One chance to love.

Davis's words haunt me the whole way back into the city. With a beanie I swiped from Ayo's clothes stash on the way out pulled low over my temples, I sink into a bus seat and lean my head against the window.

One chance.

Sven has seen the code. Does he know he's the only one? Does he know he doesn't even have to try to win me back, because it's already written into my circuits?

"Next stop, Huntington," the automated announcement system drones as we pull away from a curb. As it fades away, the radio kicks in, stuck on a news show.

"Yet another influenza death has been reported this evening, bringing the total up to ten in half as many days. Officials are advising residents to stay home and avoid travel, particularly public transportation, if they begin to show symptoms such as fever, chills, sweating, or nausea. While it's unclear what strain of virus is causing the symptoms, it appears to be piggybacking off of this year's flu season. Hospitals are struggling to keep up with the volume of incoming patients, resulting in overcrowded emergency rooms and long waits."

The bus jerks to a halt at the next stop, and a few passengers climb aboard. One coughs into her trembling hand as she passes my seat, and I wrap my fingers tightly around the vial in my jacket pocket. It won't do any good here, I tell myself, ignoring the fact that it might save that woman's life. But if a busload of people have been exposed, the cure needs to be distributed on a larger scale. Much larger.

The bus crawls out of the city, and I listen to every shift and sniffle and clearing of a throat, wondering who is sick and who will survive. On the streets outside, nothing seems different. Panic hasn't set in yet. If I succeed, it never will.

When I step off the bus, it's close to nine o'clock. I remember a time when being out on this street so late would have had me running for my life. Now, my feet drag as I imagine what he'll say when I open the door.

I pause on the front porch. One chance.

The only person I'll ever be able to love is inside.

The door creaks as I push it open. Sven must be feeling rough these days if he didn't even lock the door behind him. Then I stop, a tiny shock jolting my heart as I consider another possibility.

Maybe he wanted to make sure I could come back.

I can't process the implications right now. Closing the door softly behind me, I tiptoe forward.

"Hello?" His name teeters on the tip of my tongue, unable or unwilling to leave my lips. As if he's a monster, and speaking of him, even in the tiniest whisper, will summon him out of the darkness.

"Hello?" I venture again, louder this time. I fumble in the pitch black for a light switch, surprised at how quickly I've forgotten the layout of the house we used to share. "Anyone home?"

No answer. I should have checked a hospital first. Surely the CEO of the city's resident tech giant would get priority care.

Even as I think it, I know it's insane. There are too many hospitals to count, and searching all of them for information they wouldn't even willingly give out is an impossible task.

My knuckle finally hooks under the light switch, and I flick it on. Everything looks exactly as I left it when Ayo knocked me out. Too similar, as if nothing has been touched.

Then I notice a shard of pottery on the kitchen floor. The patterned ceramic belongs to a dish set that Davis gave us as an engagement gift last year; I rush through the entryway, letting out a squeak when I round the corner.

Sven is lying prone, face-up in a garden of shattered dishware, his eyes closed and his chest still enough that my own heart stops. I fall to my knees behind his head, feeling the heat rising off him already. With trembling hands, I pull out the vial and a syringe Ada gave me, uncapping the syringe and drawing just enough liquid to leave a thin coat at the bottom.

"Okay." I don't know if the whisper is for him or to steel myself. I'm not a doctor. I've never given injections before. But I gently take Sven's jaw in my hands and tilt his head, exposing his neck.

I have to hold my breath to steady the needle as I insert it and press the plunger down. Then I collapse backward, folding myself up and wrapping my arms around my knees as I watch him.

Nothing happens. I know better than to expect immediate change, but I can't help the flood of jitters that envelopes me. I jiggle my foot, desperate to dissipate some of the shakiness, but it won't budge.

I lean forward, placing my palms flat on the floor on either side of his head. The house is too quiet, the air stifling as I watch Sven sleep. A pang in my chest threatens to cripple me as I remember other, happier times when I used to look at his closed eyes and wrinkle-free forehead and wish his job was less stressful. That he had more time to spend just relaxing together, watching TV or sitting on the porch and watching cars go by in the street, playing board games or just laying together. Holding each other.

Then again, I never really had time for those things, either.

"I'm sorry."

I look up, surprised to hear a sound in the still-as-death house and even more surprised when I find no one else in the room. It takes me a moment to realize that the words are mine, and that they came from some deep, uncontrollable part of me. An honest part. Something that I cannot filter.

I sigh, my shoulders drooping. "I'm sorry this is what we are now." I shift onto my knees again, leaning over him and staring at his upside-down face as he twitches with fever. "I'm sorry neither of us could be what the other wanted. If I could do everything over, I would make us both better. I would make this perfect, because...."

A hiccuping sob passes my lips as I think of Davis, pray for his recovery, and hear the echo of his voice. One chance.

"Because this was it for me. You were it. I don't get a do-over, I don't get to move on. No matter how much I want to, it's not in my code. I will only ever love one person, and it was you. It is you."

I choke on the words, wishing they weren't true. But Davis wouldn't lie about something like that. The look in his eyes as he pled silently for me to prove him wrong, to evolve like Sven said I could, pierces me even now. Even when I can't see him, he takes up residence behind the hollow curves of my ribs and nestles close to my soul.

As if I've pulled him to consciousness, Sven's eyelids flutter, open and closed and then open again. I see the effort it takes him to hold them apart; they roll around in their sockets for a few seconds before he focuses on me.

He takes two heavy gasps. "I'm dead."

I shake my head, unable to speak around my galloping heart. I knew he'd wake, I just thought I had more time to compose myself. Figure out what I'd say and how to get back to the others.

I didn't expect the sickness clouding his blue eyes to pull me in.

He raises one limp hand toward his head, but instead of reaching for himself, he wraps his fingers around my wrist.

Just like Davis did.

"This is heaven," he croaks. "This is—I've seen heaven, Ronnie, this is it."

I slap my other hand over my mouth to keep in a sob. I've seen him manipulate. I've been manipulated. But this is different. With delirium burning through his body, he's as honest as a drunk.

"It's hot." He laughs, a manic, cacophonous sound. Then he lets me go as if burnt, stiffening. His eyes dart every which way, and he tries to raise his head. "This can't be hell, right? You wouldn't be here."

I stand, slicing my bare feet on more broken plates as I rush to the sink. I pull a glass out of the cupboard and turn the tap on full blast, then make my way back to Sven again.

"Drink," I plead, tipping the liquid into his mouth. I tilt his head up and let it rest on my thigh as he gulps at the water.

When his head finally lolls back, I set the glass down beside us.

"I love you," he whispers.

I stare at the floor beside his head, trying not to hear the echo of Davis's words in his voice. I hope he's too sick to see the glisten of tears coating my face.

"I'm only human, Ronnie." He closes his eyes, his swallow a painful squelch as he leans his head back. "I'm not like you. Not perfect."

Almost perfect.

"Not even close. I'm sorry."

He curls up—this strong, fit mountain of a man, shriveling himself up into a fetal position as his arm cinches around my leg like a teddy bear—and buries his face against my shin.

"Stay," he says, sounding as forlorn as a lost puppy. "Please. Just for tonight, stay with me."

I struggle with myself for a moment, swallowing back my words because every possible combination of them feels like a betrayal. I wrestle with my conscience as it presents me with Davis and then Sven, and then Davis again, waiting for me. But I have to make sure Sven knows what to do with the serum when he wakes. I have to stay.

Which is why I nod, my hand settling into his hair as his breaths even out into sleep once more.