MILA Origins 2.0 - The Fire

transparent tube with a minuscule jagged fissure shaped like a row of clamped teeth. And inside that? Something that looked like wires. Tiny silver wires, twisted like the double helixes we studied in biology.
    No. No, no. I was hallucinating. I’d hit my head, after all, and I was hallucinating. That was the only explanation that made sense.
    I snatched my arm away and glanced from Kaylee’s horrified face to Hunter’s shocked one. Of course, if I was hallucinating, so were they.
    My hair whipped the air as my head shook side to side. I didn’t understand any of this. “I can’t… I don’t…thisis— Kaylee?” I lifted my hand, the one attached to my good arm, toward her. Only to watch her flinch away.
    “Shhh, Mila, it’s okay. Let’s get you back in the truck,” Hunter said, wrapping a tentative arm around my waist. “Can you walk if you lean on me a little?”
    “Hospital,” Kaylee blurted. “She needs to go to the hospital.”
    My head shook faster. “No, no hospital! How can I go to the hospital, when…” We all looked at my arm again, and we could all fill in the rest. How could I go to the hospital when I was such a freak? When they’d ask me questions, and I’d have no answers? “No hospital,” I repeated grimly. “No, no, NO!”
    “It’s okay, calm down. Kaylee? Kaylee! Could you help us out here a little? Come make sure she’s steady on her feet.”
    For a second, I thought Kaylee was going to refuse. She looked ready to bolt. “Fine.”
    She arranged herself flush with my side, her reluctance evident in the way her arm slipped around my waist without actually touching me.
    As soon as he saw Kaylee had me, Hunter stripped off his black hoodie, revealing a thin gray shirt underneath. He carefully wrapped the hoodie around my wound. Unlike Kaylee, his hands were firm and steady. He didn’t so much as flinch.
    “There you go, that should be okay for now.” He gentlytugged me away from Kaylee, wrapped a firm arm around my waist, and started leading me up the hill.
    The ride home was as silent as the ride out had been. The entire way, Hunter cradled my hand in his and watched me with hard-to-read eyes. Eyes that were probably trying to hide his stark horror over finding out I was some kind of freak of nature, a horror that echoed my own.
    Kaylee refused to say a word. Actually, she wouldn’t even look at us.
    And all I could think was: no blood.
    By the time we pulled up into our driveway, I was desperate to escape, even as dread crept through my chest on spiderlike legs. Because if anyone had answers, it would be Mom. And while part of me clamored for those answers, a tiny part, deep inside, whispered that maybe I was better off not knowing.
    I scrambled out the door before anyone could speak, mumbled, “See you later,” and tumbled into the late-afternoon air, a chill sweeping over me that hadn’t been present before. Because even if the tiny part was right, it didn’t matter. I had to know the truth.
    As I rushed through the guesthouse front door, I told myself, You’re blowing it all out of proportion, Mila. Mom will explain it, and everything will be fine .
    I couldn’t have been further from the truth if I’d tried.

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    Copyright © 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers
    MILA 2.0: ORIGINS: THE FIRE . All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
    EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062262936
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    FIRST EDITION

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