Chapter Twenty

Paige sat in the dark on her aching bottom and convulsed. All her memories came back. They came back when she remembered Armand’s voice. He hardly ever spoke to her, so the impact of his voice awakened her memory.

Armand had known exactly where to find his father’s prototypes. He and Zaphier had sent her to steal the ruptors.

What had been going on in Harrison’s life on that day? Paige did the math the best she could and figured out she was around the time his father died. Once she worked that out, she realized both of them were already infected with M.T.N. before she arrived on the scene. That helped her to calm down and she began to breathe more normally.

But now she remembered Armand and everything he had meant to her. If he wasn’t the definition of a hollow man then she didn’t know what was.

During the months Zaphier owned her, she did everything the prince asked. When the time expired he turned Paige loose without a second thought.

She got a posh apartment and lived quietly for a few months. Her father and brother were disgusted with her for selling herself and she had been disowned. Her father even quit working for the Rawsons and had moved away to an unknown location. After that, there was no home to go to.

Armand did not come to see her. She was not sure exactly why. During the first few weeks at her new apartment, she expected him to show up and take her in his arms like nothing had changed. Didn’t he miss her? Didn’t he want her? When he didn’t come, she hoped it was because he was flying on the other side of the world.

Confused and miserable, she tried to carve out a new life for herself, but she didn't fit anywhere. If she flaunted her money, it wasn't enough money to please the honorably rich. If she mentioned how she made her money, people were interested in her again, but only if she was willing to sell what she knew about Zaphier and Elizabella. Eventually, reporters who knew scant details about her and Zaphier wrote their own stories about her. They painted her as a conniving skank who had been trying to stop Zaphier from marrying Princess Elizabella when she didn’t care two straws about what happened to Zaphier.

During those dark months, the only contact she received was from agencies like Sleeping Beauty Inc. or personal requests for her services from individual men. She read them all hoping one would be from Armand.

Wanting him badly, she gave up trying to be coy and called him.

When she couldn’t get him on the line, she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. She contacted the secretary and tried to get a legitimate job working for the Rawson family. Zaphier cut her off at the gate. He didn’t want anything to do with Paige since the news outlets had run stories about his supposed affair with her.

Remembering everything in the hangar basement, Paige hated herself as she rocked back and forth on the cement floor in the hangar basement. She held her hand over her nose and tried to ignore the vomit a few feet away from her. It was making her gag, but she wanted to throw up again when she remembered phoning Zaphier—begging him to give her a job.

She swallowed her pride because she had stopped wanting anything from life except to be back with Armand, feeling warm, and she couldn’t live alone in an apartment if he never came.

In the end, she did the unthinkable. She found out Armand’s flight plan and arranged to be at his destination. Much to Paige and Armand’s mutual and individual humiliation, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Armand had to tell her to get lost on the tarmac.

Stung and hurt, she tried to stay away. She tried to give Armand the breakup he clearly wanted. It was impossible with her reputation. She hung around cafes and bars, hoping to be picked up, but all the men did visual searches on her and found out who she was before they approached her. If they came up, it was because they were curious about her past, what she knew about the celebrities. There was no place for her, but working for Zaphier.

Finally, she threatened him.

She followed him to the Cies Islands.

There, she told Zaphier’s secretary that if he didn’t buy her again, she would go to the media and she wouldn't tell them about him and Elizabella. She would tell them all about the ruptors. Where they came from, the origins of the technology, and everything else!

Within two hours, Zaphier agreed to meet her on a cliff face overlooking the water. She remembered the moment vividly. The sky was orange. The wind was hot and full of the stench of something that had died.

He had shaken his head, told her he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He came closer. He touched her, and the very next second, he dragged her to the cliff edge and pushed her over.

In those half seconds, before she hit the water, she knew that he meant to kill her. He knew the fall into that shallow water would kill her.

She didn’t die.

She came out of the water. Armand was there, running to her aid, and mumbling something about Zaphier’s jokes.

“Liar!” Paige screeched. “Why didn’t you come after me? Nevermind. I don’t care. Before, this had been about you. That maniac tried to kill me. I’m going to the reporters.”

Paige remembered Armand putting his muscular arm around her and saying, “Come into the house for a minute. I’m sure Zaphier wants to apologize to you. His apology will be good. You could use some more travel money and… he’s very sorry.”

Paige didn’t suspect Armand of anything. He never spoke, so when he did, she had to listen to him. As soon as they were inside the house, he handcuffed her to a titanium bar that was drilled into the wall. She had no hope of breaking out.

Lucky her! She got to hear all of their discussion before they disposed of her. Zaphier wanted to kill her, while Armand insisted they take a different route.

“Think about it,” Armand said persuasively. “You bought her for one point three million dollars. Certainly, she hasn’t spent it. We should get her to transfer all that money to you. You need it. We could take out her overdraft too, wipe her memory, and sell her again. That’s three places to pull money from.”

That was what he sounded like when he spoke? That was what he was like in his head? He was a monster! And she thought she was in love with him?

Zaphier had nodded in agreement. “I have a place we could dump her that won’t ask us any questions and will give us a good price. They’ve already taken care of quite a few of my family’s problems.”

“Perfect.”

“But can you really erase her memory?”

“I’m not a professional,” Armand conceded. “But I can make it so that the hypnosis won’t unravel without me—my voice.”

“Do it!”

That was how it happened. He was the one who had wiped her memory. Armand had hypnotized her. Zaphier pointed a gun to her head while she signed all her money over to him, took out loans, sold herself to Sleeping Beauty Inc., and finally wrote the note for herself. That was the note she found that told her that the time with Zaphier hadn’t gone well and it was just better to move on without knowing what happened. He hadn’t needed to point the gun at her to get her to write that. Obviously, by that point, she already felt that way.

Paige felt sick remembering. She forced herself to raise her head and look around in Harrison’s father’s lab. Again, she read the sign on the wall: “Perfecting M.T.N. Ruptor technology one day at a time.” She was such a ditz; she didn’t even wonder what those words could mean when she ransacked this place all those years ago. It wasn’t even the only place she went ransacking, doing everything he said, asking no questions. She thought of nothing except how much she wanted to be alone with Armand. The job in the basement of Harrison’s hangar had been different. She had gone alone, and she didn’t question why.

The room was lined with shelving units and clear glass boxes. They were still relatively free of dust. Everything had been preserved in the time it sat dormant. Each box had a round yellow ball inside that looked like a cross between a gemstone and a glowing orb.

Paige hugged her legs and thought about the M.T.N. virus. Had anyone ever used a virus as a power source before? Keeping the virus contained long enough to create a ruptor had to be delicate work. Both of Harrison's parents had died from being infected. How? Paige had been in the lab before and hadn’t contracted it, but this time she felt as good as dead. There were broken cases and broken ruptors. She was scared of moving, just in case she got too close to anything.

The virus attacked a person’s body in strange patterns. Sometimes the first thing a person would lose would be their sight. On another person, their legs might become so jittery that they’d be unable to walk. Some people couldn’t flex their hands. By the end of the disease’s term, they’d have lost it all. She could imagine herself lying in the local hospital Harrison’s mother had died in, with the nurses keeping Harrison at bay.

She couldn’t stand to think about Harrison. The reason she hadn’t leaped into a romance with him was that somehow, deep down, he had reminded her of Armand, who did not allow her to be killed, but who stole all her money and all the money she could ever get on credit, and when he couldn’t get anymore, he sold her.

It wasn’t that the brothers were alike. They didn’t look alike. Harrison had a dazzling smile and humor in his eyes. Armand was what? When she thought of their time in the cabin, she felt a wave of hot shame. She had given him all that and given Harrison so little?

Harrison was not his brother and now suddenly, the deep loneliness he felt made perfect sense to her. She felt wrung with regret and fresh loneliness of her own.

She moaned into the hole over her head.

Harrison had no idea where she was.

***

The wind rose higher and Harrison decided to drive his truck into the hangar to keep the carpet scraps from flying out of the back. As he pulled in beside his helocarrier, he saw that the floor panel that exposed Excalibur was open. At first glance, he didn’t believe it. He had to get out of the cab and stare down into the hole before it became real to him. He had no idea why it could be open and for a split second, he was terrified that someone had taken his treasure away. He calmed down once he saw the chocker’s sleek silver paint job, but why was the hatch open in the first place.

Putting his head down, he yelled, “Paige.”

“Harrison!” he heard her yelp, but she was too far down for him to see her. She sounded hysterical.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in your father’s lab. You can’t come down here. He was experimenting with the M.T.N. virus. If you come down here you might get it. You have to call the hospital and have the paramedics get me out safely.”

Harrison didn’t know what she was talking about and lowered himself onto the level that Excalibur was on. “Where are you?”

“Go away, Harrison. Call an ambulance!” she cried.

Harrison was skeptical. It seemed too ridiculous to say that his dad had been doing experiments with M.T.N.

Or was it?

Following her voice, he found the trap door she had fallen through. Harrison hid his shock at seeing her there with throw-up splattered across the floor beside her. Instead, he remembered everything the nurses had told him about M.T.N. at the hospital and asked her, “Did you touch anything?”

“No,” she said, her eyes watery.

“Did anything spill? Any test tubes or anything like that?”

“No. I just fell down and I haven’t moved,” she said, as she got to her feet.

“Then you’re fine. M.T.N. isn’t airborne. Besides,” he said, grabbing the trap door and showing her how it fit into the floor up above. “This door isn’t airtight. If I was going to get it from merely breathing the air in the lab, I would have got it already. Hang on. I’ll get you out of there.”

Harrison lowered a rope ladder. It was part of Excalibur’s flight gear.

Paige took the rope in her hands. She did not feel like she should be coming out of a hole. She should be crawling into one.

When she put her foot on the ladder and it swung toward the broken ruptor cases, she jumped off.

“I can’t do this!”

“Paige,” Harrison said pleasantly. “I need you to get out of that hole.”

She took hold of the rope for the second time and, as he talked her through it, she came up topside.

He tried to hug her once she was out, but she evaded him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I want to go to the hospital and get checked.”

Harrison frowned. Then he took out his pocket watch and typed in a few buttons. “Do you have any itchy spots on your body—like in your knees? Does your body suddenly feel like your clothes are wearing you raw?”

“No,” she answered, but then almost immediately, she began scratching her thigh. “Ack! Harrison, I’m itchy. What do I do?” she screamed.

Harrison scowled at her. “Wait a second,” he said calmly. “Be honest. Did you start getting itchy after I mentioned it or were you itchy when you were down there?”

“I don’t know,” she bawled, scratching the back of her head. “Before, I guess.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look in his eyes steadily. “Was it before? Really? Everybody gets itchy after you ask them if they are, and anyone would be uncomfortable realizing they've just fallen into a lab that was experimenting with M.T.N.”

She feebly pushed his hand away. “Don’t touch me. You’ll get it.”

“Answer me. Were you itchy before I mentioned it? Take two deep breaths and then tell me.”

When she was calm, she said, “I guess it wasn’t until you mentioned it.”

“Okay.” He let go of her and looked at his pocket watch. “The next test is one where you test the ph balance of your saliva.” He got a first aid kit off the wall. He was still opening it when Paige collapsed in a heap on the floor. “You shouldn’t be fainting, even if you got it.”

“I just had to sit down, and I didn’t want to sit on anything,” she huffed, wiping sweat and tears with her hands.

Harrison extracted a little slip of plastic and put it in her open mouth. “Keep that in there for at least thirty seconds and then I’ll read it for you.” Harrison sat down on the floor next to her and let her look at his watch to measure the time.

Thirty seconds later, he pulled it out and read it. “It’s within the normal range. You’re fine.”

Then she fell on her face with her forehead on the concrete and started crying even harder than before. “Harrison, I’m so sorry. I stole ruptors from your dad’s lab when I worked for Zaphier. I’m sorry.”

Harrison put a hand on her head and stroked her short hair. He listened to what she said, but he felt numb.

She said more things, but Harrison wasn’t paying attention. His mind was a jumble of everything he’d ever been told. The puzzle pieces were sliding together to form a picture, but it was foggy until Paige brought him out of it by asking, “Harrison, how did your mom contract M.T.N.?”

Absently, he reached over and pulled the trap door shut. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “If she somehow contracted it from the ruptors, then that makes the most sense.” Then he shook his head like he was shaking off the problem. “Let’s go into the house, Paige. The storm is picking up.” He helped her to her feet.

Paige walked ahead of him.

“Stop,” Harrison said. “Wait for me. We’ll go together.”