Chapter Eight

Rachel blinked rapidly in a futile attempt to chase her tears away as she watched Wrath interact with Clayton. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Although she understood the basics about cyborgs, she had never been terribly interested and preferred not to think about them at all.

Now that Rachel couldn’t avoid thinking about them constantly, her opinions about cyborgs were starting to change. The media had always treated them like a sensational news story or a way to get good ratings, not like people who had once been human and now were something else. How had she missed important issues such as the quality of their lives after Cyborg Sector rehabilitated them? Cyborgs were the epitome of intimidation, but they still deserved basic unalienable rights.

Clayton’s revelation about being a consultant instead of a scientist wasn’t surprising. In fact, it explained some things about him. On the way to New Mexico, he had wanted to keep the media far away from the cyborgs’ territory because he didn’t want anyone to discover the gaps in his knowledge. Things were different when he saw the opportunity to steal glory and be a hero. The situation had changed for the consultant. The only glory he was going to see was if he were a martyr for the anti-cyborg movement.

As Wrath tried to extract information from Clayton, Rachel’s mind returned to the thoughts she’d had when she first saw the cyborg. She was sure she had seen him before. More than that, she thought she knew him. She believed the man Wrath resembled was dead. Robert had gone to war and died in battle. Was her mind playing tricks on her because the two were similar looking? Everyone was supposed to have a lookalike somewhere in the world. Maybe this cyborg was Robert’s double.

But the more she studied him and listened to the conversations he had, the more she became convinced that this was no mere doppelgänger. Wrath was a little wider and more heavily built than she remembered, and his hair was longer. Although the years as a soldier and the months in the desert had changed him, he still had the same generous mouth, bold nose, and flashing eyes. She felt sure that she had known Wrath when he was still human. Rachel had touched his face, kissed his lips, and run her hands down his broad chest.

Rachel shifted uncomfortably on the cave floor as she realized she might have known the cyborg before. Weapon twitched, ready to shoot her if necessary, but she wasn’t planning to go anywhere. She didn’t want to die. The reporter looked up at the soldier guarding her. Rachel hadn’t been able to get a good look at him when he captured her on the hillside because of the glaring sun. Now, in the dim light of the rocky den, she could make out the features on his face. His skin looked rough, rugged, and burnished from his time in the sun. A long, jagged scar ran down the middle of the cyborg’s face, making him look even more terrifying than before. Rachel wanted to put some distance between them, but she knew he would move closer if she inched farther away. Weapon hadn’t been more than a foot away from her since he had found her.

Making herself as comfortable as she could, Rachel returned her attention to the cyborg leader. He was quick and intelligent, but he used his stature and attitude to intimidate others. He wasn’t the same man she had known many years ago, but every so often he made an expression or moved in a way that seemed oddly familiar.

It had been a long time ago, in a small town that seemed so far away that it might as well have been on a different planet. Rachel was young and impressionable, eager to find herself but unsure of where to look.

Robert had been on the outskirts of her awareness growing up. She had seen him play football or walk by her in the hallway, but she had never given him a second thought. Robert came from the wrong side of the tracks. He was nice enough, but there was always an element of otherness about him that her subconscious couldn’t move past.

He became unforgettable the day he saved her life. She had been upset, tears blurring her vision as she walked home from school. She couldn’t remember what had seemed so important to her at the time. It was probably something earth-shattering like a fight with a girlfriend or a bad grade on a test. Rachel had looked both ways before crossing the main road through town, but on that cloudy afternoon, she didn’t notice a gray truck rushing toward her. She felt the massive impact of something slamming into her body and throwing her to the other side of the street before she heard the sound of squealing brakes behind her.

She had landed hard, smashing her head against the ground. Before the fall, her backpack had been slung over one shoulder. Now it was lying on the curb with its contents spilled out. A heavy weight rested on top of her, but she was so dazed that she couldn’t push it off. When she regained control of herself, Rachel looked up into light azure eyes. The dark blonde eyebrows over them were pulled together in concern.

“I’m sorry about that. Are you all right?” The man slowly lifted his weight from her body. “I wasn’t sure I would get to you in time.” He held out a hand to lift her to her feet.

Rachel felt dazed, and not just because she had almost been run over. The only thing she could see was Robert’s handsome face. She wondered why she had never noticed him before. When Rachel had talked to her girlfriends about their crushes, his name never came up. Somehow, she wanted nothing more than to feel his strong arms around her again. “I think I’m okay.”

“You look like you’ve seen better days. You’re crying.” He reached out a finger to wipe a tear from her cheek.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Rachel swept her remaining tears away with shaking hands. “That was something else. I’m okay. Thank you.”

Robert had nodded but frowned at her with a look of concern on his face. “Let me walk you home, at least.”

Rachel had gladly consented. They hadn’t said much, but they didn’t need to. A sense of peace and comfort descended over her when she was with Robert. That night as she lay in her bed, she told herself that she was thinking about him purely due to his heroic actions. She couldn’t imagine having feelings for him.

The next day proved her wrong. She found herself looking for him between classes and going out of her way to loiter in the halls, hoping she would run into him at his locker or the water fountain. At the end of the day, he was at the bottom of the steps that led up to the school. Rachel passed by him with her eyes looking down, confident he had been avoiding her. But Robert broke off from his friends the moment he saw her. “Can I walk you home?”

Their new tradition of walking home together, even though his house was nowhere near hers, didn’t take long to turn into something more. He took Rachel to the movies, parties, and dinner. They held hands in-between classes and snuck kisses behind the dugout on the baseball field. She couldn’t think of or talk about anything but him.

He was her first lover. It was a rainy night in March and the air still carried the chill of winter, but promised the warmth of spring. Robert’s parents were out of town, and Rachel had told her mother that she was staying the night at Jessica’s house. He had taken her by the hand up to his room. There were no candles to cast a romantic glow or rose petals spread out over the bed, but he had been gentle and sweet as he laid her down.

Rachel remembered him saying, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” There was an urgency in his eyes that Rachel couldn’t ignore. She knew that what she saw in his eyes was a reflection of her heart.

“I want to.”

As they made love, she was strangely grateful for the truck that had nearly run her over. Without it, she would never have come to know Robert or have given a relationship with him a chance. Once they were together, she couldn’t imagine herself with anyone else. They lay with arms and legs entwined as they listened to the beat of the rain on the roof. She had childishly imagined they would always be together that way. In her dreams, they would graduate in a couple of months, spend their summer together, and go to the local community college. She’d had other plans for bigger universities, but she was willing to put her dreams on hold for Robert.

In the summer, everything changed.

A rash of petty crimes throughout town had the citizens of Harriston on full alert. They locked their doors and loaded their guns, determined to do whatever it took to catch the anonymous troublemaker slashing tires, breaking into tool sheds, and setting fires. The first suspects were the people police knew to be hellions. Robert had served his share of detention and been caught out after curfew, but Rachel knew he didn’t have a criminal personality. He was her boyfriend and hero. She could see him as nothing less.

When the police dogs began sniffing around Robert’s house, something changed inside him. He grew distant, talking less to Rachel and sometimes ending their dates early. Silence met any attempts to ask him what was wrong. He was beginning to withdraw. She had a feeling she knew why, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Robert had lost interest in her.

One night, as they sat in his truck on the edge of town, she thought about asking him if he still wanted to be with her. Rachel didn’t want to break up, but she knew what was coming. It would be better to get it over with instead of waiting and wondering where his mind was.

Robert beat her to the punch. The cicadas were so loud outside that he had to roll up the windows so she could hear him talk. The cab of the truck was hot and stuffy. “Rachel, I know who they’re looking for.”

The words came out of her mouth before she could think. “It doesn’t matter. I still love you. We can run away together.”

“It’s my brother.” Robert wouldn’t look at her, preferring to stare through the windshield at a corn field instead. “He’s the one who’s been destroying things. He’s got issues, you know? I tried to talk to him, but he doesn’t want to listen to me. He won’t even tell me why he’s doing this.”

Rachel’s mind raced as she looked for a solution. She felt awful knowing that Robert’s brother was in trouble. At least she knew more about the problem with Robert. He wasn’t unhappy with her; he was unhappy with his home life. “Have you talked to your parents? He’s still a minor. Maybe they can work something out with the police.”

Her boyfriend shook his head. “They’ve been trying everything they can imagine. He’s done things like this before but not to such a degree. It’s only going to get worse from here on out. The cops think it’s me.”

“You’ll have to turn him in, won’t you? You can’t take the fall for him. I know it’s only vandalism and petty theft, but you don’t deserve to have a criminal record.”

Robert finally looked at her with sad blue eyes. “No, I don’t. But there’s no way for me to escape. You know how they are in this town, babe. If they suspect my brother or me, our family will always have a stigma attached to us.” He was right — everyone knew all the gossip about each other in a small town. “I’ve decided to join the military.”

Rachel found it difficult to draw a breath. The air felt heavy in her lungs, and her body seemed unwilling to expel or inhale air. She rolled down the window despite the annoyance of noisy insects. “I’ll write to you. We can be together when you come back home.” Secretly, in the deepest part of her heart, she wanted Robert to ask her to marry him. He would still have to do basic training alone, but they could reunite wherever they stationed him. She hadn’t envisioned being an army wife as part of the future, but she would take what she could get.

Robert squeezed her hand. “Rachel, that’s not fair to you. You deserve better than that. You’ve always deserved better than me.”

“That’s not true.” She tried to protest further, but Robert lay a finger against her lips.

“You and I can’t be together anymore. Don’t make me be mean about it.”

Hot tears streamed down her face. “Make love to me one last time. Let me have that, at least.”

“Don’t do that to me.” His hand gripped her so hard that she thought her fingers might break, but she didn’t want him to let go.

“Please, Robert. I want you.”

It didn’t matter that they were in a beat-up old truck in the middle of nowhere. Rachel didn’t want to let Robert go, but he was going to leave no matter what. She took what she could and kept part of him in her heart. He would leave, and someone else would have him. A stranger would feel the heat of his strong chest against her breasts, his hard cock between her thighs, and the safety of his arms around her.

Robert didn’t belong to her anymore, and her world had shattered.

Rachel blinked and shook her head to bring herself back to the present moment as Wrath stood nose to nose with Clayton. Her memories were part of a different lifetime. For a while it had felt like her life was over, but she had moved on as time passed. She went to the college she had chosen before Robert saved her. She had dated other men, loved them, and then lost them. There had been no reason to think about the boy she loved in high school. Someone told her that he had died in combat. Rachel shed a tear for him, but that had been years ago.

Now he stood in front of her like Lazarus, breathing the same air she did.