toward the horizon before I could even get a good look.
City closed the window, letting out a loud whoop. “Did you see that?”
Ginni laughed and hugged her. Rand grinned and clapped Saminsa on the back. “That was amazing!”
My mind was clearing a little now that the epi had taken effect. I pulled my tired body over to where Adrien was buckled in near the front of the transport.
I hugged him hard, fat tears seeping out of my swollen eyes as I thought about General Taylor and how close we’d all come to suffering the same fate. “We’re safe.” I clung to his skinny frame. “We made it.”
He didn’t hug me back.
“Adrien?” I pulled away.
That was when I finally looked into his eyes.
And knew something was horribly wrong.
His eyes had no vibrancy. Even the normal bright blue-green hue seemed leeched out of them.
“Adrien?” Even though he was looking straight at me, I wasn’t sure he saw me at all.
“Adrien?” My voice raised to a hysterical pitch. “Adrien, you’re scaring me.”
He continued to stare ahead dumbly.
I grabbed his hand and put it to my beating heart. “It’s Zoe, talk to me.”
“Zoe,” he echoed, his voice hollow and lifeless. “Why didn’t you save me?”
Chapter 29
ADRIEN SAT ON JILIA’S MED TABLE as she finished her diagnostic. His mother sat beside him, squeezing his hand. Deep brown circles ringed his eyes, and I couldn’t look away from the barely healed scars lining his head where his skull had been cut open.
“Adrien,” Jilia said, her tone falsely bright as she lowered the imaging panel. “You’ve done very well. Please go back to your dorm room and rest now.”
He stood up and did what she said. All he ever did now was follow orders. Nothing else. He’d stand for hours if no one told him to sit down.
Rand was waiting to escort Adrien back to his dorm room.
“What is it?” Sophia asked the doctor anxiously.
Jilia swallowed, then pulled out a projection tablet that loaded a 3-D image of Adrien’s head.
“He’s had multiple operations. From the bit that he is able to remember and relate, the Chancellor had him under compulsion for over a month. Until he had a vision of what he thought was Zoe’s death.” She looked at me. “He foresaw you going into the allergy attack with no one there to save you. He knew if he told the Chancellor, he’d be telling her how to kill you. His determination not to harm you somehow enabled him to finally break her control over his mind. He began successfully fighting back and refusing to tell her his visions anymore. That was when she started in on the surgical options.”
I felt numb as she spoke. This had happened to him because of me.
“What, as some kind of torture?” Adrien’s mother asked, stricken.
“She did torture him at first to try to get the answers out of him.” Jilia looked down. “But in the end, she lobotomized him. She cut out portions of his brain, including almost the entire amygdala. He has his memories, but can no longer attach emotion to them. Or to anything he experiences. After the operations…” she swallowed again. “After the last operation it appears the Chancellor’s compulsion did indeed work on him again. But he’d stopped having visions altogether.” She looked at me. “The only reason the Chancellor even kept him alive was as collateral against you. She knew that he had to be alive for Ginni’s power to locate him, so she could draw you into the trap.”
“Is he ever going to be my Adrien again?” Sophia asked. I held my breath while I waited for Jilia’s answer.
She looked at the floor again.
“Tell me!” Sophia said.
“The developments in organ-regrowth technology have been promising over the last fifty years, but no one has ever succeeded at regrowing entire portions of the brain. Any replication processes will be long and slow. We’ll begin right away, but I can’t make either of you any promises. I’m so sorry.”
I stepped back, stunned.
“But you’re a healer,” Sophia shouted. “Can’t you
The sorrow on Jilia’s face clear. “I’m sorry, Sophia.” She reached out to put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder, but Sophia ripped her arm away from the contact. She spun and hurried from the room, I think so we wouldn’t see her cry.
I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to get out of here too. Sophia was gone when I got to the hallway, and my steps echoed loudly in the empty space. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Regardless of everything Jilia had said, I knew Adrien and I were destined to be together. There was supposed to be a happy ending. Adrien and I, standing in the sunlight at the end of the war. But then again, Adrien had never told me that’s how it would end. In the vision he’d shared with me, I was in the sunlight, but I’d been all alone. And I’d been running toward danger, not celebrating victory.
I stopped when I came to the T in the hallway, looking up in surprise when I realized my feet had carried me to Adrien’s dorm. I stood outside the door for a moment, preparing myself for what was on the other side, then pushed the button and stepped in.
Adrien sat at the study table, staring at the wall. My heart tightened in my chest at the sight of him. He looked so broken, but the strong cut of his nose and his rugged jaw were still so familiar. This was the boy I loved. Jilia had to be wrong. Even if the Chancellor had removed part of his brain, surely Adrien was still in there somewhere. We were more than our physical parts, more than our electrical synapses or brain tissue; that was what Adrien always said. That’s what Cole had taught me. We had souls.
I sat down in the chair opposite him and reached for his hand. He let me take it. Maybe if we touched for long enough, it would spark him back to life. The memory of the diagrams Jilia had shown us popped up in my mind, but I expelled the images.
This was Adrien. My Adrien. Our love could surmount anything. He’d proven it already when he’d thrown off the yoke of the Chancellor’s compulsion. It shouldn’t have been possible, but his love for me was stronger even than her ability. He could find his way back to me again, I knew it.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
He didn’t look up at me. His hand was limp in mine. “The doctor says I am unwell.”
“You’re going to be fine.” I tried to smile, but I was fighting back tears. “We just have to give it some time.”
He didn’t say anything or nod.
“Can I ask you a question?” I leaned in.
“Yes.”
I swallowed, gripping his hand tighter. “Why did you go on that raid? Why did you leave the Foundation at all after you’d seen the visions of what would happen to you?”
“I had other visions, of you and me together at the Foundation. Several of them had not yet occurred, so I deduced that my capture would not be until later.”
I felt hope flower in my belly. “So they’ll still come true?”
He shook his head, but it looked like a mechanical movement, sharp jerks back and forth. “No. It was not me that I saw. It was Maximin wearing my face.”
The bloom inside me wilted, replaced by an involuntary shudder. It was cruel and unfair. All those moments that should have been Adrien’s and mine had been shared instead with Max. I felt another rush of choking hatred for Max. He’d been locked up in a room on the lower level and was kept under constant supervision. It was far better than he deserved. If Sophia or I had our way, he wouldn’t be treated so humanely.
“You thought you had more time,” I said, my heart breaking.
“That is not the only reason,” he said. “I could not interfere with the causality chain. If I did not rescue
