Chapter Forty-One

I sit on the bed, the soft mattress bounces beneath me and I am desperate to sleep. I crawl over to the right side of the bed, leaving the left side for Ellie. We've never shared a bed before, I'm unsure if Ellie has even slept on a real bed at all.

"I know you're exhausted." I tell him, patting the left side for him, "You should sleep."

He's staring out the window, and when I speak to him, he turns his head towards me, but makes no effort to move.

I frown, "Is something wrong?"

"I do not think we should touch, Ripley." He gently stomped his foot on the floor, "I will sleep here."

I gape at him, trying to comprehend what the hell he was talking about, "That's ridiculous." I finally say, after a long moment of neither of us saying anything.

"I prefer to not touch."

Suddenly, I am not as tired. I straighten. It all makes sense, "You're afraid to touch me aren't you? Because of what Riley said."

His eyes travel back to the window, "He was right."

"We've touched many times, nothing bad happened." It was a poor argument, but it was all I had.

"Lucky."

"Ellie," I beg, "Lay down on the bed."

"No."

"Ellie."

"No."

I sigh, "I don't remember teaching you how to be so stubborn."

"It will keep you safe."

"I never asked you to protect me." I climb off the bed and attempt to walk over to him but he takes several steps back. The looks of fear and horror on his face was so prominent that I stop walking and stare at him. I've never seen him show so much emotion at once before.

He truly does not want to touch me.

I swallow hard, "So we're just going to go the rest of our lives never touching each other." I say it more as a fact than a question.

"Yes." His answer was emotionless, quick, blunt.

Our gazes lock, and I know I cannot defy him. If he does not want to touch me then I won't force him. I understand that he is doing it for my safety, but I realized I've stopped caring about my health a long time ago.

And I am sickly in love with him.

"Alright." I force myself to say, desperately searching for a compromise, I blurt, "We won't touch, then, but at least sleep in the bed with me. The mattress is big enough for both of us to sleep on without coming in contact with each other."

"I do not think-"

"If you get to have your way, at least do this for me."

He closes his mouth, taking in the pleading look on my face, he slowly nods his head, indicating he will do it.

I move back into the bed first, suddenly feeling ten times worse than only a few moments ago. After I slid underneath the covers on the right-hand side of the mattress, Ellie slowly moved to his side, and I made sure he had more blankets, though I don't think he cared.

We lay in silence. The room being almost pitch black if the moonlight didn't shine through the window. The only way I knew Ellie was still beside me, was from the slight dip in the mattress and his very faint breathing.

My chest hurts from Ellie's decision, but I still manage to fall asleep anyway.

I sleep until noon the next day. I'm not sure when Ellie woke up, but when I open my eyes, he's standing back at the window, staring out at the neighborhood and town below.

I don't say anything to him, and he doesn't say anything to me.

Riley already has lunch prepared for us when I head down to the kitchen. He's sitting at the kitchen table, reading some documents. I ask him what it is he's reading, and he responds several seconds after my question.

"They're old papers from when I worked with Dr. Singh. I told you I was in charge of most of the paperwork, and when Singh ordered me to get rid of some documents, I would hide them under my coat and bring them home."

"That sounds illegal."

"Legality means nothing to those in charge of the government's secrets."

"They could kill you." I knew how dangerous the people Riley worked for were because my father worked with similar doctors. Were they to have any clue that Ellie existed, Riley, Joy and I would most likely be shot, and Ellie would be taken in as an experiment.

"So can the boy you shared a bed with last night."

I rolled my eyes, and sit beside Riley at the table, "Let's not talk about that." Ellie sits on the opposite end of the table from me, and I pretend to not see him.

I'm not mad at him, but I also don't want to look at him.

"Well I'd like to run some tests today."

"What kind of tests?"

Riley leans back in his seat, his attention now wholly on me and not the papers in front of him, "Despite my distaste, Three Eleven Thirteen was partially my project too. Your father may have dedicated himself on giving him life, but I was the one who helped create him."

"You also are the one who made him dangerous." I point out, and I don't fail to see him wince back.

"Yes, well, we all make mistakes."

"What are the tests for?"

I'd like to take some blood samples and have him perform a series of exercises to test his heart. To say it is a miracle that he is breathing is an understatement. We had given up on project Three Eleven Thirteen because we could not find an accurate solution to accelerating his heartbeat. All his other organs worked well enough, but his heart would not pump nearly as much as he needed it to. We couldn't figure it out. Which was what his formula was intended for."

"The liquid I had to give him was for his heart?"

"And other things. It had nutrients he needed, like one would feed a baby, but a very fucking powerful baby."

I shake my head, "Is that why he was so weak when my father first died? We had only just gotten him to truly stand on his own before he, umm, bit my father."

"I would assume that is the reason, yes. Without the formula -that I created, by the way- Three Eleven Thirteen would most definitely have died, or at least his heart would have given up and he would be a pile of artificial organs and lab-made flesh. Our coworkers in the lab had no patience. They deemed him a failure and moved on. That's what they all do, they lose interest after the first few times something fails to perform in their expectations. They waste millions in tax-payers money on inventions and ideas that end up in the ground. I hadn't been given enough time to complete the formula until it was too late. When your father told me he was going to take the project to his own lab at home, I thought he was fucking mad. Still, I gave him what formula I had, and I ended our partnership. Your father loved Three Eleven Thirteen more than you can imagine. I told him it'd only kill him, and he never believe me." He shook his head, "Your father was such an asshole." His voice lowered, softened, "A damn brilliant one."

I think back to when I had been terrified to feed Ellie. When my father had first died, I had rarely went down to give Ellie the formula. At the time I had often asked myself if he would have died without it, or if he even needed food at all.

Turns out, I not only tortured him, I almost killed him. What if I had inflicted long-term damage to his heart? What if he is not at his highest potential because I was a coward?

I clench my jaw, and I turn to Ellie, "Is it alright if Riley does some tests on you?"

I see only the fainted motion of a frown on his lips before he masks it again with a cool face of indifference, "I will do what you want."

"But do you want to do it?"

No hesitation. "Yes." Liar.

I place my hands up on the table, "And you're not going to freak out?"

"I am under control, Ripley."

I believe him. "Alright." I look back at Riley, who is staring at the both of us with a confused expression on his face.

"Something wrong?" I ask him and he just shrugs.

"Everything is wrong." He stands, and beckons for Ellie to follow him. I decide I don't want to watch him poke Ellie with needles and possibly cut him a few times, so I do not go after them. I felt Ellie's eyes on me for a long moment, before he followed Riley out the back door to the shed.