Glitch

quite
    bear to look him in the eye now that I’d learned the truth of
    all he’d done. “Can you help?”
    “Molla,” Max said, his voice stronger than it had been.
    “Molla, fi nd all the extra GPS trackers they embedded in
    Zoe,” he said. He was looking at the fl oor
    At the sound of Max’s voice, Molla’s eyes seemed to clear
    a little. She looked at Max and he nodded, so she reluctantly
    turned to me. Her gaze narrowed as she scanned me head to
    toe. “Here.” She pointed behind my left ear. “Here and here
    and here.” She pointed at my right shoulder, right hip, and
    left ankle.
    “Is that all?” Max asked.
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    Heather Anastasiu
    She nodded.
    “Go with Adrien now,” he said. “Do what ever he says
    and don’t worry about being on the Surface. I promise you
    it’s safe.”
    “But I want to stay with you Max.”
    “Go,” Max ordered, somewhat harshly, but then his voice
    softened. “I’ll be right behind you.”
    She nodded again, looking slightly less skittish.
    Adrien took Molla’s arm and led her through the door-
    way up into the darkness. Juan followed behind.
    After they were out of sight, Max’s gaze shifted to me.
    We stood, surrounded by fi ve of the tall, silent Regulators.
    I looked away uncomfortably, my arms crossed. I might not
    have wanted to leave Max at the mercy of the Chancellor,
    but that didn’t mean I could forget what he’d done.
    “Molla seems to forgive you,” I fi nally said, my voice
    sharp.
    He shook his head. “She just doesn’t believe it yet. She
    doesn’t believe I never loved her, or that I was willing to
    throw her to the Chancellor without a second thought— just
    for the chance of getting to run away with you.” The pitch
    of his voice raised. “I’d do it all again.”
    “But she’s pregnant ,” I said, turning to him face- to- face, the
    pain and anger at his betrayal bubbling up now that I really
    had the time to think about it. “How could you leave her?”
    “I didn’t know she was pregnant,” he said, looking down.
    “Would it have changed your mind if you had?”
    “No.” He met my gaze steadily. “I still would have left
    her because all I ever wanted was you. You were the fi rst
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    person I felt anything for after glitching. I loved you before
    I even knew the name for it. Everyday I’d sit beside you,
    inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every
    night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It
    was you. Always you.”
    “All you wanted was the power the Chancellor promised
    you,” I said, angry and sad.
    “If that were true,” he said with a dark laugh, “I would
    never have left her, never tried to save us. She promised me
    the world, all the power, all the pleasures I could ever want,
    and I was willing to give it all up.”
    He took a step closer to me and I fl inched. Two Regula-
    tors moved silently in front of me, blocking Max.
    “But at what price, Max?” I said, my eyes fi lling with
    tears. “You were willing to sacrifi ce Molla and Adrien, to
    leave them behind to the Chancellor’s monstrous plans. If
    you thought I could have lived with that, you never really
    knew me at all.”
    “You were never going to know,” he whispered softly. “I
    was going to protect you from it all. We were going to live
    a life beyond your best dreams, you and me together for-
    ever. It would have been perfect. But then Adrien came and
    he was all you could see.” His voice turned bitter. “You were
    supposed to be mine.”
    I shook my head at him incredulously. I’d been so reluctant
    to believe the truth when the Chancellor told me, but it had
    all been true. Every single horrible detail. And still , he wasn’t
    repentant. He didn’t even think he’d done anything wrong.
    “Maybe you’ve told these lies to yourself so many times
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    Heather Anastasiu
    you believe them,” I hissed, suddenly furious with him.
    “But I was never going to love you in the way you wanted
    me to. And the fact that you would have lied and manipu-
    lated me, allowing us to be free and happy at the expense of
    others, trying to force me into feeling something for you—
    you’re no better than the Chancellor. And now . . .”
    My voice broke but I kept his gaze, even as the tears
    spilled over. Max had been working with the Chancellor for
    months, spying on all of us, lying to us, willing to leave
    everyone behind— Oh god, Markan— My stomach dropped
    out from under me. I felt