Page 97 of Fuse

If adding the flare to my eyes had only been as easy as pushing a button.

“So…will you guys do it?” I secure a hand around each of their forearms, hoping they see beyond the new weirdness in my gaze, to the supplication and yearning of the woman underneath. “I need this, okay?” I rasp. “I need more than just a fighting chance to get him back. I need to have the advantage over that witch, and we all know it.”

The desperate, guilty, beyond grieving woman underneath.

Who has no idea what kind of woman she’ll even be after all this is done.

Recognizable? Identifiable? Knowable?

I don’t care.

I don’t care.

The words become my mantra, blaring in my head and my heart in time to the terrified throb in my veins, as I follow Alex and Fershan out the front door and back to the lab—their version of a definitive reply to my entreaty.

I don’t care.

Pushing away all thoughts of the agony to come as I get up on the lab table and then let Lydia shackle me down.

I don’t care.

The words now stand in for others, throughout my spirit and soul, as my body shifts into a mode beyond my control. From head to toe, I shiver from unseen ice. I stutter through uneven breaths. I clench and unclench my trembling hands as my eyes drag open and closed, open and closed, open and closed…

Before the blast of pure sun scalds my blood.

And a silent scream of anguish tears past my open lips.

And my heart shrieks with the words from the only part of me I’ll fight to keep. With everything I am. With everything I ever will be.

I love you, Reece Richards.

I love you.

I love you.

And I will fight for you—with every damn weapon within my reach.

Even if I have to become one of them.

REECE

Consciousness returns like the parts of a Picasso painting. Cubes of reality and dreams try to piece together in my mind but don’t really look or sound right, forming a whole that isn’t whole. A me that’s not quite me.

Come back to me, Reece.

Remember the light…

But it’s quiet. Too fucking quiet.

Would the worker bees get that frantic without the queen…

The queen.

I gash into the painting with a vicious snarl.

Only to realize I can’t.

Not past the rubber bit rammed between my teeth. But even as my rage turns into drool and I recognize the cubes as aching memories, I fight—only to realize I can’t. My arms are locked down, and heavy gloves cover both my hands. My snarl becomes an agonized moan as soon as I comprehend that my legs are buckled down with the same diligence, a lead-enforced strap every few inches, like I’m some circus stuntman on a spinning wheel, waiting for knives to be thrown at me.