Page 142 of Degradation
When I get to the KIP house, I go inside, and for once, everything is pretty quiet. There are no guys lurking in the kitchen or anything like that.
I go upstairs and into my room with a deep breath, shutting the door and leaning against it with my eyes closed. I drop my bag to the floor with a thud.
‘There you are.’
I gasp.
All three of them are in my room.
Shade stands up and comes over. He looks down at me.
‘How long have you been working on this?’
‘A few weeks. Since I realized it was wrong,’ I say, glancing at Mav. ‘I noticed the simulations you were running.’
‘Why?’ Shade asks. ‘Why bother?’
‘Why?’ I snarl, pushing myself off my wall and making him take a wary step back.
‘You were there when they wouldn’t talk to me about my own body. They won’t even prescribe me medicine until your dad gives them permission. My whole life is like that. The autonomy I have is false. It can be snatched back on John Novelle’s whim.’
I pace the room.
‘I have no money. I'm not in control of my finances. I barely have a job. I had to go behind your father's back to get put in a major that I could actuallydo, since he just decided for me. I'm not listened to. I'm ignored. Every file on me at this university says I'm mentally challenged, or something, and tells them to call ‘my guardian’ over the tiniest things,’ I say, close to tears. ‘At any moment, he could have me carted back across the sea. I don't want a guardian; I don’tneedone.’
I look up at them, my eyes swimming, and I tell them the truth.
‘I want to be able to leave if I need to leave. This isn't what I want my life to be. I want in because I don't see any other way. I'll help you make Envy, and it will work, but I want my share of the money it makes, and when I graduate, I’ll either fight your father in court to be free of his guardianship, or I'll disappear. But both of those things take money.’
Shade regards me impassively.
‘Will you give us a minute?’ he asks Mav and Blake.
Neither of them say anything else. They leave, not looking at me.
A big part of me wants to follow them, tell them they can have the formula. Tell them I’m sorry for going behind their backs, for the threat of telling John Novelle what they’ve been up to.
But I can’t. If my life has taught me anything, it’s that no one can really be trusted however much I wish that wasn’t the case.
I’m on my own and, in the end, I always will be.
‘Those notes. Were they a diversion tactic?’
I snort. ‘Do you mean, did I make them up? Send them to myself?’
I stand in front of him. ‘If I did, wouldn’t I have told you about them? Or made sure you found out about them?’
‘Well, I?—’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Jack.’ I roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t write them.’
He steps back. ‘I didn’t really think you had. Do you believe what they say? That April was murdered?’
I look at him. ‘I wasn’t sure. I thought they were a joke at first. I thought… I thought it might be you…being cruel.’
He closes his eyes for a second. ‘It wasn’t.’
‘I know that now. You cared about her. She was your mom, too. More yours than mine, I suppose. In the end.’
