***

Clara woke up sore and stretched her limbs out, fighting the endless pile of blankets to catalog her aches. Even so, everything was perfect. Almost. Nothing was ever perfect, but sometimes it got close and right now she was close enough. She sat up and looked for Reid, her hand emerging from the sheets to investigate his side of the bed.

She frowned when her hand came across nothing but more blankets. Her gaze lifted to find the room empty, the bathroom panel open, and the room beyond dark and empty as well.

She dropped back into the pillows and huffed, reaching one hand back over to his side, finding it cold.

He’s not here and hasn’t been here for some time.

She shuffled the fabric away from her and stood up, groaning from the tight pain that flooded through her calves, thighs, and even her lower back. Clara looked down at her body, expecting the worst. Red marks lined her skin in stark contrast to her pale body, perfectly sized and shaped to Reid’s fingers. She was marked from toe to shoulder by him.

A whimper escaped her and if she hadn’t felt well and truly fucked, she sure looked like it. The spot between her legs hurt, but it was a satisfying type of pain.

Clara trailed her fingers over her scars and felt little—not sadness nor anger—for once, it was the only part of her that was numb. For once, she had them but they didn’t have her.

Her thoughts shifted. She had his seed.

An anxiety-riddled shock of excitement shot through her. Reid told her it only took once. Once. That with him it was a one and done kind of deal. It didn’t make sense to her why the facility was even open if that were true—open and with a zero-percent success rate.

Maybe because the sperm the cybernetic doctors stole was useless?

Karma?

Thinking about it made her head hurt. She’d only come here for the surgery anyway. The baby—if there happened to be one—was a bonus.

He said it only took once... She tried not to dwell on it as she stared down at herself but it wouldn’t go away. Does it even matter? If there were secrets to the facility and between Reid and the rest of the world, did she really care? It didn’t sit well with her. The elation she felt was marred by it.

Clara ran her fingers through her mussed-up hair and headed to the bathroom, took her time showering—hoping Reid would join her but didn’t—then got dressed.

The panel to his room didn’t open when she approached it. She stepped back and tried again and it failed to open the second time. She jiggled the handle.

She jiggled it harder. Nothing.

What?

She called out for Reid, loudly, hoping it was a mistake but as the minutes ticked by and there was no answer, she gave up.

Clara refused to think the worst. It wasn’t her room after all. Maybe it wasn’t coded for her to access. Maybe he was in the lab and didn’t realize she was stuck? Maybe he was getting them food? She looked around her for a clock. How long was I asleep?

I’ve been up for an hour...ish? If he stepped out for something quick... he’d be back by now?

The security screen beside the panel didn’t respond to her touch or her voice. With defeat wafting off her in waves, she left the door behind to explore.

The giant bed held nothing but a couple hundred blankets (she guessed) and the only piece of furniture was a table beside it with a single drawer. Inside she found a square contraption she’d never seen before and various bits of hardware she assumed was for Reid’s internal cybersuit. Touching the pieces did nothing, so she moved on.

There was nothing under the bed except another blanket that had been kicked underneath.

The bathroom was standard. Clara was eventually left standing in front of another panel door that didn’t open at her approach but when she tried the manual handle, it opened and slid into the wall.

Reid’s smell engulfed her even before the door was all the way open. Her nostrils twitched at the worn metal smell of him, which was not as pleasant as when it was coming from its source. Inside were suits, at least a dozen, alone and behind plexiglass. There were no other clothes lining the small space—nothing to get a better read on her Cyborg—nothing but several pairs of matching shoes, ties, and other tech-gear.

On one shelf was a worn dog-collar, with a worn military tag attached to it.

Clara stretched out her fingers, wishing her dog companion was with her, pretending she could feel the strange suede of its skin under her palms. She hadn’t seen her friend since everything exploded with Reid, which was odd since it was never far from her side.

Stepping further into the closet revealed nothing else, and it filled her with melancholy. I have more than he does. I have more and I’m a homeless nomad.

She had things to her name, items she’d collected throughout her years that she couldn’t part ways with and Reid had nothing but the essentials: clothing, toiletries, and a place to sleep. Her fingers slipped down one of the ties, the silk leading their way, and she wondered why Reid was the way he was.

Why did he choose to stay in such a bleak, dead place like this when he had the universe at his disposal? Clara stared at the sleek cloth. He was ageless, powerful, beyond human and yet... she’d never heard of him before. And if he died—would anyone mourn him or care?

I would. She tugged the material once before letting it go and placing her hand on her stomach. We’d care.

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned full-circle, taking in everything at once but mostly taking stock of the lack of everything. One spin was all she could handle and she moved to leave the closet when a thin indentation—lined into a small square door, almost impossible to discern within the metal framework of the wall—caught her eye. It was cubby-sized, big enough to be the entrance of a crawlspace—or a doggy door—and her hope alighted that it might be another exit if the android dog was Reid’s.

She checked behind her and eyed the lighted entryway to the bathroom for a full minute—waiting to be stopped—but when Reid didn’t magically appear and nothing happened, she kneeled in front of the square and traced the edges with her fingers.

Hmm...

With a slight bit of pressure, the panel swung inward. Clara tapped it and it swung harder, revealing another space. She lifted the barrier as far as it would go and peered in, her eyes adjusting from the bright closet space to the darkness beyond. Past the gloom was the intermittent LED light of technology and it grew brighter as she moved her hand inside.

She crawled through the door and let the swinging panel rest behind her and at first perusal, she thought she found a hidden server room. Screens appeared and flickered, sensors quietly went off, and the light increased as she moved further in.

The first thing her eyes settled on were the screens, numerous screens, disjointed and placed all over.

She curled her limbs into her body, half afraid that if she touched anything, an alarm would go off or it’d break.

Numbers and codes came next, flooding every surface within her immediate view. She quickly lost interest and stood up, winding her way toward the back and the one large screen that took up the entire wall. Images moved in squares across it as she made her way closer.

Clara recognized it all immediately—the rooms and hallways of the facility. They were from the security feeds all over the building, but as her gaze went from one feed to the next, she discovered they were all feeds of places she frequently visited in the building.

My room. Clara frowned. From several different angles. Her throat tightened. She knew what she signed up for and allowed her stomach to settle. She knew she hadn’t gone into the situation blindly.

Her eyes moved to some of the other squares that were of the medical labs, the habitable zones, hallways, and the last several, the parking lot. Her eyes roamed over it all again, rubbing her neck. Half the feeds were aimed at her space.

Because I’m the only one here.

Wait.

She scanned all of it again—everything—looking for anything, any movement, but here was no sign of life anywhere in the whole building. No Reid. No Marsha. No androids. And no dog.

Clara tentatively swiped her finger across the glass and it switched the feeds to new angles and new locations. To more nothing.

Where did he go? She leaned back on her heels feeling a little betrayed, watching a whole bunch of nothing for no reason, and feeling guilty because she was spying. A little spinning disc at the corner of the glass caught her eye and she touched it, minimizing the security and bringing up a network desktop that was littered with labeled folders in a series of numbers that also meant nothing to her.

She knew she should stop. Something in her gut screamed at her that how the facility was run was none of her business, but her curiosity won out and she looked back at the hidden wall crawl space door one last time, waiting for something to stop her. For him to stop her.

Santino eroded her ability to trust blindly long ago.

And with that thought, she started on the first folder.

***

STILL SOURCING FOR Santino’s whereabouts, he found himself at the end of his rope parked back in the empty vestiges of old Dallas again. His spine molded and stiff against the seatback and while his body was in stasis, his mind traveled the network, clinging onto anything that would give him a lead.

The red flags came first—always. The pieces of information that were public knowledge, that any quick search could find. Santino’s imprisonment, his crimes, and the news generated by both.

Deeper in was the information behind the fail-safes, the private info, and the secret sources. Anyone who knew how to hack and hack well could access the deep. Beyond the deep was the abyss, much like the ocean for a Cyborg. That network held its own wonders, and its own monsters.

In the abyss were traces, direct connections with his target, those that went from one IP address to the target, or to an alias attached to the target. That’s where he searched now, where his mind roamed.

Reid followed the link from Marsha’s phone again and again—the one that led him to Natalie—but there were no more traces to be found. He debated returning to the site and searching manually but discarded it, knowing by now, that whatever he found there would be old news. Santino would have moved on and cut ties.

He sighed in frustration, stretching his limbs, and returning to his body briefly. His eyes sought the moon and found it behind a thick cloud of city-smog. He was pushing too hard and failing. He hated to fail, wanting only to return to Clara with the news her attacker was no more. Time wasn’t on his side, though, and he was beginning to regret getting out of bed that evening before and leaving her.

I should never have left—

There!

His mind left his body and flooded back into digital space. He had Santino. And straight from the source, the prison. Leave it to other humans to do his dirty work. Reid experienced a twinge of glee as he started his flyer and shot up into the smog-filled sky.

The target had been arrested. It wouldn’t last if he had anything to do with it. Even bars couldn’t stop Reid from seeking out his target.

His only problem: Santino had been apprehended on his own turf. In no man’s land, in the town nearest the breeding facility. He lifted his gaze to the bleak world around him, and away from the channels of the network. The gears in his cyberware vibrated with anticipation. The night was still middling.

He called up the guard outside his facility, speaking into his wristcon.

“Yes, sir?” No greeting was needed.

“I need you to head to the local station. Bring a weapon and delay any further processing of Santino.”

“Sir?”

“It’s personal,” Reid added, hoping that would answer all further questions. His guard was the only human in his employ and the only one he could stand long-term before Clara.

“This isn’t about...? I don’t think I can do that right now. There’s been a security breach at the facility.”

The muscles in his arm tightened uncomfortably and the connection to the guard wavered for a moment. Without a will of his own, he readjusted the route of his flyer, forgetting all about his target. Forgetting everything. Already, his feelers flooded back into his home.

“Sir? Is something wrong?”

Reid’s jaw twitched. “Where are you?”

“At my station.”

“Where’s the breach?” He looked for it as he asked.

“Internal. Unusual activity within the mainframe. I assume it’s not because of you?”

Reid felt the red flags as soon as the guard spoke. Unusual activity. It was there. How could he have missed it? The vehicle sped up past ground law and went higher, closing the distance between him and Clara.

His world was crumbling in the small confines of his quiet flyer and he experienced something he hadn’t truly felt since he was newly created. Dread. So many secrets that were at the tip of a filled dam, waiting to flood over its sides. Secrets he wasn’t ready to reveal or deal with—ones he didn’t want anyone else to know. Not even her.

“It’s not me.”

“Do you still want me to go to the station?”

“No. Shut it down. I’ll be there soon.”

“Do you mean—?”

“Everything.”

“Sounds like we’re in for some fun,” the guard loosed a small laugh and hung up.

His eyes flashed with dark light and his canines popped out his teeth. His eyes zeroed in and searched the wastes for the facility. The old city pollution dissipating behind him. The threads of his suit snapped under the bulging pressure that demanded release.

With his sharp teeth abrading the tissue of his lips, he lifted his wristcon once more, calling into his security room.

“Clara.”

He heard her, heard the sudden stiff shift of her body as she was caught trespassing into his space, his fucking territory.

I should’ve never gotten out of bed.

***

ONE BY ONE SHE OPENED the files on Reid’s screentop. At first they led to folders filled with other files and soon she found herself within a labyrinth of layers of data that went on forever. She didn’t waste time on anything that she couldn’t understand and continued moving on to the next layer or the next folder if only encrypted paperwork or codes showed up.

Every time she opened a new one, she’d glance behind her, waiting for Reid to stop her.

It’s been nearly two hours. Her anger at being left locked up in his room, in his facility, without food and completely alone grew with every passing minute. She no longer thought it was a mistake on his part.

The next folder: Reports.

Data. System codes. Programs.

She moved on. It wasn’t until she was halfway through that she stumbled upon him. Clara shuffled on her feet and sucked in an excited breath as row upon row of images appeared in front of her. Her eyes widened as they took up the entire screen, the entire wall in its mass. The colors vibrant and many. Even in their minimized state, the quality was perfect.

She took a step back knowing she stared at hundreds of memories, possibly thousands, all from Reid’s past.

The first image emerged and took over the rest. It was a candid group shot of a bunch of men and one woman decked in battle gear. Nothing about it was clean. There were at least a dozen strangers in motion, some staring straight back at her as if she was living that moment in time. Staring down at her.

Clara knew immediately that she was looking through Reid’s eyes. Dirt, blood, and grime covered everyone, smoke wafted up from laser-based weapons, some held in limp hands, others clutched with white-knuckled intensity. She’d never seen such haunted eyes. This was war.

The men and women before Reid had recently come back from battle. The filth and grease were evident everywhere.

Is Reid... kneeling?

From that point on, the war images worsened. It was like watching Earth die rapidly before her eyes, the emotions seized her, knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. Corpses replaced codes. People replaced programs. The dead replaced the data.

She’d learned more about the war in just a few pictures than she had during countless hours studying it as a kid. It made her problems feel small and insignificant. If there was any innocence left in her that could be lost, it was lost then.

A horrible clarity rushed through her and she couldn’t stop the tears streaming down her cheeks, wiping the back of her hand across her face again and again.

When a military image of Reid, not from his eyes lifted before her, she stopped trying to hold back her tears.

The metal image of the dog, her protector, sat in stark contrast against a red background. Reid Canis was tagged, along with other men and metal animals. Her pulse skipped a beat and she stared at her companion, seeing Reid’s eyes for the first time, seeing the dog’s eyes the same way. The darkness of them. And the black light that they gave off.

Guilt assaulted her and she quickly walked out of the room and into the closet, through the bathroom, and back into the bedroom to pace.

Clara clenched her fists, feeling trapped, wanting to run and scream but knowing there were cement and metal walls that enclosed her from every side. Sweat beaded her forehead, between her breasts, under her arms, everywhere, and she rushed back into the bathroom and splashed cool water over her face.

She didn’t dare look at her reflection. Didn’t dare think of the child growing in her womb. But with that thought, she went back into the closet and approached the dog collar and lifted the military tags attached to it.

Reid’s name and military number were embedded on it. The unit he was in and the battleship he was on. Cyborg was stated, along with shifter.

Mutt.

She took the collar off its stand and brought it back into the main room, staring at it, hoping all its secrets would be revealed to her. And like a good girl, waiting for her heart to stop its marathon, she sat on the hundred-blanket bed and faced the locked panel, waiting for Reid’s return. Her stomach growled but she ignored it as she absently massaged the aches from their earlier lovemaking away.

What bothered her was that she wasn’t even angry, or scared. Instead, she was sad and numb. Sad for him and the other Cyborgs, but sad for herself too. It was like a big secret had been kept from her her entire life. Clara brought the collar to her nose and breathed Reid in.

“Clara.”

His voice startled her, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. The screen next to the panel lit up and she lowered the collar away from her face, licking her lips.

“Reid?” she squeaked out, her voice raspy to her ears.

“What did you do?”

She was caught, knew she would be at this point, and didn’t try to hide it. “I found out... about you.”

“You’re a liability.”

It was harsh and made her flinch. She glanced about for a camera but saw none, remembering the security feeds and having never seen any feeding Reid’s rooms.

“What,” she swallowed, “do you mean?” Liability?

“You not only trespassed into a secure section, but you also tampered with the facility’s security, and into its most private data.”

“I didn’t read the data? I don’t understand. It was reports, numbers, and codes... and pictures. I saw pictures from your view. Of you.”

The lights around her flickered, making her jump.

“Are you trustworthy, Clara dear?” His voice was so cold. It froze the ice in her veins.

“Of course I am! Reid?” She stood up.

“You’re a fucking liar.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t care about whatever goes on here! But I saw the pictures of you during the war and of your... your other form. I know you’re a shifter, a dog, whatever that is being a Cyborg. I’m not lying, I saw it. I looked at the images and I don’t care.”

When he didn’t respond, she wondered if he had heard her. The vacuous, haunting noises of machinery powering down all around filled her ears. The space dimmed to near darkness before she rushed to the bedside table and slipped her hand over the tech until some of it powered on for light. A loud, groaning sound encapsulated her world, the facility’s last lingering breath of life.

“You see, Clara, there’s a reason I stay alone, live alone, prowl alone. Whenever I get close to someone they either betray me, disappoint me, or die. There hasn’t been a breeder here in years, at least not one who originated here, until you. I made a fucking mistake in letting you stay.”

“You’re being a real asshole!” she shot out into the shadows, her numbness fading and being replaced by confused anger. “I’m not the one who left me trapped in a room for hours with nothing to do but think and explore.”

“And prove that you’re just another meddlesome girl. Who do you think I’ll choose in the end? You or my brethren?”

“Fuck you, Reid.”

“Yes. Clara, fuck me.”

Something in her snapped, cracked, shattered into an ear-splitting screech of glass through her head. The panel door shot open, releasing her from her temporary prison, to a hallway lined with emergency lights. She didn’t waste any time heading to her room, to her mostly packed bag and grabbing her belongings before heading to the reception and the exit.

Reid’s office door was open, making her stop and peer in. She suddenly realized his collar still hung from her twisted fingers. Clara slammed it on his desk and walked away.

The early morning blast of the night chill swallowed her up and she hated it. Hated that it reminded her of how cold Reid really was. Hated that he chose to be cold with her.

A dark figure leaned against her flyer door, familiar and cocky, in that way she’d come to expect. Another vehicle was parked next to hers.

“I’m leaving.”

“I can tell.”

When he didn’t move, she rounded to the passenger side and threw it open, putting her bag in the back. She moved to crawl through but was stopped by his foot sinking into the driver’s seat. It only stopped for her for a second as she pretended to ignore him and fit her body around it, turning her flyer on and screaming in her head to get the memo.

He grabbed her arm and stopped her from maneuvering it into the air with him still half in it. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not leaving.”

The piece of her that had broken, now stabbed at her sides and made her bleed. “I so fucking am, you have no idea. If you try and stop me, I think I might try and kill you.”

“You’re pregnant with my child,” his voice lowered and he tried to get her to look at him. Clara gritted her teeth and refused.

“Are you so certain? History says there’s a one-hundred percent failure rate at this facility.” He winced, and she bit down on her tongue.

“You don’t know?”

“I know enough.”

“What did you find out?” The hold on her arm loosened slightly.

“That you’re like every other man I’ve ever met. A real dick. Let me go.”

“Clara?”

She shoved at him, her hands making contact with the muscled wall of his body and the expensive suit he wore.

“Look.” She finally made eye contact with him, her body shaking under the dark light he put her under. The warning BEWARE OF DOG rose up like hell’s eternal dark gate in her head. “I’m not the liar here. You obviously have issues, issues I can’t begin to deal with. And Reid, twenty minutes ago I would’ve tried. But I can’t do this.” She shoved at him again. “I can’t deal with this hot and cold, freezing and burning emotional rollercoaster you live your life on. I think I could grow up and move on, learn another lesson and adapt, forgive and forget, but you, you can’t.”

He didn’t let her go, instead, he stepped from her seat and back outside her flyer, but his hand held her wrist and held it tight. Clara knew her pulse was beating the pads of his fingers to a pulp. He searched her eyes, her face, and her soul was put under the spotlight of his gaze and she held up under it.

“I’m not the liar, here, Reid, you are.” His grip on her tightened but she continued, “I’ve never lied to you once. Omitted my past, yes, but I never lied. I’m not some meddlesome-fucking-girl that showed up randomly in your life to ruin it. Sorry if I had, I truly am but I’m not the one with all the power here. I’ve never had any power to begin with. I came here knowing what I was signing up for.” Clara sighed and rested her forehead against the flyer’s manual wheel.

“You’re pregnant, regardless of what you say, I can’t let you leave knowing that. You don’t understand.”

That’s all he cares about? All he has to say?

“You know what?” She laughed softly. “After I woke up from surgery, I was confused why you left all the scarring on my stomach. I know you could’ve gotten rid of it like you’ve gotten rid of the surgical scars. It bothered me but I let it drop. Because, at some point, I stopped feeling them. They were there and that was it. I felt stronger bearing them. Why did you leave them? You want me to forget him. I know you do.”

Clara looked down at herself and the morning shadows that engulfed her body.

“If I healed them. It would only be cosmetic,” His voice was low and it made her shiver in spite of everything. “I wanted... I don’t know. I wanted to own them,” Reid finished on a whisper. “I wanted you to stop thinking of him, but not because I forced you to.”

His answer hurt but she already knew she wouldn’t like whatever answer he’d give her. But it proved her point. Right from the beginning, she knew what kind of man Reid was—controlling, dominant, a leader. Like her ex. She gravitated toward him because even though he possessed traits like Santino, he was still the exact opposite in everything that mattered.

“I’m glad you didn’t get rid of them,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because they’ll always be a reminder of him. I’ll never forget him and what he did, nor do I want to. Thank you for your honesty, though.”

Reid let go of her as if he were burned.

Clara wasted no time in shutting the door and leaving him behind, leaving the facility behind, passing through the open gates with nothing to stop her. And when she was hundreds of miles away, when her flyer sputtered to a stop well beyond the wastes of America, and she had no more fumes left in her or her vehicle to keep going, she cried.