Inside Ryan's mind, the war was almost over. The beautiful, chaotic forest of his soul was gone. In its place was a perfect, silent, white landscape, a grid of pure, sterile logic that stretched to infinity. The Gardener's hostile takeover was nearly complete. All the messy, emotional, wonderful parts of him had been tidied up, filed away, and silenced.
Almost.
In the very center of that vast, white emptiness, one single, stubborn thing remained.
It was the memory of Scarlett's hand on his back.
It wasn't just a picture in his mind. It was a feeling. A single, warm, defiant, and beautifully chaotic point of connection. In the middle of the Gardener's perfect, white, logical garden, this one memory was like a single, wild, red flower, a weed that stubbornly refused to be paved over.
The Gardener's calm, logical consciousness focused on this last, annoying bit of messiness.
