Free Nobody by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Page B

and again and again, Nix had put them out of their misery and saved the lives they otherwise would have taken—Eight, Nine, Ten.
    Eleven was the senator.
    And now Claire. When Ione had given him her name, Nix had assumed that she was a monster. When Claire’s file was designated Do Not Approach, he’d known that she was the worst of the worst.
    But he’d known wrong. The truth was unfathomable, but impossible to deny. Claire didn’t act like any Null he’d ever seen,
because she wasn’t a Null
.
    Nix lurched forward on his knees, his stomach emptying itself on the forest floor. Everything made sense now.Claire wasn’t the world’s best actress. He was the world’s biggest fool. The Society’s lapdog. Their pet. Go, fetch, they told him, and he did. Go, kill.
    But why Claire? What had she done to incur The Society’s wrath? If she wasn’t a Null, why would they want her dead? Nix wanted to go back to the institute. Wanted to beat the answer out of the people who’d sent him here. To surprise them in their beds and make them pay for what he’d almost done to Claire.
    She’s just a girl
.
    Nix sank back onto his heels, tears stinging his eyes. Claire wasn’t a Null. She wasn’t a heartless wretch. She wasn’t a killer. If either of them were a monster, it was him.
    Nix couldn’t go back to the cabin. He couldn’t face Claire, but he couldn’t just leave her there either. Alone. Scared. Confused. He had to explain, and he had to ask—
    Why could she see him? Why didn’t she seem to notice that he was less?
    That’s why they did it. That’s why they want her dead. Because when they told me no one would ever see me, they lied. When they told me I could never affect anyone, they lied
.
    The next thought
—when they told me no one would ever love me
—was too much, too fast. And even if it had been possible, once upon a time, it wasn’t now.
    The Society had made sure of that.
    He’d kidnapped her. He’d almost killed her. She was the first person he’d ever been able to affect in any way, and he’d made her cry.
    Claire. Claire. Claire
.
    Nix stood up, her image pushing out all other thoughts in his mind. He had to go back to her. To help her. To explain.
    And then he had to go back to the institute.
    For answers.

    He left me. He left me. He really, really did
.
    The longer Claire was alone, the more fully the memory of Nix’s touch evaporated from her skin. It was over. He was gone. She tried to approach the situation rationally, to be glad that he’d given her the perfect opportunity to escape, but she couldn’t shake the knowledge that she’d been
left
. Discarded. Probably already forgotten.
    Again.
    Situation: You’ve been kidnapped and abandoned at an empty cabin in the woods. No one knows you’re here. They probably don’t even know you’re missing.
    Claire could have daydreamed her way out of this cabin eight times over. She tried to pretend that was all this was: another Situation, a problem to be solved. Shesearched the cabin (unsuccessfully) for a phone. She gathered her assailant’s weapons one by one and hid the guns and needles and knives under the front porch, in case he came back.
    He won’t
.
    Claire tried not to think those words. She tried not to think about waking up to his eyes on hers. But most of all, she tried not to acknowledge the fact that this wasn’t a Situation—because in her Situations, she was never, ever alone.
    Claire left the cabin. She ran out into the woods, but stopped.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going
. A thick tendril of panic began to slide its way up her spine. Too many horror movies. Too much Stephen King.
    All alone in the woods. Because he left. Because I—
    Claire’s head throbbed. Panic rose inside of her. She was five years old again, alone at Walmart. In the park. In the back of her parents’ car, locked in.
    McDonald’s.
    Every place she’d ever been forgotten.
    Claire bent her head forward, fighting back