Page 51 of Legion

“If everyone gets here?” Riley had scratched the back of his head. “Seventeen.”

She’d sighed. “Then I’m going to need a lot more bedding.”

* * *

I didn’t remember much after that, just accepting an armful of clothes and sheets from the lanky woman and being directed upstairs to a small, cozy room with two twin beds. I’d paused long enough to strip out of the thin white hospital gown I’d still been wearing from the lab and pull on the oversize T-shirt before collapsing onto one of the mattresses. I’d been out almost before my head hit the pillow, but being unconscious hadn’t stopped the dreams. Dreams of Dante, and the Elder Wyrm, and Talon looming over us all, ready to strike. And myself, strapped to a table, waiting for the Elder Wyrm to move into my body.

Shivering now, I pulled the covers around myself and sat there for a moment, waiting for the fear to die down, for the faint, nagging sense of horror and despair to fade away. I was the Elder Wyrm’s vessel. Athing, created in a lab, just like the clones. And those memories the scientists had taken—had I lost anything important? I didn’t think I had—I still remembered Garret, Riley, Dante, Crescent Beach, the rogues, Talon and St. George—but if Ihadlost anything, I wouldn’t even know what it was.

My stomach roiled. I felt dirty suddenly. As if those scientists were still in my brain somewhere, poking around. Seeing things they had no business seeing, secrets and memories that were mine alone.

I needed a shower. Something to wash the clinging taint of the scientists, the lab and the Elder Wyrm from my skin. The bathroom, I remembered, was down the hall, past several bedrooms like this one: small and quaint, with wooden floors and checkered blue-and-white curtains. It was quite bare, only holding a dresser and a pair of beds, as if it hadn’t been lived in for a long while. If ever.

Throwing back the covers, I rose and found a set of clothes on the dresser, trying not to grimace as I pulled them on. The flowery, yellow-and-green sundress wasn’t something I’d normally wear, but it would have to do. Everything I owned, the very clothes on my back, had been taken away by Talon.

Including my Viper suit.

“Dammit,” I sighed, feeling a brief, unreasonable stab of loss. Not the worst thing Talon had taken from me by any means, but it was a blow nonetheless. The Viper suit had been the last thing I’d owned that wasmine. Now I had nothing.

No, that’s not true, I told myself.You still have your memories...most of them, anyway. All your skills, everything you’ve learned, the friendships and connections you’ve made in the past sixteen years. Talon tried to take those, as well, remember? They truly tried to takeeverything.If Garret and Riley hadn’t gotten there in time, there’d be nothing left but a body. An empty vessel, just like the clones.

“Perspective check, Ember,” I told myself softly. I was still alive, with most of my memories intact. Riley and Garret were all right, and somehow, impossibly, we had all escaped from Talon. We were safe.

For the moment.

I shivered again. Riley’s warning came back to me, dark whispers of the storm on the horizon. Talon was coming. The Night of Fang and Fire, the final purge to completely destroy the Order of St. George, Riley’s underground and all of Talon’s enemies, was drawing close. Garret was right; we couldn’t sit here, doing nothing, waiting for Talon to appear on our doorstep. We had to dosomething.

Abandoning my plans for a shower, I opened the door, stepped into the hall...

...and walked right into Garret.

He grunted as I gave a small yelp of surprise and staggered back, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Garret. Sorry, I didn’t see you.” He stared at me solemnly over the threshold, and I cocked my head with a frown. “Why are you lurking outside my door?”

“I was waiting for you.” He gave me a concerned look, as if that should be obvious. “Are you all right?”

I swallowed, feeling abruptly self-conscious under that metallic gaze. “Yeah,” I answered, turning away to walk back into the room. “I’m fine.”Fine as anyone can be when they discover that they’re really a clone created in a lab to house the memories of the Elder Wyrm.“Where’s Riley?” I asked, hearing Garret enter the room and close the door behind him. “Did Wes ever get here? What are we planning to do now—”

Garret’s arms closed around me from behind, pulling me against him. My heart jumped, and my stomach flip-flopped, as the soldier leaned in, pressing his forehead to my neck.

“Garret?”

“Sorry,” he muttered, and his voice was choked. “Just give me a second.” He shuddered, and his arms tightened around me. “I almost lost you yesterday,” he whispered. “It didn’t really hit me until later, but we almost didn’t make it. If Mist hadn’t gotten us out when she did, if she had waited any longer...”

I reached up and squeezed his arm, trying not to imagine what would’ve happened if the procedure had gone as planned. “I’m okay,” I whispered. “It’s over now.”

He shook his head. “When I saw you strapped to that table,” he muttered, “and that scientist told us what they were doing, it took everything I had not to kill him and every human in that room. If they had succeeded, if they had really taken all your memories so that the Elder Wyrm could move into your body...” His hands, pressed against my stomach, became fists. “It would’ve killed me,” he murmured. “To know that you’re alive, but you’re not...youanymore—I can’t think of anything that would be worse.”

I swallowed. “And you don’t care that I’m just a vessel?” I asked hesitantly. “A thing created in a lab?”

“Ember.” Garret released me and gently turned me to face him. His gaze was intense, worried, but not angry or repulsed. “Do you care that my parents were part of Talon?” he asked, making me frown. “That they were servants of the organization, working for the Elder Wyrm?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Of course I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because that doesn’t reflect onyou,Garret. You’re not responsible for what your parents did in the past...oh.”

He raised an eyebrow, knowing I had just proven his point. “But that’s different,” I argued. “You had normal parents. You weren’t created in a laboratory, like some creepy Frankenstein monster.”