Page 95 of Pulse Zero
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah?” I snap. “You weren’t all that worried about my safety when you used me.”
There’s a thin stretch of silence. Then, “I did what was necessary.”
This time, the laugh that escapes me is even more hollow. “Oh, fuck you, Malc. You did what wasuseful.”
“Careful, Cason.”
But I’m never careful.
“You needed a story,” I continue, pushing to my feet despite the protest in my ribs. “A kidnapped nephew. A grieving family. Something the public could latch onto so when Reese died, itstuck. You wanted sympathy and attention and control of the narrative.”
Malcolm doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t deny it.
I move to stand in front of the bookcase, staring directly into the camera. I hope Reese is watching. I’m almost positive he is, like I can feel his eyes on me. I want him to know that I hate him but that I hate Malcolm even more.
“So don’t fucking stand in your glass office and pretend this was about protecting me. You used me as bait and a headline.”
Another beat of silence.
“You’re playing with variables you don’t understand,” Malcolm says. “People like Reese—”
“Don’t,” I cut in, my voice going cold. “Don’t you fucking do that.”
“—are not stable. They are not safe. Power doesn’t corrupt, Cason. It reveals. And I don’t like what it reveals in most people.”
My grip tightens around the phone. Because, well…Malcolm may not be completely wrong. Reese is dangerous. I learned that firsthand. And, yet, everything in me is screaming at me that Reese is the lesser of two evils.
Only monsters make other monsters.
“You don’t get to talk about him like that. Not after what you fucking did to him.”
“I talk about him like that because I’m right.”
I shake my head, pacing now despite how much my body hates it. “No. You talk about him like he’s not a person.”
“Because he isn’t,” Malcolm replies simply. “Not in the way that matters. He was my right-hand for two years. I know him, Cason. Better than you do.”
I stop pacing. As I stand in the center of the living room, something hot and violent twists in my stomach.
“He’s an event,” he continues, cold and uncaring. “An anomaly. A destabilizing force. Unchecked, people with power like his turn to chaos and go down paths far worse than any crime Reese Morgan had already committed in his life.”
“But you’re fuckingcreatingthem!” I shout into the phone as I start pacing again. “And then what? Enslaving them?”
“I contain them. I give them structure and resources and purpose. In exchange, they disappear and work for me.”
I scoff. “You mean they become yourproperty.”
“You’re angry,” Malcolm says, almost gently now. “Because you think I took something from you.”
Again, I stop in the middle of the room. I close my eyes, and Reese’s face flashes behind my lids. Not the one I saw just earlier today. Not the one surrounded by shadows. The one who smiled at me when I told him we should run away together seconds before he was stolen from me and turned into something that scares me.
“I didn’t,” he adds. “I provided the Institute with the best soldier we’ve ever had. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re dangerous. All of them are. It’s better to have the most powerful of them on our side in order to prevent something worse.”
“Worse than what? Worse than turning people into your personal science project? Worse than deciding who lives, who dies, and who gets to come back?”
“I don’t choose who survives Pulse Zero. I choose what happens when they do.”
