While he had learned to hone his abilities, he also learned to conceal them. That was the one rule—to never reveal your true nature. There were people out there who wouldn’t understand, who would be afraid. For some reason that made Sam think of the book their tutor had made them read.
It hadn’t been intentional, but that was the day that Sam secretly began to think of himself as something of a monster.
And now Emily—the one person he never wanted to see him as such—had turned him into even more of an abomination. Rationally, he understood that she had saved him. In some ways she had even improved him. He was certainly stronger now, but at what cost? Underneath the flesh rebuilt by her little “beasties” were fingers, wrist and other bones no longer made of bone. He was metal there.
“It’s your flesh, Sam,” Emily had said, touching his new arm lightly with her clever fingers. “The Organites copied your cellular design. The skeleton might be metal, but the rest of it is all you.” Her eyes had pleaded for him to understand, to forgive, but he hadn’t been able to do that then and he couldn’t do it now—not entirely. Not like she wanted.
Just like Victor Frankenstein’s monster, he wasn’t one complete human body. Some of his humanity had been lost. But as much as it scared and angered him, part of him liked being even stronger. He liked knowing that the next time he went up against one of those damn machines he could give it a little taste of its own.
Something was happening in the mechanized world. Something that enabled metal and gears to revolt against humans. The machine that ripped his arm off hadn’t been the first to go against its engineering. It had simply been the worst.
And now its remains lurked deep beneath the house, in a vault for which only Emily and Griff knew the combination. He hated her being so close to the abomination, but he couldn’t stand to be there with it—or Emily.
His cowardice was why Griff had replaced much of the mechanized staff with flesh and blood, because his friend knew how much metal terrified him now.
What if the machine hadn’t been destroyed? Griff claimed its power supply had been removed, but what if there was something else? He had Emily working on the thing, and even though Griff often worked with her, he wasn’t little and fragile. Griff had his magic to protect him. Emily was brilliant, but she would be as delicate and as easily broken as china in the hands of a machine like the one that had nearly killed him.
Rage. Despair. Joy at still being alive. These emotions and more warred within him, filling him with restless energy, so much that he thought he might explode. He had to get it out. He had to stop thinking.
He smashed what was left of the wall. Bricks exploded as the wall itself actually lifted off its foundation. A slab of stone and mortar flew up and struck him in the face before he could dodge out of the way. It hit hard across his cheekbone. A clanging sound reverberated in his brain as the projectile shattered.
Stunned, Sam lifted his hand—his real hand—to his face. There was some blood—he could feel the warm wetness, but there was little pain. It should have hurt more, even though pain didn’t affect him like it did others.
What if…? No, it couldn’t be. But the idea was already taking hold in his stunned brain as he crossed the room to a wall of mirrors they often used to analyze fighting techniques.
Sam came up to one of the mirrors, putting his face close. He lifted both hands to the wound on his cheek. He ignored the blood as he pried his skin apart, digging his fingers into the bleeding gash. His stomach rolled at the sight, but he kept going, widening the wound, digging until he found the hard ridge beneath. He peered through the blood.
It wasn’t.
He dropped his bloody hands from the gore that was his cheek, stumbling backward as shock overtook him. He trembled, felt as though the world had been ripped out from beneath him.
Pain pierced his chest. What was this feeling? This hollow burning?
The lift was too bloody slow. It was all he could do not to punch through the floor of it and jump clear to the bottom like the freak he was. Making himself wait for this damn box to take him underground was the only thing keeping him human at the moment.
Emily was alone, as she usually was, blindly believing this was her haven—her safe place. There was barely a foot of empty space anywhere. A clockwork monkey, its gears exposed, sat on a shelf next to a model rocket and a stack of punch cards. On the workbench there were designs for a gun—something for Jasper Renn no doubt. She was always making new weapons for the American, a fact that annoyed Sam. It wasn’t as though Renn was one of them, regardless of how chummy he was with Griffin.
Emily stood at another bench on the opposite side of the room. Electric lights flickered on the walls and from supports hanging from the ceiling, illuminating her workspace. She was working on her pet project—something that had been her goal for almost a year now—her cat. A mechanized beast she could control.
She looked up from her project, lifting the magnifying goggles that allowed her to do delicate work. For a second, her pretty eyes looked as big as silver dollars behind the lenses.
“Oh, my God, Sam!” She slid off the stool with an expression of horror. “What happened?”
He took a step forward before stopping himself, but he couldn’t stop her. She foolishly, trustingly, came toward him, worry etched in her every feature.
“How much?” he demanded as she approached, fists clenching at his sides.
She actually frowned—like she didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do you mean? What did you do to yourself?”
He grabbed the hand she raised to his face. Her wrist felt so tiny inside his fingers. He could snap it so easily, but he didn’t want to hurt her. It didn’t matter what she had done to him. He would never hurt Emily.
Still, she gasped at the pressure of his grasp. He shook her, on the edge of madness. “How much of me is bloody machine?”
She went white—even more than usual—but she was not afraid. He didn’t know if she was stupid, or if she truly knew him better than anyone else, but she wasn’t afraid of him. For him, but never
“Your right arm,” she whispered, blue eyes locked with his. Was that shame he saw there? And relief. She was relieved to finally reveal all to him. Whose idea had it been to lie? Hers or Griff’s? “The left side of your skull and most of your ribs have been reinforced because the bones were severely shattered.”
Sam’s grip on her wrist eased as nausea blossomed in his stomach. He started to step back but her voice stopped him. “Your left shin and your right femur were both grafted and plated. And your right clavicle.”
He stared at her in horror. All of that? The machine had done all of that? How had he survived? And then he looked deep into her eyes and he saw the truth there. He hadn’t.
He hadn’t survived.
“What else, Em?” His voice was a ragged whisper. “What else did you replace?”
She lifted her chin, not the least bit sorry for what she had done to him. “I’d do it again, Sam. I don’t regret savin’ you, no matter how you might hate me for it. I’d do it again.”
“Your heart,” came the unapologetic reply. “I replaced your heart.”
Chapter 4
Finley was tying the sash on the embroidered red-silk kimono a maid had brought her when there was a loud bang and the entire house seemed to quiver. A quick peek out the window showed the big fellow—Sam—
