Cym’s stomach lurched at the tone in Fourteen’s voice, and he searched the man’s eyes. What he saw there made him gasp. “Fourteen, what’s happened? Did I say something wrong?”

Fourteen said nothing, his face void of all expression

“Fourteen, answer me!” Cym waved his hand in front of Fourteen’s face, but his eyes didn’t track the movement.

“I need more information to comply,” Fourteen stated, his eyes staring straight ahead.

“Is this a joke?”

“I need more information to comply.”

Unwilling to believe Fourteen would be the kind of person to take such a horrible joke so far, Cym panicked. He jumped off the bed and then, after realizing he had no plan, sat back down on the edge of the bed and twined and tangled his fingers together uselessly.

What was wrong with Fourteen? One minute they were wrestling around on the bed, and the next they were baring their souls. Now Fourteen was a lifeless doll sitting at attention at the head of the bed. Had asking him such personal questions broken him in some way? Or was it something else?

What had Cym been saying when it happened? He had told Fourteen that The Company was never getting him back, and the Fourteen Cym knew vanished and became a cold, empty shell.

Cold.

That was what Fourteen had said it felt like when Cym wasn’t touching him. Fourteen hadn’t been acting funny until Cym had stopped touching him. Could it be that? Could something have happened inside the mess of programming in Fourteen’s mind to reduce him to his current state?

Cym took Fourteen’s hand in his and waited, willing his magic into Fourteen’s body, but he saw no change to the man’s lifeless features.

Cym had to be missing something. Fourteen had been more than this strange automaton when they had first met. What had happened just now?

Fourteen had said he needed more information to comply. Maybe the answers to this problem lay inside Fourteen himself.

“Fourteen, what are you doing right now?” Cym squeezed Fourteen’s fingers until it hurt.

“Awaiting orders.”

“From who?”

“My handler.”

His handler? Fourteen told him his handlers had been killed. Did he have another one he didn’t know about? “Who is your handler?”

“You.”

Shock almost made Cym drop his hand. “Me? How can… Do you mean… What?!”

Fourteen didn’t respond, remaining passive.

Cym thought he sensed an increase in the flow of magic between their entwined hands. Hoping his magic was doing something helpful, he tried to think past his surprise enough to ask a coherent question. “As your handler, what do I need to know?”

Fourteen reached into a zippered pocket on his jacket, pulled out a white piece of plastic, and placed it in Cym’s hand.

Its smooth surface felt cool to the touch.

“What is it?” Cym rolled it around in his hand, he’d never seen anything like it before, but it looked like it could be computerish. Electronics weren’t terribly compatible with magic, so he’d had zero interaction with computers until his escape.

“My operating system.”

“Your operating system…”

Cym felt like crying. Someone had taken this enigmatic, sexy man and reduced him to little more than a robot. The injustice of it choked him, and anger surged through him. Pink fire flared in his veins and poured through Cym’s hand into Fourteen’s. Gripping Fourteen as tightly as he could, Cym bowed his head over their hands and concentrated on a single thought.

Give him back to me!

At first there was no response. Just an endless stretch of empty silence as Cym stared at their joined hands and slowly began to give up hope.

What if he’d broken Fourteen forever?

Then Fourteen’s hand closed tightly around his. Cym dared to look up. Fourteen blinked slowly and his eyes came back into focus.

“Are… are you back now?” Cym peered intently at Fourteen’s serious face, no longer lifeless, but still colder than Cym had started to get used to.

“I think so.” Fourteen wiped a tear off Cym’s cheek, and to his chagrin, he realized he had cried all over their joined hands.

“What just happened?” Cym asked.

Fourteen blinked as if he were still coming back online. “The… conditioning is still there.” He tapped the side of his head and sighed. “I was afraid something like this might happen. I might have my memories back, but they programmed me like a goddamned machine. It’s been softened by you, but it’s still in there.”

“How could you have anticipated this? Have you imprinted on other people before?” Cym tried to stay calm, but inwardly he was freaking out.

If he could become Fourteen’s handler so easily, what if it happened with some random person? Before Cym could get completely lost imagining what he would do if Fourteen imprinted on a cashier at a gas station, Fourteen interrupted.

“No. This is new. What I meant was, after you ordered me to sleep last night, this doesn’t surprise me. I would have mentioned it, but I was… otherwise occupied up until now.”

Cym’s cheeks turned pink at the reminder of what they had been occupied with. “Wait… I ordered you to sleep? That’s why you passed out on me? I just thought you were exhausted.”

“I was, but I shouldn’t have fallen over like that. You told me to go to sleep, so I had no choice but to comply. Now that you’re my handler, you’re going to have to be careful when you tell me to do something.”

Fourteen’s casual acceptance of the situation had Cym flabbergasted. “That’s all you have to say? Doesn’t it bother you that a nineteen-year-old boy you just met can literally tell you what to do?”

Fourteen lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Better you than the Colonel. I trust you. You’ve saved my life, remember?” An emotion Cym couldn’t identify filled his eyes, and he looked away. “Unless you don’t want to be my handler.”

“Of course I don’t want to! What kind of person do you think I am?” Frantically, Cym tried to shove the plastic object back into Fourteen’s hand. “Take it, I don’t want it. I don’t want to control anyone.”

I don’t want to control you.

Fourteen’s shoulders dropped a fraction, and he pulled back, avoiding the device Cym offered. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m not permitted to take it back.” His eyes were on the wall, his posture rigid.

The Company had done this to Fourteen. That horrible, rotten, miserable place had hurt Fourteen so foundationally that he was forced to belong to someone whether he wanted to or not.

Cym would burn the whole damn operation to the ground.

He hugged Fourteen again, wanting to wipe away everything that had been done to him.