SPLICED

CHAPTER TEN

For a while, no one speaks, and it's little wonder why. Tears track down my cheeks and I hate the vulnerability, but I cannot stop them. Gideon's arm around my shoulders is my only comfort. My only solace.

When Harrison finally speaks, his reedy voice cutting through the silence, my eyes snap up, sharp and angry at his words.

"...He must've been a mole."

"You shut up!" I growl, and I can feel Gideon tense as well, "Don't you dare! Don't you ever!"

"What other explanation is there!?" Harrison yells, and I stand, but it's Margaux's voice that catches me off guard.

"...Harrison's right. We need to ask the questions, Charlotte. We can't ignore them. How... how else could he be alive?"

"You can't..." Looking to Margaux, I shake my head in disbelieve, "You can't think that he would--" But I can't finished. I can't speak. The tears choke at me and I feel sick and for a moment I'm afraid I may actually vomit. Turning away, I move, and at first I don't know where, but soon enough I'm in the hall, by my dorm. Gideon's heavy tread follows and I think to tell him to leave, but I can't. I don't want him to. Everything had turned on it's head, but he had been the only constant, and whether I'm ready to admit it out loud or not, I need him there. I push open the door and step inside, holding it for him, and when he follows me, I let it slam behind us, crashing against his chest with an angry, bitter sob. And I don't care. For once, I don't care how it looks. I need to cry. I need to, because absolutely nothing else makes sense. And Gideon's arms loop around me, and he pulls me closer and I can feel his tears, as they fall into my hair and against my skin.

Alex. My Alex. But not anymore. Whether what the others think is true or not, I know that my Alex died that day, and this... this is only confirmation of the kind of monsters Eden Laboratories really are. They take the innocent, the good, the kind and they twist and pervert them, in the name of science and people stand around an applaud.

I don't know for how long I stand there, crying, but eventually there are no more tears, and while I am still angry, and I am still bitter, I'm able to extract myself from Gideon long enough to speak. And I hate the words. I hate them and I hate myself for saying them.

"...Maybe they're right."

"Don't say that, Charlotte. You know it's not true." Pulling back, Gideon looks at me, his expression firm, resolute. He believes what he says. I think he has to, "Alex was my best friend, Charlotte. He would've done anything for anyone of us. He made me promise to take care of you. Someone who was working with Eden, who was pretending to care about us, they would never do that. You were his whole world, Charlotte. They're wrong... and they'll realize it, too."

"...Why was he there, then, Gid? How... how is he even alive? I saw him go down? I saw..." In my head, I can still see it, so clear, "I saw the blood. No one could have survived that."

"Maybe not a normal person, no. But we're not exactly normal. We push limits every day, even beyond the parts of us they added to... What's to say he didn't do the same?"

"I can't... I can't think that, Gideon." Moving away, I drop onto the edge of my bed, running my hands over my face, "...Because that means... I left him. And whatever they did to him, whatever they did to make him stand there like that, with them. That's on me."

Following me, Gideon sinks to his knees in front of me, his hands reaching for mine, holding them tightly, "Stop. You have to stop, Charlotte. Don't do this to yourself. Whatever happened to him, that's on Eden. Not you. Not ever. He wanted you to get out, and you did. Don't blame yourself for what they did to him." Releasing a hand, he reached up, cradled my cheek, "I could have gone back for him, too. You want someone to blame... blame me."