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"Do you think you can save them all, Harmony?" He stared back at her remorselessly.
"Every life you've taken has taken a piece of your soul. I held you while you slept, after Jonas brought you to the office. I saw the tears you shed and heard the pain you felt. Do you think you're not killing yourself like this?"
She flinched. She had known there was a chance she had dreamed, but he had never mentioned it, never let her guess.
"I'm just one person," she whispered. "A creation, that's all. "
"No, dammit, that's not all you are, Harmony," he bit out, his hands gripping her upper arms as he gave her a little shake. "Look at yourself, baby. You don't sleep, you barely eat. You run on nerves and sheer gut stubbornness alone. How much longer can you do that? How much longer before it catches up with you and you mess up? How much longer do you think you can avoid the repercussions of it? You will be caught. You will be arrested. And you will die. "
Harmony inhaled roughly, seeing the pain in his eyes, the determination in his face to keep that from happening.
"They are children," she cried out before she could stop herself. "Helpless. Dear God, Lance—"
"Work within the law, Harmony," he ground out. "You're smart, and you're intuitive as hell. Use those abilities to find the proof and bring them to justice. Justice does work, baby. When you use the law to your advantage. "
"While children are dying. "
"While you're alive to put as many of them as possible behind bars," he yelled back at her. "For God's sake, what good are you going to do a single child if you're dead?"
"I save as many as I can. " She shook her head desperately.
"Bullshit!" He released her as quickly as he had grabbed her. "You know yourself that this isn't working, Harmony. It's destroying you. "
"I don't know what else to do," she cried out furiously. "I can't stand it, Lance. I can't stan
d to see the pain in the eyes of children who have been abused. I can't stand knowing I was created and used to kill even one of the people who could have saved them. "
She slapped her hand to her mouth, turning away from him as comprehension flooded his expression.
"The kills you made as a child," he said behind her. "You're still trying to make up for them, aren't you?"
Her chest was so tight with pain she could barely breathe. A hard chill wracked her body and she could feel the cold icing in her soul.
"The assassinations I performed as a child, each victim fought for children and their rights," she whispered, shaking her head at the futility of even remembering. "Each one of them. They were exemplary parents, and they fought for the children who had no parents worthy of the name. "
"And you think this is how they would want you to repay the fight they took on?" His arms came around her, as though he knew the dark, cold places that tormented her. "If you knew anything of their lives, then you know it's not. "
Harmony fought to control her breathing, to control the dampness that flooded her eyes. She was tired, strung out from exhaustion and arousal and emotions that just didn't make sense to her anymore.
"They died for their beliefs," she whispered. "They suspected the Council was creating us. Information had been smuggled from the labs several times and it was brought to their attention. Before they could save any of us, they were killed. I killed them. " She tried to jerk away from him, tried to put distance between herself and the man weakening her from the inside out.
"You were lied to and you were used," he whispered at her ear. "You know that as well as I do. Just as you know that you were killing yourself from the inside out over the blood you were shedding before Jonas caught you. If you hadn't been, he would have never found you. "
"That's not true…"
"It is true, baby. " He held onto her firmly. "That's why you've gone along with this game he's playing. Keeping whatever it is that he wants hidden and trying to atone for the deaths. You know as well as I do, that you'd had enough. "
Had she? Had she somehow let Jonas capture her?
"What do you have, Harmony, that Jonas wants? What is making him so desperate that he'll sacrifice you for it?"
Harmony knew exactly what Jonas was after, what she could never let him have: the information she had stolen from the labs the day she escaped. The last remaining proof that as of ten years ago, the first Feline Breed, created nearly a century before, still lived.
"Jonas wants revenge. " It was partially the truth. "Revenge for his mother's death. "
"Jonas is a smart man. " He let her go slowly, allowing her to turn and face him once again. "And he's smart enough to know the truth by now. He can read as well as I can, and the reports from the other labs and scientists on Dr. LaRue were pretty conclusive. Now, one more time, what does Jonas want from you?"
She stared around the dimly lit entryway, the shadowed living room and kitchen as she swallowed tightly.
