Page 95 of Born for Lace

He is Trade.

Kill him!

“It isn’t just the iron!” He shuffles backward, adding space between us.Smart.He must know I could lunge—grow bored of him—and rip his head from his shoulders.

Do it. Kill him.

I grind my molars to the insolent thoughts. Sixteen or not, I am twice this fool’s size. I lower my head, glaring at him through my lashes.

Kill him.

“There is also a coil in your brain. Did you know that?” He rushes out, and I freeze my muscles just as the thoughts compound and growl.

Kill him. Kill him. Don’t trust him. He is lying. He is lying. Lying. Lying. Fuck.

The man named Tomar nods slowly. “Yes. I can help. It will drive you mad until you listen to it, and then when you do, when you let it control you, it will make you kill yourself.”

I lock up my body, fight the impulses, the conditioned instinct to remove obstacles, to dissolve threats. “I don’t need anyone. Never had anyone. Never team up. It’s not in my design.”

He gazes across at the girl on the bed, her skin already turning grey, her glassy eyes resembling a taxidermied being. “You’re killing innocent people… I don’t think you want to.”

“Why not just kill me then?” I dare—desire—but will fight to the last drop of blood, to the final twitch, to my rattling death encore. I will fight.

“Because we can help each other,” he admits this time.

Ah, so he needs me.

“I need a man to protect me while I fulfill my Purpose,” he adds.

“So,” I sneer, “you want touseme? Want your own assassin. I am not available. Too busy killing innocent women,”—I jerk my chin toward the dead bitch— “as you can see. I’m booked up.”

A knowing expression smooths his features, and he tilts his head. “Please, you can’t convince me. You ran. You ran because your heart wasn’t in it; it is stronger than their conditioning. I help people. Let me help you first.”

Kill him.I snarl at the voice snapping in my brain. “How?”

Tomar smiles calmly at me, and taking a big breath, he says, “The excess iron compound was engineered into your bloodstream to activate a Shadow. The coil was designed to control one.Butas progressive as The Trade’s tech is, as advanced, the brain in its organic form will always be more complex. And more powerful.

“The coil doesn’t do what it was designed to do, but after nearly a century of testing, they found it did serve a purpose. To destroy a rogue Shadow. To send them mad, activate sickness that isn’t there, signal a virus response—have the body fight itself.

“Andimplements voices. Thoughts. Whispers. Shadows have thrown themselves off cliffs. Died when organs have spontaneously shut down. It will kill you one day, and until then, it will torture you.”

Fuck.How does he know about the voices? The accidents… My body nearly forced me into a burning truck yesterday. I didn’t give my legs permission to move, but they did. It was like something else was momentarily in control.

And her— I look at the dead girl, black hair winged out around her on the mattress. I only imagined choking her; it was a fever dream, but there she is.

Real.

Fucked.

Dead.

He’s telling the truth. Rage for my kind and for The Trade bore into my guts, festering a hatred like no other.

He is lying!

I frown. “What can you do?”

He exhales hard, almost relieved I’m talking, listening—considering. “I can have your Brain-Interface coil removed.”