myself a coward, but I’d needed space from what happened, space from Creed. Of course, he could be here in seconds, in a lift of the wind, but the human in me feels safer with space. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. I’d wanted to forget. I haven’t even asked for updates, and the news is free of the topic of the Zodius takeover.
I’m invisible.
I hope.
A snowflake fluttered in front of me. Another touched my nose. I love the snow, and I hold out my hand and allow it to disappear into my skin the way I’ve tried to make the heartache disappear and failed. On the bright side, I love my job here, where I counsel rather than research. I don’t want anything to do with my prior life, and research feels like the me of then, not the me of now.
I like this new life.
I like the food, especially German pasta—I adore spaetzle. And I like—the wind gushes around me, blowing me a step backward, the snow falling faster, mixed with ice that pelts against the pavement, as well as my body with a jolting impact. Nerves jangle about inside me, and I cast a furtive look around the nearly vacant parking lot, but there is no sign of Windwalkers. No sign of trouble. No sign of Julian. No…Creed, I think, with a stab of pain right in my heart. Will I ever stop looking for him in the wind? Hoping he’ll come to me and explain everything, hoping everything wasn’t as it seemed.