Read Across The Divide for Free Online

wanted to vomit on my boots, but I liked them too much.
    He strutted around, full of one-sided facts and praise for what DMG did. And I kept nodding and saying, “Wow, that’s incredible.” A lot.
    Finally we returned to the lower level where I was housed, but we came out the elevators on the opposite side of building. Rapava led me down the corridor, and I figured we were heading back to my room. Instead, he turned another way, stopping at one of the doors.
    “This might be of interest to you, Zoey.” Rapava grabbed the handle. “I think this may cement your direction here with us and see what we are really fighting for.”
    A nervous sensation curled around my esophagus like a leash. He opened the door and moved aside, letting me go first.
    I stepped in.

CHAPTER FIVE
     

     
    A small, young girl lay in a hospital bed. She was so thin the bed dwarfed her tiny frame. A ventilator tube thrust into each nostril pushed air in and out of her lungs continuously.
    The girl shifted her head, her dark eyes finding mine. My chest clenched and my feet went rigid on the floor.  Oh…no…no .
    She was not a little girl.
    It was Sera.
    I stood at the door, not able to move.
    Sera turned her face to the ceiling, the bones in her cheeks so thin and sharp they cast shadows on her pallid complexion. Her body stirred under the blankets, and she closed her eyes as though that minuscule movement was exhausting.
    “How are you feeling today, Sera?” Rapava moved around me, walking to her bedside. He never once looked at her but kept his focus on the monitors around her.
    She didn’t respond or reopen her eyes.
    Rapava glanced over his shoulder at me then returned to his charts. “When we first tested you, it wasn’t long before we realized you were cured of the blemish in your DNA. We tried to inject her with your blood. It did not take.” He lifted her wrist, taking her vitals. “Another thing I need to understand. Why you are changed, but the same blood did not alter Sera.”
    I opened my mouth to respond, but quickly slammed it shut. It was not blood which altered me but a fae-induced storm. Electricity so powerful and intense it dragged Ryker’s powers from his body into mine.
    For a long time I was merely a carrier of them, a duffel bag, until they started to adapt to their new home. Now they were fully mine, and the only way Ryker could get them back was to kill me. If I died by another hand or in an accident, they would forever stay locked inside me.
    The doctor was not aware of this knowledge. If I told him the truth, what would happen? Would he be able to save Sera’s life? Or would having that information only destroy thousands of others? Whatever decision I made, lives were on the line. And no answer was right.
    I took a step into the room, my gaze tethered to Sera. We had never gotten along. Actually we couldn’t stand each other, but now all I saw was the connection between us. She was the only one still alive like me. The link went beyond sisters or family.
    My boots dragged me to the side of her bed, like a magnet. I wanted to flee, to walk away from the dying girl, but I couldn’t. My hand reached down and touched the blanket over her legs. Sera tilted her head to look at me.
    Sadness and fear formed a block in my throat. I could not speak. Selfish or not, I didn’t want her to die and leave me all alone. Without her it would only be me, the only experiment left, the last living freak who had been designed and concocted in the lab.
    “Does she know?” My question came out before I could think.
    “As much as she needs to.” A frown creased the doctor’s forehead. “I guess you put some questions in her head the night they tried to capture you on the roof.”
    I saw Sera’s lids narrow, her black eyes spark with anger.
    “She knows she was an experiment and that she’s dying.” Rapava patted her shoulder. “I will be sad to lose this one. She would have made a great fighter if the blood had