No One (Element Preservers, #3.5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

two of you got together. What do you see in that self-centered, immature, spoiled little girl? She's the president of the Element Preservers now, so I see the appeal of staying with her, but she wasn't the president back when you two slept together."
    "She's exactly what I want." I wasn't about to elaborate that Ria's and my relationship didn't develop in twenty-five seconds. We'd bonded during all those months we'd spent together because she had the first symptoms of the disease and I was the only one who could help.
    "And what do you want, Adrian?" Alan smiled half-heartedly. Well, wouldn't he love to know? The only reason he was so interested in my love life was because he thought that he could have Ria and me in his grip if he found out what had brought us together. And the biggest problem with all of it was that, yes, he'd have us in his grip if he knew Ria had the disease.
    "I want to know what you did to Vanessa Harlowe to force her to date me." The air in the car suddenly went cold. Ever since I found out that it was Alan who had persuaded my first girlfriend to date me and spread the news that I wasn't dangerous so people would accept me, I wanted to ask him what exactly he had done to her.
    "I hope you understand that was necessary," he said, licking his lips. "No one wanted to talk to you, and you weren't exactly sociable. The scientists let us both go to the university because I convinced them you were the only carrier who could be tested and observed in the society and not in the lab."
    "You could have told me the truth! I believed the whole time that they let me go only because you requested a transfer."
    "You should have known it wasn't that simple."
    "I trusted you." Honestly, at that time the only thing I cared about was that I would no longer live in the lab and suffer through the tortures. But Alan's secret plan to find me a girlfriend was a fail because I wondered way too often why I didn't truly feel anything for any of them. I'd started dating any girl who smiled at me just to see if I would feel the same like with Vanessa. Alan might not have coerced all of my ex-girlfriends into dating me, but he indirectly forced me to try to find a girl who would make me feel something, who wouldn't flinch when I touched her, who wouldn't go all rigid when I kissed her, who wouldn't have to hold back with me.
     "I know you, Adrian. If I had told you everything from the first day, you would have refused."
    "Maybe." I looked through the window, allowing myself to feel the elements a couple of miles away. "Will you ever tell me what you did to Vanessa?
    "We threatened her family. Let's just say I knew something about her father that she desperately wanted to hide."
    "Did you talk my ex-girlfriends into sleeping with me?" I held my breath for his answer because my sanity depended on it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew Alan had forced my girlfriends to have sex with me too.
    "No, of course not. Normal social contact was enough to appease the scientists. Your girlfriends slept with you because they wanted to. I did talk to them about protection, but only after they approached me about the topic."
    "It's fascinating." I turned on him. "You wouldn't kill me, but you'd still throw me to the wolves to get what you want."
    "You should try to see things from my point of view. You're a carrier, and even though you have a sub-element, you may go off the deep end at any moment. If you stayed in a controlled environment, you'd have less chance to kill someone."
    "Right," I said coldly. "So, it's perfectly fine with you that your scientists torture me every day."
    "At least you'd be alive." Alan took a turn to one narrow street, and I knew we were close to the lab from my nightmares. I'd seen this street enough times to make me sick.
    "Living like that is pointless." Queasiness filled my stomach when a big, white building came into view, but I shut off all of my emotions and wiped them off my face. I'd never give