Perfect (18 page)

“Yvonne,
please
,” I said, thinking of
no other way to budge her. I didn’t want to beg, but I would do it
to get Michael.

She laughed, dry and heartless. “You’re too
late.” She shook her head like I was a toddler. “You’re too
late.”

My heart stopped. My mind was racing. I tried
to piece together what Yvonne was saying to me, but my mind kept
coming up with only one solution. A solution I didn’t want to face.
But before I could brace myself, before I could prepare myself for
what she was going to show me, he was there, standing behind her.
Staring at me. With cold, expressionless eyes. And Jessica
screamed.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I stood there, numb.
Michael stared back at me, indifferent. And Jessica was screaming.
She called his name over and over again, then started to
cry.

It took a moment for the pain to catch up to
me. People say that emotional pain is worse than the physical kind.
It tears you apart from the inside out. It grips your heart, your
soul and never lets go. It gnaws away at you until there’s nothing
left. It’s the kind of pain you can’t kill. The kind that takes
control.

Getting in was way too easy. We were
meant
to break in easily and find Michael. As an
android.

I heard a sob and it took me a second to
realize that it had come from me. “Michael?” I said loudly, so he
could hear me from across the room. I started shaking my head.
“Don’t look at me like that. You know who I am.”

He stared back, his eyes focused but
unfocused at the same time. Was he looking at me? Or was he only
pretending?

“Michael!” I shouted. No. No.
God, no.
Please, don’t let this happen.
Bring him back. Please bring
him back.
But I was still staring into those expressionless
eyes.

“He won’t remember you,” Yvonne said
calmly.

“Shut up!” I screamed at her. “I hate you!” I
was sobbing now. “Why would you do this to me? Why?”

She stared back at me coolly. “Because of
what you did to me. Don’t you remember, Drew? You left. And I told
you,
I never lose
.”

I never lose,
Yvonne had called after
me as I walked away from her in the woods. This was her way of
getting back at me? This was her sick way of winning?

Why?
Why?
The word kept spinning
around in my head with no answer to match it.

“Michael,” Yvonne called to him. “Lock them
up,” she snapped.

He started to walk toward us and I noticed
the discreet changes in him. He was slightly taller, his features
more exaggerated, and he walked with more confidence and ease. He
looked perfect. But he wasn’t
my
Michael. He was
too
perfect. Like a plastic doll.

“Michael,” I said, once he had gotten closer
to me. “It’s me, Drew. You remember me, I know you do. I’m Drew.
Drew
.”

He barely glanced at me as he walked past and
dragged the sobbing Jessica into a cell, clanging the door behind
her. He then walked toward me.

“Michael,
listen to me
,” I ordered.
“It’s Drew. And
your sister,
Jessica.” I tried to reason
with him. “You know us.”

He grabbed my arm, a much firmer grip than
the former Michael had. It pinched my skin and almost hurt.

“Let go.” I yanked my arm from his grasp and
glared at him. “You know me!” I nearly screamed. “You have to!”

Suddenly, he grabbed my arm and partly
shoved, partly threw me into the cell, slamming the door behind me.
I fell against the hard brick wall, and slid to the ground, staring
at Michael in shock and rubbing my arm.

“Michael, please,” I pleaded, staring up at
him, hoping to catch a glimpse of his old self in those blank eyes.
But he only stared down at me for a split second before walking
away.

I remembered his last words to me in the
house, telling me to run, sacrificing himself for Jessica and me.
His voice rang through my mind. The remembrance of the last time he
had kissed me. The time he told me he was falling in love with me.
Now he was incapable of the feeling at all.

I leaned my head against the wall and
cried.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Yvonne was at my
cell. She was talking to me. But I was faced away from her. I
ignored her.

“I had to do it, Drew,” she was saying. “They
wanted Michael, anyway. We knew he’d be good enough bait to draw
you both back.” I could hear the smile in her voice. The smugness.
“Michael will make a pretty good android. Hopefully a better one
than you turned out to be.”

I glared at the wall.

“And I’m sure Jessica will, too. She’s quite
a mess as a human, but aren’t they all?” She laughed. “She’ll make
a good android, like her brother.”

I was seething.

“But you...” She paused. Probably for
dramatic effect, knowing Yvonne. “It won’t be as easy for you.”

I turned around to glower at her. “You can’t
do anything else that could possibly hurt me further. You’ve
already changed Michael, and you’ve threatened to change Jessica.
You took the one person I loved, and then my only best friend. What
else can you possibly do to me?”

Yvonne smirked in surprise. “You loved
him?”

I glared back at her, my eyes filled with
burning hatred.

Yvonne laughed outright. “I can’t believe you
would love a
human.
” She laughed again. “I can’t even
believe you would love anybody. Make out with, sure, but love? Hah.
Remember, Drew, a perfect android isn’t supposed to feel love.”

I glared at her. A perfect android wasn’t
supposed to feel hate, either.

Yvonne straightened up. “Well, Drew, to
answer your question, there is one more thing that they could do to
you.”

I turned away, not wanting to hear and not
caring.

“They’re going to kill you.”

My breath caught in my throat, even though I
had been expecting this.
They’re going to kill you.
Those
words sounded harsher than I had imagined they would. I turned
around. “Why?”

“Because you’re in the way.” With that,
Yvonne left the room.

I stared down the hallway then leaned back
against the wall. How could all of this have happened in such a
short amount of time? How could this have happened?

I heard Jessica crying softly in a cell
somewhere down the corridor. My brow furrowed and suddenly I felt
strong, even when I had no reason to. I wasn’t going to let them
take Jessica. I wasn’t going to let her be changed. And I wasn’t
going to let them kill me, either.

The only problem was I didn’t have a
plan.

I lay down on the hard, cold, cement floor
and stared up at the ceiling. I closed my eyes.
Help me. Help me
save Jessica. Help me save Michael. And help me save
myself.

I opened my eyes and looked up. The ceiling
loomed over me, white and blank.
I will get out.
I promised
myself.
I will be free again.

Don’t miss the third book of the Mechanical
Series

"
Flawed
"

Coming in September, 2013

Acknowledgments

It feels like
Perfect
has been around waiting to be published for years,
but at the same time it’s all gone by so fast. But the version of
Perfect
that I started with is far from the version it is
today. I have a lot of people to thank for helping it become a
polished novel.

I owe a huge thank you to my editor, Denise
Meinstad, for all of her hard work.
Perfect
is so much
better than I ever could have hoped for, thanks to her attention to
detail and thoughtful edits.

Thanks to Caroline Andrus for yet again
coming up with an amazing cover design. It captures the essence of
the story and ties in perfectly with the previous book.

I also owe thanks to everyone at Melange
Books who had a hand in the finished product of
Perfect
,
including Nancy Schumacher and Catherine Snodgrass.

Thanks again to my family and friends for
cheering me on and giving me the confidence to continue my journey
as an author.
Perfect
would not have existed without your
support and feedback.

As always, I am deeply grateful to anyone who
spends their time reading my books. You are the reason I love to
write.

About the Author

Pauline C. Harris is now seventeen years old
and has been writing since the age of eight. After self-publishing
her first book at the age of fourteen, she moved on to write the
Mechanical Trilogy. She loves reading science fiction and fantasy,
and her main hobby, other than writing, is playing violin in
various orchestras and quartets. Mechanical and Perfect are her
first professionally published novels.

Twitter:
@PaulineCHarris

website/blog:

paulinecharris.wordpress.com

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mechanical/404821976275743?ref=hl

Other works by Author

Mechanical
, book one

Perfect
, book two

Flawed
, book three (coming fall 2013)

Turn the page for more books available
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Fall asleep.

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