Read Online Unremarkable (Anything But) by Lindy Zart - Free Book Online Page B

about it. They just knew a UD was escaping and they reacted.
    “ But August, he knew you’d come, or someone would come, for Honor. I think he was hoping for it, planning on it. I think he knowingly unleashed her on us to see what she’ll do. I think he’s hoping she’ll kill. I think he wants her to. She would make the ultimate killing machine. Maybe that’s what he wanted all along, maybe he plans on making an army of them; an army of bloodthirsty immortals. Sounds like a good time, right?”
    “ But if they’re not controllable—”
    “ Do you really think he cares? He is so conceited he probably thinks he can control them somehow. He’s probably hoping he can point them in the direction to kill and they’ll mindlessly follow, not caring who they kill as long as they get to kill. That’s bloodlust, Nealon. You just want to kill, over and over, no matter who it is or what they should mean to you. You don’t care anymore. You don’t care about anything but the power of destruction you carry within you. I know. I’ve researched it. And I’ve been wondering…all those UDs that had to be put down due to bloodlust? What if…what if they were UDKs to begin with and reacted badly to the injections?”
    Isaac stared at James.
    Excitement entered his tone as he continued, “What if August has been doing this all along, and before him, other Superiors? Maybe the UDs aren’t really the enemy, maybe it’s us.”
    He ran a trembling hand through his hair, the weight of his words dragging his shoulders down.
    James finished with, “All this is circumstantial. None of it is fact, yet. But I don’t know; it kind of makes sense. Doesn’t it? Nealon?”
    He looked up then, his brows lowered. “Yeah. It kind of does. I have to go.” He turned to leave.
    “Wait!” James hesitated, and then blurted, “There’s something else you should know.”
    Isaac sighed, rubbing his face. “What is it?”
    “UDKs have a GPS chip in their necks too.”
    He froze, his hands slowly lowering.
    He wouldn’t meet his eyes when he said, “There’s one in you. Activated.”
    “ Get it out.”
    “ I—”
    Crossing the short distance, Isaac shoved his face next to James’s and gritted through clenched teeth, “Get it out. Now. ”
    The boy slowly nodded, getting up. He disappeared around a corner, quickly returning with a scalpel, thread, needle, and bottle of vodka. Isaac stared at the dimly lit area of blinking lights, numbness coating him in a layer of acceptance as the boy played surgeon, cutting him open, removing the foreign device, and stitching him back up.
    The sharp, burning pain kept him focused as he tried to sort out the riddle that was their existence and everything involved with it. It made sense, in a twisted way. The chip did so many things he was unaware of. It acted as a mask and also as a revealer. It worked on UDs one way and UDKs another. Honor’s eyes had been silvery when she had had the chip in, but once it was out, her eyes had been normal. So what did the chip do to UDKs if it did that to UDs?
    James finished up, saying, “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear any more. I’ll study the chip some more; see if I can find anything else out about it.”
    “You do that.”
    “ Nealon,” James called after him. He paused with his back to him, the pulse in his neck in accordance with the throbbing of his freshly slit skin. “Be careful, okay?”
    “ Always,” was his grim reply.

     
     
     
    Waking up underground in what ; if the putrid scent was anything to go by, was a pile of watered-down sewage, was cause for great alarm, in Ryder’s estimation. He gingerly touched the back of his throbbing head as he stood, bracing a hand against the smooth cement wall. His hair was matted down and wet. When he looked at his fingers in the dim light, it was to see dark liquid on them. Blood. Someone hit him in the back of the head and tossed him in a tunnel. Why? What purpose would that serve? And where the