Chapter 364 Product of Evil  

~ ZEV ~

Zev looked back as Sasha shook her head and dragged him to a halt on the trail. They stopped, looking at each other.

"That's enough," she said, though her voice was gentle if disapproving.

"Sash, I'm not trying to—"

"I know you're not, but I'm refuse to let you think you have to… what… stay alive as long as you can because it's just burning hell from there?"

Zev took a deep breath. He didn't answer, because he didn't want to say yes. But the truth was, he'd seen enough in those books—and in the things he'd learned and seen about what people like Nick and Nathan could do in this world to know that those old histories were absolutely real.

Sorcery, they called it back then.

Science, they called it now.

They still didn't understand it, but the results were the same. Things. Creatures. Some accidents, some failures, some triumphs. But always an element of something that could never be explained.

No matter how deep they dug, no matter how microscopic the measurement, no matter how much money, time, and intelligence they plugged into this venture, one thing never changed: Science couldn't make life. Science could only mix the elements needed for life to exist.

Nick had explained to him more than once. That they provide the same environment, the same resources, and the same fuel every time, but every time they watched cells replicate, they could never be entirely certain what was coming out of it.

"It's magic, Zev," Nick had said one day a couple of years ago when they'd been at the lab. Zev was feeling sick about the mating arena so Nick had taken him inside the labs to distract him.

His surrogate father's eyes had been bright and his tone on the edge of excitement. He was fascinated by these experiments and would talk about them any moment he could.

Zev wasn't allowed to touch anything, but he remembered being sickened at the sight of a half-gestated Chimera.

Nick had joked that they all looked like aliens at that age—that even a human baby was still strange, almost unrecognizable at that point in the process. "But look, in a few months, that's going to be a wolf. Or a goat, I can't remember which round they're doing right now. The point is… we did exactly the same thing with the stuff that made that one, that we did with you. And yet… look at you."

Nick had gazed at him then with something like pride on his face.

Zev had felt simultaneously like he wanted to preen, and vomit.

But Nick just slapped him on the back and ushered him down the aisle between all the little incubators they used. "Every single one of these has the potential to be a true sibling to you, Zev," he said with a wink. "I mean, not DNA sibling but… your match. Your equal. And the day that happens? I swear, the heavens will open."

Zev had snorted.

"It was a metaphor," Nick said, rolling his eyes. "My point is… miracles happen here every day. Magic. And people think it doesn't even exist."

Nick had been excited by the idea, but to Zev, it wanted to make him squirm. They were messing with the natural order of things. Nick was right that it was a miracle—the things they created could never happen in nature.

The difference between them was that that idea turned Zev's stomach, while it made Nick look like a kid at a candy store.

"Zev?" Sasha said uncertainly.

Zev blinked and realized he'd been lost in his memories. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I was just… remembering some stuff."

"Like what?" she asked quietly.

They started walking again and Zev tugged her into his side and put his arm over her shoulder. If he'd wanted to move faster he would have picked her up and carried her, but the truth was, he wanted the time.

"Magic," he said quietly.

"It's not magic, Zev. It's God. I think… I think you can't be alive unless He lets you. So that must mean he has a purpose for you, right?"

"Oh, he's got a purpose alright," Zev said, scratching the back of his neck. "A vessel of wrath. Nick used to throw that at me when I was thirteen and being an ass. How I needed to listen to him and do what I was told, or I was going to get myself killed, and then there'd only be hell left.

Sasha cursed. "Sometimes I seriously want to murder that man. Like, I actually want to kill him."

"Tell me about it."

"I'm serious, Zev. I don't like that he makes me so angry, but he and Nathan… I think I could slit Nathan's throat without regretting it."

"I'll hold while you cut," Zev said darkly.

Sasha shuddered. "This isn't what I want our lives to be about, Zev."

"I don't think I have any choice."

"But see, that's what bothers me. If you just assume that you'll never look into it and then you'll never know."

"Sash, if God was sending people to hell just for having sex a few thousand years ago, I think I've got all the deadly sins covered at this point, don't you?"

She frowned up at him, then looked away. "I don't know what to say. I don't have the answers… I just have this… certainty, that you aren't right."

"That's because you love me," Zev said pulling her closer to his side. "Because you have a good heart and you see the good in others."

"But… Zev… I'm not just seeing good in you because I love you. You ARE good. You give yourself up for other people. You're caring, and thoughtful, and—"

"And the whole reason that we have dozens of traumatized females in the City, and a hundred or more still in the compound. Did I tell you that they think I'm the reason they were called over there?"

"Wait… what?"

"One of the females who came through had a freak out when she got here and pleaded with me not to send them back. To let them stay this time."

Sasha's jaw dropped. "Are you serious? Is that how the humans got them to go?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

"Leave that to me," Sasha said, snuggling into his side. "I'll ask them. I know at least some of them will tell me."

They walked on in silence after that until Sasha sighed.

"You're not damned, Zev. I can prove it."

"How's that?" he asked, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

She turned and smiled up at him. "Because if you were nothing more than a product of evil, you'd do evil. And you don't. And on top of that, you say God loves me—and I love you. We're mates, right? Even though everything went wrong—even though so much tried to stop us. It's that magic you're talking about. We shouldn't be here, yet we are. So I think that's a really good sign that we were supposed to be here, right here, so I could tell you… you aren't damned. Not yet, anyway," she giggled.

Zev tried to laugh it off with her, but he struggled against the combined rush of hope at what she was describing, and fear that this life with her was going to pass far too quickly and then they'd find out she was wrong.

They were Ardent. Whatever happened to her, happened to him, and visa versa.

He just prayed they wouldn't both regret that.