Cheating Time by T. R. Graves Read Free Book Online Page B

had been orchestrating their conception.
    Creators had proven time and time again that
they'd known what they were doing. I'd never met a Surrogate who'd
been anything less than inconceivably beautiful and inhumanly
strong, fast, and calculating.
    There were theorist who believed President
Barone himself made every last selection and others who'd suggested
he and he alone had fathered every Surrogate Soldier ever created.
Something about the idea of him fathering tens of thousands of
soldiers sickened me just a little. I'd hoped on more than one
occasion that particular theory was fabricated out of pure
lies.
    For Jayden's sake, I hope
it isn't true.
    Somehow our Surrogate Soldiers', our
Watchers', rumored parentage only made them more alluring to the
millions of teenage Aspect girls who appreciated their godlike
qualities and had secretly nicknamed them our Beautiful Watchers.
    In much the way Surrogates had gotten their
unofficial names, anyone who was not a Watcher was a Procreate,
someone born through a natural union between a man and a woman. I
was a Procreate. For us, there was no in vitro fertilization or
surrogate mothers. We knew who our parents were, and unless they
died, our parents lived with and raised us.
    Stopping my train of thoughts was the sense
of déjà vu I felt while running through the field with Jayden. I
was reminded of Jayden when he was sixteen years old and my
father's charge. He'd spent weekdays at Gran's estate, training me
in the art of self-defense and self-preservation.
    As if preparing for the Armageddon, he and
Dad had insisted we all spend weekends camping, hiking, target
practicing, and hand-to-hand battling. Jayden, my eternal torturer,
had enjoyed our weekends more than anyone in their right mind would
have. I, on the other hand, had hated them with a passion.
    As if Jayden were reading my mind, he said,
"I think I missed our camping weekends the most, princess. I mean…
I haven't met the first person since you left who could complain
for an entire forty-eight hours about the lack of electricity or
their discomfort at being forced to sleep on the ground."
    "I hated every last second of them. You know
that. Right?" I hissed.
    He snickered. "Every second? I seemed to
recall a time when you were pretty eager for the weekends to
come."
    Dammit!
    I cringed, knowing exactly what he was
referring to. There had been a brief moment in time right after
we'd begun the weekend trainings when I'd developed a humungous
crush on the ass next to me. Looking over and seeing the
shit-eating grin on his face as he ran beside me, I knew he was
referring to my infatuation, and I was embarrassed at just how
obvious I'd been.
    "If you're referring to the time you hit me
so hard that I was knocked unconscious and, in my head-injured
daze, told you I loved you, I can assure you those few seconds are
among the ones I hated the worst. In my hallucinatory fog, I
thought you were Leaf Luke. I was proclaiming my love to the
teenage heartthrob that every girl my age adored, not you. I didn't
love you then, I don't love you now, and I'll never love you. That
much I can assure you," I claimed defensively.
    Again, Jayden laughed quietly, and
everything about it reminded me why I traded my schoolgirl crush
for mortal enemy hate. Much like he was doing now, he'd mocked me
about my awkward confession of love since that day. It wouldn't
have been so bad if he'd not made fun of me in front of anyone and
everyone, but he had.
    The straw that broke the camel's back for me
had come one day after school. He'd been ordered by Dad to take me
for ice cream while he'd finished a meeting with President
Barone.
    While we were at the Cold Creamery Parlor,
Xyla, a beautiful cheerleader from school who was Jayden's age,
began flirting with Jayden. Somewhere in the middle of their
back-and-forth banter and while Xyla had been getting someone else
their ice cream, Jayden'd mumbled to me, "Why can't she proclaim her undying love for