“Kayla.” He kneels down in front of me, so we’re eye level. “There’s more to it than that, but you have to remember it on your own.”

“Why?” I ask. “Whether I remember it on my own, or you tell me, it’s all the same to me.”

“No it’s not,” he says. “You’re the important one—the one Monarch worked on the most. You’re his Day Walker. And what’s inside your head might be the most important thing in the world right now—it might be what fixes the world.” He stands, brushing of his jeans. “Monarch was working on all kinds of experiments, some for the Highers, others for himself and those were the ones chosen for The Gathering. A coincidence? No one knows for sure? But why do some Bellators end up out in the desert and others don’t?”

“So you have no idea how any of this happens? Or whether we’re supposed to change to human or stay like this?”

“Staying human isn’t an option, Kayla.”

“But how do you know?” I ask. “How do you know you have to turn?

“Look inside your own head,” he says. “It’s what Monarch wanted us to do. If we’re going to fix the world to what it was, we have to be stronger than anything in the world.”

“But what about Aiden?” I ask. “Is he not a part of this?”

He sighs, standing. “He chose not to be a part of this, along with the rest of them who live on the hillside. He has a lot of anger for what happened down there.” His voice lowers and so does his eyes. “It wasn’t easy.”

I think of the torn little boy, begging me to help him. “But you don’t know what started it?” I gaze up at him. “What started the virus? What started the experiments?”

“The Highers were seeking perfection. Monarch was seeking a cure,” He says. “But what started all of it—and what will cure it—I don’t know.” A pause. “But I think you do.”

I rub at my wrist. The bleeding has slowed a little, but the numbers are still there. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the perfect soldier,” he says. “You’re the one he finally created that could walk with the vampires.”

“I’m not a soldier,” I mutter. “And how do I even know if you’re telling the truth?” I hate that I have to ask it, but there’s something about him—perhaps that he makes me nervous and that his heart doesn’t beat—that I can’t tell if the words that leave his lips are the right ones.