Page 123 of CHOICE Lover
Her blood runs cold. Just like all those months ago when Lextr raised a needle to her, the action happens in slow motion. She doesn’t care about pain. She has to make sure he knows she didn’t leave him again. It would kill her if he thought that. It would kill him, and she cares way too much to let him get hurt like that again.
Maybe he’ll find her. Not maybe. He will find her.
She opens her mouth to scream right as the needle pierces her flesh. “RES6—”
Everything goes dark.
43 – She’s Gone
Res6
What is taking her so long?
He thinks the command: Time Check. 16:29.
A sound reverberates through the corridor. He stops pacing to stare down the dark hallway. Was that his name or his imagination? Probably his lovesick mind replaying an echo of her crying out his name in pleasure.
Still, his nerves fire. He marches down the hallway toward the locker rooms, pausing before the door to listen. It’s quiet on the other side of the door. “Electra?”
He bangs on the door, impatiently pushing it open. He can apologize to anyone he bursts in on later. “Electra?” he calls, poking his head around the stalls and showers.
She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.
With every step, the words ricochet in his mind.She left you. You told her you love her and she left. She probably thinks you’re love bombing her like Jerme did to 3Zeez, and placated you long enough to get away. There’s something wrong with you. There was something wrong with Jerme. You’re not enough—
He pauses his frantic search, throwing open the steam room door. A cloud of hot steam hits him in the face, cutting his downward spiral short.
She said she loved him back, right? He replays the last hour over in his mind.Move, she said.Oh God, andRes6. But neverI love you too. His back hits the slick tile wall, the steam saturating his already damp shirt. Gravity suddenly doubles, dragging him down. She never said it back.
She doesn’t love him. Maybe he was too desperate for her. Not a swoon-worthy enough hero for Dear Electra,giving himself over to her the way he did.
But would she really have slipped out of the back exit to avoid him? That didn’t seem like her, especially after what they shared. Even if she doesn’t return his love, she wouldn’t do that. She said she would come home. That everything would be fine.
He races to the front desk. Zorg, is he being paranoid?
The neatly dressed woman behind the counter takes in his wet shirt and otherwise disheveled appearance and grimaces in distaste. “Can I help you?”
He plants his hands on the countertop. “The woman I came in with—did you see her leave?”
She tucks thick strands of her light blue hair behind her ears and glances uninterestedly at the sliding glass doors. “It’s not my job to track people as they leave.”
He fights his rising irritation. “Do you have access to the security footage?” She stares, blinking as if his presence is equally irritating. “Can you tell if the emergency exit alarm was disabled? Or if anyone left through a back exit?”
Her stare tracks to the hallway to her right. “There’s an employee exit. Look, is this some type of game? People ask for all sorts of weird scenarios, and I’d rather not get involved.”
“What? A game? No, I think there’s been an abduction.” The claim sounds crazy as he makes it. But it feels right. Electra didn’t leave him. She may not have said she loved him, but she said she would never abandon him like that again since she knew his history. She’s too good of a person, and he has to trust her. That means only one thing. Someone has taken her.
Intrigued, the attendant leans forward. “There’s security footage.” She motions her hand over the palm scanner at the simulation chamber’s system control station. Her gaze darts back and forth across the screens, as colorful lights illuminate her pale skin with a rainbow of blues and greens.
“You might want to come around to look at this,” she says.
He moves around the counter to stand beside her.
“The one with the freckles. That’s her, right?” she asks, pausing on a video of them coming in over an hour ago.
He nods.
“We don’t video inside for obvious reasons, but there is surveillance at every exit point.” She pulls up another window, playing a time-lapse of the video. Two men in jumpsuits and ID Scramble-Tech visors stand outside an emergency exit in a nondescript service hallway. The taller of the two scans the hall. Then he looks directly into the camera. There’s no sound, but he clearly mouths,Shit. He turns away from the camera, takes the visor off, and presses a few buttons on the side. He appears to put the visor back on like a headband—it must not be working—and plucks his device out of his pocket. Since the man’sback is still facing the camera, Res6 can’t see what he’s doing, but the camera goes dark a second later.
