Free The Bionics (The Bionics Series Part 1) by Alicia Michaels Page B

on his heels to walk away.
    “That’s what I thought,” he shoots over his shoulder as he disappears back toward Hexley Hall.
     
    ***
     
    A few hours later I find him in his room with little Agata . The two are lying on the bed together, her head on his chest, and he is telling her a story about a fairy princess. I stand in the doorway and watch them, something familiar tugging on my insides as I remember being in a similar position with my father. A smile is pulling at the corners of my lips as I watch them, silently waiting for Gage to finish.
    “And the princess, her prince, and the unicorn robot all moved into the pink castle together. And…”
    “They lived happily ever after,” Agata supplied with a grin. “You tell the best stories Uncle Gage.”
    Gage looks up from his place on the bed, his eyes flashing in annoyance as they lock with mine. Agata , oblivious to his anger toward me, jumps up and runs over to where I stand in the doorway.
    “Hi! I know you, you’re Blythe. Your arm is cool.”
    I hold the bionic limb up and twist it around, flexing the metal fingers. “You think so? Yours sounds much cooler.”
    She shrugs and grabs the hand, pulling me into the room. “You know my Uncle Gage, right?”
    I glance over at Gage, but he’s avoiding looking at me now, so I turn my attention back to Agata .
    “Yes, I do. He’s a great guy, isn’t he ?”
    She pulls me down on the bed, and with Gage’s bulky frame stretched across one side of the mattress it’s awful crowded. Agata doesn’t seem to mind as she crosses her legs and bounces excitedly, talking a mile a minute.
    “Oh, he’s the best. He brought me here to get me away from the bad people. Is that why you’re here? Did someone bring you here to get you away from the bad people?”
    I nod and smile, finding her innocence and sweetness endearing. “Yeah. My best friend , Dax —the really big guy I was with earlier—he saved me from some bad people too. They wanted to arrest me for being different.”
    “Different like me.”
    “Yes, that’s right. He told me about this place and the Professor . He told me that I would be safe here and that we could be a family.”
    Agata frowned, her pale eyebrows scrunching adorably over wide doe eyes. “Don’t you have your own family?”
    My heart is beating in double time and my eye responds by filling my vision with my stats and vitals. Anxiety claws at me as the details of m y past flicker through my mind like a slow motion film. The little girl inside of me wants to fall to the floor and curl up into the fetal position and cry. The brittle part of my personality wants to shove this girl across the bed and snarl at her to mind her own business. Another part of me feels Gage’s eyes on my face and I know he’s waiting for the answer too. And before I can stop myself, the words are coming out and as I speak them, I am looking into Gage’s eyes, not Agata’s .
    “I had a family,” I say, practically choking on the lump in my throat. “They died.”
    “All of them?” she asks her rose-petal pink mouth parted in disbelief.
    I nod. “Yes. The Military Police killed them trying to get to me. You see, my father didn’t want to turn me over to the government. Just like I’m sure your mom didn’t want to hand you over.”
    Agata shakes her head with conviction. “No. That’s why Uncle Gage hid me.”
    “Well, I didn’t have an u ncle to help me get away. I just had my parents and little sister, who risked their lives to keep me hidden in the basement. Someone found out I was there and told on us. The bad men took me from my family and burned our house down with them still inside it.”
    Agata is crying and as she reaches out toward my face and as her chubby fingers come away wet, I realize that her tears are mirrored on my face.
    “You must have been so sad and alone,” she says.
    “Yeah. But I had Dax . He saved me before the bad men could kill me to o. He’s my family now, and so are