CHAPTER 30
I ran.
Not the kind of running you do in gym class or when you’re late for a test, but the kind that burns, the kind that feels like if you stop, you’ll never get moving again.
The cold air tore at my throat, and the forest blurred past me, branches snapping at my arms like they were trying to keep me there, like they knew something I didn’t. I didn’t know where I was going. Only that I needed to get away from that lab, from those old records, from the report stamped with “NEURAL DEACTIVATION PENDING.”
My name had been there. My name.
And below it, the word “SUCCESSFUL.”
I didn’t feel successful. I felt hollow.
The woods near Blackwood always had this strange energy, like the trees whispered things when no one was listening. Tonight, it felt louder. More urgent.
I collap
