Freaks in the City by Maree Anderson Page B

her and her
secrets, to use and control her, will keep sending people after
her.
    There is only one way to stop this. He must
believe she’s been obliterated, leaving behind no useable
remains.
    She drags the last man out of harm’s way and
heads for the backyard of the property. For her plan to succeed she
must leave evidence behind—incontrovertible evidence.
    She pulls the wrapped package from the
waistband of her jeans, tears away the protective wrapping. She
knows what she is—she’s always known. So why is it suddenly so
shocking to gaze at this hand—so humanlike until one looks closer
and sees gleaming metal where there should rightly be bones. This
hand she has constructed would be considered a scientific miracle
but it is still artificial, inhuman. Like her.
    She flings the hand into swimming pool. And
after one last scan of the vicinity, she thumbs the timer-switch to
start the countdown.
    Ten. Nine. Eight—
    Tears sting her eyes, pool, and track down
her face. She doesn’t want to leave Tyler but to keep him safe she
has to give him up.
    Five. Four. Three—
    She spots movement from the corner of her
eye.
    Her heart skips a beat and then plummets to
her toes. Tyler. She’d recognize him anywhere. He shouldn’t be
here.
    He shouldn’t be here!
    Somehow, he is. Somehow he’s tracked her.
He’s standing by the ranch slider, squinting into the darkness,
searching for something.
    Searching for her.
    Even though logically she knows it’s too
late to save him, with every fiber of her being she’s compelled to
try. She launches herself at him just as the explosion lights up
the sky.
    The blast sears the clothes from her body,
snatches her breath. She will survive of course, and for the first
time since her creation she hates that she’s practically
indestructible… because this fragile human boy she loves with all
her heart is not. He’s dead. And she is responsible—
     
    ~~~
     
    A noise ripped Tyler from sleep. He lay
there, heart thumping, blinking in the darkness to shake off the
last remnants of unconsciousness. Sometime during the night he’d
rolled on his back and sprawled across the bed, taking up his share
of the mattress and someone else’s. He lolled his head to the side
to check on Jay, half-expecting to find she’d gotten up during the
night and left him the bed. But she was still there, lying on her
side, facing away from him.
    A moan, like someone in pain, threaded its
way to his ears.
    “Jay?” He rolled over, hand outstretched to
shake her awake.
    Another moan, more anguished than the
first.
    He froze mid-gesture. The fine hairs on his
nape stood to attention. Something was wrong, he could feel it in
his bones.
    Instead of touching her, he groped for the
light switch, bathing the room in a warm, comforting glow.
    “No!” The shout that issued from her
contorted mouth sounded like it’d been torn from her throat.
    A nightmare. That’s all it was. A nightmare.
Okay. He could deal with this.
    He placed a hand on her shoulder and shook
her gently. “It’s okay, Jay,” he crooned in a singsong voice. “It’s
just a bad dream. It’s not real.”
    She shuddered beneath his touch and he shook
her again. “Wake up, Jay.”
    “No! You weren’t supposed to follow me,
Tyler. You were supposed to be safe.”
    Chills skated up and down his spine. He
rolled her onto her back and smoothed the tangle of hair from her
cold face. Tears smeared her smooth, too-pale cheeks. His heart
contracted. This was one badass nightmare all right.
    “You weren’t supposed to die. Noooooo!” Her
howl reverberated through the room, bouncing off the walls.
    Shit! Tyler clamped down on his shock and
knelt beside her to shake her harder this time, his voice ringing
loud and insistent in the silence. “It’s okay, Jay. I’m here. I’m
not dead. It’s okay. Wake up.”
    Her eyes snapped open but her gaze was
vacant, like there was nobody home. And then she screamed his name
so loudly that he had to