Wiped Read Online Free Page A

them as though they’d been an extension of themselves. They’d known the instant we’d landed on their shore.
    There was more going on here than we realised, and I’d shown our hand. I’d revealed too much.
    And I didn’t have Trent to fall back on.
    I glanced over to where he was talking quietly with Simon and Alan. Alan’s gaze was constantly flicking up toward Irdina, but I couldn’t be sure if that was caution I saw in his hard features, or intrigue. Did he question their allegiance too?
    Simon was head down over his tablet computer, attempting to isolate Calvin. They wouldn’t be able to. Calvin had been created for me and me alone. The message my father had left me when he’d made first contact had been an indication that he’d not trusted any one else on Wánměi soil. Voice activated, aligned to me alone. Just like his doctored Shiloh.
    The revised Shiloh. Shiloh Mark III.
    Calvin was all mine, just the way my father had planned it. Trent couldn’t override it. Simon couldn’t crack it. The only person with the ability to control it other than me was dear old Dad.
    I watched as Trent and Simon came to that conclusion together. Trent’s brows furrowed, his troubled eyes lifting and locating my father sitting in his wheelchair. His lips pressed into a thin line.
    I smiled to myself, but the victory was hollow. Calvin may respond to me and not the rebels, but that did not mean he was all mine. My own eyes settled on the broken form of my father, lingered on the stump that once was a functioning leg.
    He’d trusted no other on Wánměi soil, but that did not mean I should trust him in return.
    Was Calvin a way to manipulate me?
    I let a long sigh out. I needed an ally. Logic told me it should be Trent.
    Trent wasn’t having a bar of it.
    I’d hurt him. I knew that. By keeping him out of the planned ambush, I’d allowed him to believe I didn’t trust him. I’d taken us back to those first few weeks of getting to know each other, where trust was being earned and our hearts were just starting to open.
    I’d shattered it all in one fell swoop.
    This was not how it was meant to go.
    Once the attack had been contained, and the vanguard caught and questioned, he would have seen the logic behind my plan. We might save the Wiped. We might even get out with most of our lives unharmed. But the future would be a blood bath. The only way to end this, to right this, was to change.
    Us. Them. Everyone. Including the vanguard.
    I hadn’t thought it would be easy. But if they saw who we were and how we behaved, they’d have realised their superiors had lied to them. We weren’t the enemy. Their highly controlled society with its subjugation and strict rules was.
    Urip was Old Wánměi on steroids.
    And we needed that vanguard. My father’s Merrikans knew things, but exactly what it would be like inside Hammurg’s walls was a mystery. One vanguard. That’s all it would have taken. One vanguard convinced we were the saviours and we’d have known everything.
    It had been a good plan, the only failing was Trent and my father. Both had been overprotective, battling each other by possessing me. My father wanted a paternal relationship, one that allowed him to influence my life. Trying to make up for the past ten years. Trent wanted to shield me from that indignity. Wanted to keep me safe, lock me up, well away from Calvin Carstairs.
    I’d loved my dad. He’d shown me there was so much more to life than being an Elite. He’d opened my eyes, given me tools to survive anywhere. He’d given me Lena Carr.
    But reconciling the ten years he’d been gone had been hard. Reconciling the three years I’d had to live in Ohrikee when he’d been thought dead was even harder.
    Trent was right to protect me, but he’d been advocating caution since my father had got here. Caution meant a higher chance of keeping me safe. Keeping me unharmed.
    He didn’t realise the damage had already been done.
    “How long will you sulk?”