The house had taken on the stillness that accompanies death. He crossed the foyer and listened again at the top of the lab steps. He was ready for a clean slate; how clean was just a matter of detail.
Bit by bit he would remove his past and cover up the trails and loose ends. Russ and Brina had been selected for their bland past; they could disappear with few ripples from their former lives. He was waiting for them to figure that one out. His fingers tightened on the gun, his hand warming the metal and molding itself around the grip, and wondered just when he had given up on Mathew’s dream, when he had decided the quest had been better than the conquest.
The first round of protocols and offspring had shown promise, but they had no idea what they were doing in this practical execution of theoretical doctrine. They might as well have played with gasoline and a book of matches.
He looked into the pit-like stairwell at the light-peppered darkness below. The quiet was disturbing.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, coming up with a clammy sweat that made him feel lightheaded. He lowered his body one step at a time, breathing shallowly through his mouth.
He stepped into the lab and looked around, his eyes resting on the refrigerator door. No regrets, he told himself, his muscles tensing along clavicles and shoulders. At this point, if he hesitated, he was dead, and he was half certain that Russ and Brina were on the list of people now willing to do him in.
The room appeared empty. He walked around his desk and looked toward the back, where Russ had taken inventory a few days ago, and then into the alcove where he had kept Roman safely incapacitated for more than three years. He would still be there or quietly disposed of if Mathew hadn’t intervened.
Satisfied that the lab was empty, he walked to the refrigerator and opened the heavy steel door, letting a gush of cold air rush over his feet. Mathew, the first Mathew, was still there, although less poised then Edward had left him. “This is your fault,” he muttered.
He felt a cold hand rest lightly on his neck. “If it was entirely his fault, then how did I get here?” Edward turned his head just enough to see part of his face. Offspring. How many were left?
As if reading his mind, the distorted replica answered, his lips a mobile, living copy of the dead, lifeless ones pouting toward Edward from cold storage. “There are enough of us to make sure there’ll be no more coming from you, or anyone else.”
He let go of Edward’s neck and let him turn. He had changed into Mathew’s clothes: expensive brown wool slacks and a cashmere sweater. A dark clot of blood on the right side of his head matted his hair. Anyone who saw him would never doubt he was the real Mathew Roman. It was all the same, right down to the cold pupils narrowing at him and an arched brow showing his amusement. It was like looking into the smile of a viper, with mesmerizing fear freezing his limbs.
“We need to renegotiate our agreement,” said Edward, forcing his face to relax.
“I don’t remember agreeing to the first one.” Mathew backed away, sat on the stool, and rested his elbow on the counter. “I’m willing to listen, though.”
Edward didn’t trust his assumed casualness. “I thought you were taking care of Russ and Brina. They’re still here. The kid should be yours for the taking.”
“The kid wants Brina, so I’ll have to take them both until he’s willing to leave her behind.”
“He won’t do that. He’s formed an attachment.” Edward had the gun just out of sight to his side. He wondered if he could make the kill shot before Mathew could reach him. It’d do no good to shoot him and still have to fight him off.
Mathew crossed his arms and rested his chin in his hand. “You have no room to deal. I told you the first night. We’re coming together: Matt, Nathan, Roman, and me.” He listed the names of the other offspring as if from a family tree.
“What do you hope to accomplish? The world will fear you, denounce you, and then stone you until you’re all a collection of samples in a freezer. Don’t expect sympathy, or a happy ending.”
“Who said the world will know about us?” He smiled, easy and secure. “We just want what everyone else wants. A home, love. Family.”
Edward tried to hide his disgust, but the notion of them being family went beyond his reasoning. “You aren’t family, you’re clones. Get it? You are walking chunks of a dead man, and get this: You’re flawed. You won’t live long enough to make it happen.”
“Maybe not, but Roman will.”
“Not if I can help it.” He leveled the gun in front of his eyes and stared at Mathew, an out-of-focus silhouette rising from the metal barrel. The bullet exploded with a cloud of heat ripping the air, but Mathew was already gone.
Fingers wrapped around Edward’s hand, cutting off the flow of blood and numbing his fingers. Mathew spun him around, pressing the hot point of the gun into Edward’s belly. The blistering streak ran through his body and out his back, with less pain than he expected. His knees lost their firmness, folding heavily as he slipped to the floor. Edward looked down. His blood seeped through his shirt just inches from his heart. His breath caught, and he coughed. Blood erupted red hot in his hand as his breath labored.
Mathew sank beside him, looking at the damage he’d done. “Bad karma, old man. It always catches up with you.” He brushed his hands on his slacks and stood, cocking his head in a familiar Mathew gesture. “Too bad you can’t get any credit for your work. But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you reached your goal.”
The offspring Mathew left him sinking to the floor, and footsteps faded along stone.
Edward sat stunned as the pain wormed its way in. He had been mute since the shot, refusing to believe he had lost the war.
Chapter 39
Brina locked the door and tried not to look at the clock as she waited. Roman slept with his arm flung behind his head and a lock of his hair knotted around a finger. She untangled his hand and placed him in Edward’s bed, covering his small arms with the blanket, and then crawled in beside him with her pillow. As she sank her face into the cold linens, she imagined Russ, alive and warm walking through the house—where somewhere, Edward and Mathew circled.
Gradually, the image turned into a dream, and she was startled to find herself waking up. The alarm clock showed 2 a.m. in bright red slashes across its black plastic front. Panicked, she sat up and looked around. Russ was still gone. A light knock at the door snapped her wide awake.
“Russ?”
The knock sounded again, “Brina,” a voice whispered, urgently.
“Russ!” She jumped to open the door. Her movement woke Roman, who sat up, looking confused. She heard his “No!” just a split second after she unlocked the door.
The hands that had tried to violate her before now rested over her mouth and locked her against the wall.
“Shush.” Brina felt Mathew’s heart beating against her chest as she tried to push him off.
“Easy there, I won’t hurt you.” Mathew, to make good on his word, pulled her stumbling body to the bed and sat her down next to Roman.
Roman put his arms around her, and Brina turned her head so she could see his face, the same little-boy face that she had washed, fed, kissed, and marveled at since her first day. “You knew he was coming?”
“I always know when he’s coming.” Roman’s solemn face turned to hers. “He promises we’ll be safe if we go with him.”
Mathew touched Roman’s cheek, smiling, then looked at Brina. The warmth that he lavished on Roman faded.
“Roman, he lied.” Brina flinched as Mathew moved closer. His leg pressed between her knees. Her heart pounded, skipping beats as she looked around in desperation. The gun sat on the dresser in plain view, just out of his line of sight and just out of her reach.
“Russ and Edward won’t let you take us,” she said. “And even so, there’s no way down off this mountain. The roads are buried under two feet of snow.”
“Don’t you get it? I have all the time in the world. There’s just Roman,
you, and me. We can play house until April if we need to.” He stroked her lip with his finger, making more of a threat in that gesture than if he’d had a knife to her throat.
Roman frowned. “I don’t think you should do that.” He pushed at Mathew’s hand, coming around to sit in Brina’s lap. She pulled him into her chest like a shield and watched Mathew back off. Something about Roman made him nervous.
“You can’t have either of us. Roman is not a bargaining chip in whatever power struggle you and Edward have going.”
“My dear, there was never a power struggle. Edward knew I would be back. After all, Mathew told him all about it, right at the end.”
“What do you mean, at the end?”
Roman slipped from her lap and moved around behind Mathew. She lost sight of him, not daring to take her gaze from Mathew’s anaconda stare. He gave a glance over his shoulder at Roman before reaching out to her again. His touch trailed her throat in a caress.
“Edward took care of him just like he wanted me to take care of you.” His eyes lowered provocatively. “Roman wanted you, but I think I would have kept you around anyway.”
“I don’t understand. You killed Mathew Roman and the park ranger,” she said.
Roman stared, reading the currents running between them. “Brina, why are you scared?”
“She’s not scared,” said Mathew, loudly. He stepped back, turning to look at Roman. “She just doesn’t know how much fun we’ll all have together, that’s all.” He turned his attention back to her. “Edward killed Mathew to keep me away. When he failed, he wanted me to take care of you and Russell. He gets away clean and leaves me with the kid. The plan worked out fine in his mind, but not so much for me.”
Roman looked confused. “She’s still scared. I can feel it. It’s because of you.” His jaw tightened, daring Mathew to contradict him.
“Read me,” said Mathew. “You know where we’re going. I’ve shown you.”
“Edward was too sick to be a threat. It was all you,” she shot at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, but they never planned for you to leave. Did you read the files? I saw you. You know you were picked. Think about it.” He leaned in until she could smell his breath and the sweat from his clothes. “Mathew Roman had the plan, and then Edward made one of his own. He was going to hunt us until we were dead. All of us.” He looked pointedly at Roman. “I’m all the family Roman needs.”
“Why do you want to be together?” she asked. “It’s a liability. How would you even take care of him?”
A flash of doubt crossed his face as it twisted, and his hand slapped his chest. “It draws us together. It’s like a ringing in the ears that becomes louder the further apart we are. You look at me like I’m the monster, but you should know the truth about what they did to me. Look at Mathew, who made me in his image and then wanted to destroy me, like he was some fucking god.” Spit darted from his mouth as he ranted. “There are your monsters.”
Roman edged further from both of them, and Brina saw him staring at the doorway and then back at Mathew, ready to bolt.
Mathew swiveled around and caught him by the arm. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere without me!”
“Stop!” Roman kicked out at him, his defiance escalating Mathew’s rage.
A vein throbbed at Mathew’s temple in rhythmic cadence with Brina’s own pulse. Mathew backhanded Roman, sending his light body into the half-open door, making it swing out with a bang and bounce off the wall.
“You asshole! Get off him!” Brina flung herself at Mathew, knocking him over. Before she had time to fear the consequences of her attack, Mathew let out a shriek and covered his head. She looked up and saw Roman’s dark face, fury seething out of his small body and into Mathew.
She grabbed Roman, making for the hallway, but stopped. Dashing back for the gun, she slipped it into her jeans, then grabbed Roman up again and ran. The steps rolled under her as her legs buckled.
“Go on. I’ll catch up.” Roman slipped away and a moment later, she heard the security system chime as he left the house. She had been picturing the truck in her mind, and somehow that’s exactly where Roman headed.
Chapter 40
Mathew still wailed from the bedroom, but at least the sound came from the other side of the door. Brina stood, testing her legs on the steps. Her right knee gave a strange vibration as she tried to straighten it out, pain shot through the joint, clarifying where every nerve ending began and ended.
“Damn it!” She grabbed the banister and controlled her descent to the foyer, not caring if the pain meant laming herself for the rest of her life. For all she knew, the rest of her life was getting shorter and shorter.
The swinging door to the kitchen was propped open, showing clear through to the back door and the broken window, where cold air still whistled through the plastic. She closed her eyes and lunged for the support of the wall, then made another lunge for the kitchen. The carved door molding gave her hand a grip as she shuffled through.
Tears washed her cheeks; the pain in her knee was nearly unbearable. Her hand closed in on the carved wooden handle of Edward’s umbrella and pulled it free from the stand. It held her weight, tapping on the brick stoop and finally sinking into the snow with each determined step.
Across the yard, she made out Roman’s figure opening the door of the truck. The cab light illuminated a short distance into the snow, outlining a shape that made her heart break. A body lay as a dark shadowy outline in the snow.
“Russ!” Brina stumbled forward, dragging her bad leg a she clawed her way to him.
His skin felt dead in her hands. Brina had seen a face like that before; it was Michael and Josh all over again. “No,” she cried. Her head swam with a blurred memory.
She ran her hand over his face, reaching for his neck and a pulse. Miraculously, it was there, faint but distinct in his motionless body.
“Russ!” She grabbed him by the shirt, pulling at him and sliding in the snow as she tried to wake him. “Russ.” She patted his face and snatched at his hands. His fingers felt rubbery and dead. “Russ, please wake up.”
She glanced over at the truck. Roman sat in the passenger side, waiting; the chains were on the tires. Either Mathew’s wailing had stopped or she was too far away to hear him. Whatever Roman had done, she hoped it bought them time.
Russ moaned, and she felt his chest move under her hands. “Russ, wake up; we have to go!” She looked at the truck and wondered how the hell they were going to get that far.
Red marks covered his face, and blood from his bullet wound now covered more of his shirt and seeped out at an alarming rate over the pristine snow.
Brina leaned in close to his head. “Open your eyes, Russ. You can’t die out here.”
His hand flailed from her grip and pushed her away. “Go.”
“No,” she shook her head. “Damn it, open your eyes!”
“Brina, you have to get out of here. He’ll kill you.”
“He’ll kill you, too, he thinks he already did, and I don’t think he’ll let there be any doubts about it next time.”
Russ ran his tongue over cracked lips and forced his eyes to open and focus on her. “He killed Edward. I saw him.” The effort to talk siphoned his strength.
Brina looked at the truck; it was the only way out. She used the umbrella to help her stand and pulled Russ to a sitting position. “Stand up!”
“Don’t, just go.”
“No, so get off your ass and help me.” She harassed him to a vertical position. The bleeding had slowed, but with so much already on the ground, she didn’t know if he would make it to the truck. She pulled up his shirt and looked at the soaked bandage. “He beat you?”
Russ smiled. “I got a few whacks in.” She wrapped his arm around her shoulder, but it was her grip that kept them connected. Brina intertwined a fist full of his shirt in her fingers and staggered forward, each step shooting pain through her leg.
The nig
ht gusted with a wind chill and injected a clumsy numbness into her bones. They reached the truck with her hands barely functional, and Russ collapsed unconscious onto the bench seat.
“Roman, move over and let us in.”
Roman scrambled and made room for the two of them. “He’s coming again,” he warned. “I can’t make him stop for very long, it hurts.” Roman’s eyes were hollowed with dark circles.
Brina pulled the gun from her pocket and laid it on the seat next to her. “Don’t worry; we’re getting out of here.” The keys still dangled from the ignition. They were icy cold, but her hands were too anesthetized to tell the difference as she turned them in the ignition. The engine was dead. Teeth chattering, she pumped the gas and willed the truck to start. She gave it another try, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference, but praying that it would.
“What’s wrong with it?” Roman sat on the other side of Russ with his hands pressed to the window, staring at the house. He looked back at her. “He’s coming.”
She looked up, but no shadows moved in the yard and the house appeared still. That was no reassurance, she thought, knowing now how he had lived in the shadows for days, watching them. The real Mathew Roman had skillfully diverted their attention to only what he’d wanted them to see, while his plan deteriorated around him.
With a poor sense of timing, her conscience threw up all the bad choices she’d made that had gotten her into this mess. Yes, they had manipulated her, but she had always had a choice—at least up until a few days ago. In her last stand to use her free will, she’d looked at Roman and decided to stay.
“Damn it!” she pounded her fist on the steering wheel, hysteria building quickly. “It won’t start.” Brina took a gulp of air to force back the fear as she pulled Roman from the truck. “Come on.”
She glanced at Russ. He was out, his face a death mask against the brown seat back. There was no way she could move him again. She limped to the side of the garage and let herself and Roman in. The Jeep was her last hope, and she prayed it would start. She reached a hand for the light switch but thought better. He already knew where they were; why make it easier?
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