“Please, come with me.” He held his hand out and waited for her to take it. Not demanding. Not an order. Something new, the first time anyone had ever asked her.
She swallowed and stared, even more curious about this stranger who’d walked into her life. “Who are you?”
“Dante. I’m a friend.”
Eva reached out and slipped her hand into his. Dante’s fingers closed. With a tug, he pulled her to her feet. At the time, she didn’t understand how much that one action would forever change her life.
* * *
Mind manipulation was a very real thing. A person could be twisted to become whomever they wanted you to be, and they could give you memories that were not your own. The data download to the brain often resulted in bouts of violence from the one who received the treatment. It had been the cause of murders and various other crimes, and for that reason it was illegal in Aeropia and the United Regions.
But it didn’t stop it from happening.
They’d stripped Eva of her clothes and strapped her into a chair like a death row inmate. Rubber strips about four inches wide secured her hips, chest, and arms as a glass cylinder dropped around her. A padded ring as thick as the space between her skull and shoulders was locked around her neck, holding her head immobile as the programming cap, which also served as a source of oxygen, slid down over her head.
There was a hiss, and the cylinder filled with a spray foam material that hardened around her. Once she was incapacitated, with only enough space to inhale and exhale shallow breaths, hundreds of tiny needles emerged from inside the hood. Unlike the old hypodermics of past generations, these were more like microscopic drill bits, spinning and driving their way through her scalp, down into bone and sinking into her brain. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t fight, or even twitch her fingers.
Her body pumped adrenaline into her blood as fight or flight was triggered. Tiny nanites were placed within her brain, setting up a network. Her every thought became hyper-focused on her conscience, and every part of the gray matter activated. A cruel way to force her mind awake, but very effective.
Light flashed through her eyes, a ghost created from the cerebral stimulation, as the room was void of any sound or activity that could interfere with the programming. They had one chance to get it right. Any other attempts would melt her mind.
She’d been terrified, but they’d told her this was how she could become one of them. And for that, she’d have done anything.
Images forced their way into her head—thoughts and memories. She pushed back, and pain wracked her every nerve. Like a spike, the information drove into her again. This time she let it come, force its way into her psyche. In a matter of minutes, Eva learned to speak four languages, fluently, and received her Doctorate in Psychology.
When she’d blacked out, they’d cracked the mold from around her, washed her, dressed her, and placed her in a room. She could have been asleep for days, hours, or minutes. When she woke, reality was so much larger, and the world had expanded before her eyes. Taste. Smell. Sight. Everything within her known plane of existence became intense.
Her hands quaked. Eva fisted and shook them, but no amount of trying would steady them, so she focused on other things. “The rush of emotions was unlike anything you would expect, but living it is the only way to truly understand,” she’d said.
I could only imagine what she’d been through. I’d suffered countless surgeries, but nothing like that. They’d raped her mind, raked it open, rubbed in memories and personality, forcing her to be someone she wasn’t.
“I knew what chocolate tasted like,” she’d said with a soft laugh. “I’d never had it, yet could taste it. Smell it. Oh how I could smell it, and the potent memory tore through my mind. It didn’t belong to me. Life had amplified. Every touch. Every sound. And the scents…”
She’d sat on her new bed, a springy mattress covered with a wool blanket, wearing plain cotton pajama bottoms and a soft t-shirt, something an inmate in an asylum might wear. Before her escape, the garments would have been considered a luxury, but now they’d become as normal as the memories that had attached themselves to her. Nothing about them seemed special.
“I could smell him from across the room, the mixture of spice and masculinity, a narcotic to my awakening mind.” He’d stood by the door since she’d come to. His arms were crossed, and he hadn’t blinked in the last five minutes. Not once.
“Do you have any chocolate?” The craving had been horrible, and she’d needed to verify her mind didn’t lie. Does it really taste like that? For so many years, she’d been forced to eat clone feed, and the recollection was repugnant now that her mind was laced with false memories more pleasant. “To know what bad is, you have to experience good. They’d given me that, a taste of paradise, but it also made the horrors I’d been through so much more vile. It is true, that you don’t know what it is to want, until you’ve lost.”
Dante reached into his pocket, pulled out a foil-wrapped bar, and tossed it on the bed next to her. She glanced down and back up. Down again, staring. She didn’t question how he knew to bring it, but snatched it up and tore the wrapper away, slowly skimming the bar under her nose and inhaling the sweet scent.
Satisfied it smelled exactly as she remembered, Eva popped it in. It melted on her tongue and tasted as she’d thought, only better. Laughing out like a lucky child, she slid another piece between her lips, gorging on the most amazing thing she’d ever sampled, even though she felt as though she’d done it before.
She closed her eyes and let it dissolve, absorbing the sweet earthy bitterness, letting contradictions mingle in her mouth. More emotions surged through her, followed by a racing heart, her organ’s beat trying to keep up with the blitzkrieg happening inside her.
When she opened her eyes, Dante still stood there, staring.
The moment their gazes connected remained frozen in her memory, a snapshot she could draw upon whenever she needed strength, or punishment. “In that moment, I knew he’d be both my beginning and end.”
His eyes were bottle green, like wet sea glass. Deep and intelligent. But the soul she saw in them marked him most. His expression often hid much about what he thought, but his eyes always gave him away. That day, he chose to hide nothing.
She recognized the look, the hunger. Desire. Lust. Exhaling slowly, she felt her lower body clench and knot. Not in fear as it had before, when she’d read the same expression on another man’s face. This was warmer, something she wanted to reach out and gather in her arms. The emotional barrage brought a strange awareness along with it. She wanted what she’d always despised, and she wanted it from him.
More emotions hit, slamming into her. A sharp stabbing in her brain replaced the pleasant warmth. The feelings had been denied for so long, there would be no controlling them. Right then she’d felt… The chocolate dropped to the bed, forgotten for other urges. Eva rose to her feet, her hands balled at her sides as she took shallow breaths, fighting for control over the desire that worked her like a puppeteer. “Please.”
Dante nodded and stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. The bolt slid home—they were locked in. Under normal circumstances, she would panic. Nothing scared her as much as being trapped in a room with a man. But her predicament didn’t produce terror, as it always had.
“I…” She couldn’t quite get it out. Want him. Liquid heat pooled through her body. “I…” Need. Need. Need. She grabbed his shirt and shoved him against the wall. The thin fabric ripped in her frenzy to strip it from his body. Her nails gouged his chest, leaving red welts. She wanted his naked flesh against hers. She didn’t know who he was, only a name, but oh, how she wanted him.
Dante fisted the front of her top and reversed their positions, slamming her shoulders to the concrete, taking back the control. “Still your mind. Take a deep breath and listen. Eva. Look at me. Focus.”
His voice cut through the fog, bringing her out of the haze. Eva stared into his eyes, panti
ng. Desperate. His violent action didn’t frighten her. Instead, it amped the desire, making it hard to think about anything but what she wanted.
“I’m going to remove your clothes, touch you, but I promise not to hurt you.”
Hurt? The only thing that hurt was the longing. Pressure built in her head, demanding. Emotions exploded across every nerve. Searing. Pain. She reached up and cradled her skull, crying out. Dante grabbed her wrists and pulled them away.
“Don’t.” He pinned her hands over her head and leaned in to claim her lips.
The physical need, the overwhelming high of the feelings, and the taste of chocolate saturating her mouth combined into a heady mixture. Eva craved more. He released her hands to pull her closer. Taking advantage of her freedom, she reached for the front of his pants.
“Eva. No. I need you to listen. To understand,” he said.
“Please.”
“Not here.” He snagged her wrists again, walked her toward the bed, and spun her around so her back was to it. Dante shoved. Eva landed on the mattress. He followed her down, trapping her with his weight. “Here.”
One hand cupped her jaw while he kissed her again. The other stroked up and under her shirt, traveling to her breast, rolling the pads of his fingers around a nipple.
This was a different experience than she’d had in the past. Dante touched her with gentleness. It confused her that a clone would be paid such kindness. Reverence.
Her heart beat faster, and fear raced through her. Eva pushed on his shoulders, arching up to dislodge his weight. “Please. No.”
“Shush, you need this. It’s okay. Relax and let it happen.”
She shook her head. “No.” It was her turn to protest, but her body wouldn’t let her. The band on her head tightened with her resistance. Her eyes watered. Instinct told her he spoke the truth, she needed to keep going, not stop. But the fear took a pound of courage from her, and no matter what the pain demanded, she couldn’t give him what he wanted. She only wanted the feelings, the need that pulsed through her body, to go away.
Dante sat back on his heels, straddling her legs. “Listen to me. You have to trust me. I won’t hurt you. Do you want me to stop?”
No. She shook her head. She balled her hands until her fingers tingled.
“Then let me help you.” He untied her bottoms and yanked the fabric off her hips and down her thighs. He stared at her damp curls then pulled his shirt over his head. “We can’t wait. We have to do this now. Do you understand?”
The pain rolled in and back out like a wave on the ocean. His words cut into the fog encasing her brain. Now. Numbly, she nodded and clenched her jaw. More cramps rocked her body. The burning started deep in her head, increasing in intensity as it shot to her fingers and toes. In that moment, she focused on the one thing she could. Him.
The man was a warrior, built from lean muscle, a large frame and features that belonged on a hero. Dante was a beautiful thing to look upon, and for a moment, she forgot the torture.
She raised a finger and touched his belly, where skin stretched taut over his abdomen and around his navel. Heat seared her from the inside out, demanding she take more. He stood and pulled her pants off, dropping them on the floor.
“No,” she cried out, but this time because of the disappearance of his body heat and the flesh-to-flesh contact. Ice replaced the burn. Certainly, she’d die without him. She thrashed back and forth, grabbing the blanket to anchor the seizure. Hurt. Her hips came off the bed. Her spine arched like a drawn bow. “No.” A scream rolled from her throat, shaking the light beside the bed.
“Shush,” he said, coming back to her. “I’ll take care of you. You need dopamine, and this is the fastest way to release it and not shock your brain.” His hands grasped her thighs with tenderness, careful not to bruise her. Dante lifted her legs over his shoulders. “But I won’t take from you without your permission. I’m not a monster, or a rapist. Do you want this?”
“Please.” Want? No, want could never describe what she’d felt. Nothing could describe it. “Please don’t stop,” she’d cried. Begged. Eva didn’t grasp what she wanted, just that she needed him to give it to her—to stop the crushing pressure in her head and the violent spasms.
“Let go.” He captured her mouth, sending her senses whirling with the kiss. “Let go,” he whispered this time against her lips, almost pleading. The pressure had wound so tight, as though she’d rolled up in barbwire. Her muscles locked, tightening, and she couldn’t breathe. Dante continued to ride her through the pain. “Let go.” A third time he urged her.
The room whirled and a blistering fever exploded through her. Eva released the fear and screamed at the top of her lungs, climaxing hard. As the orgasm took her, the vise eased, and the inferno burnt out. Eva didn’t remember much more.
A blanket of darkness dropped over her and she free-fell into oblivion.
3
The day Eva met Dante wasn’t about sex. When someone was denied human contact, the soft touch of another’s hand all their lives, they lost the ability to feel. When someone like that had their brain programmed with emotions and memories, they could break down, become violent, or have a stroke and die. In her case, Dante went to her room to stop the sensory overload.
The cravings for chocolate were his first clue she needed dopamine to stop the burnout, and the fastest way to get it was with sex, as he’d told her.
Dante said he was a friend. Eva told me she wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was always nearby, guiding her, teaching her. He was around a lot, but she didn’t mind his company, and she supposed that was what he meant. Tolerable companionship.
As Eva turned a page in the book of her past and talked about her time at the Institute, it was strange to hear about the beginning of the end of Aeropia. I could not go back or change anything. I could only listen.
* * *
Two years before the revolt.
Dante hit a button and sent the footage into rewind. “Again, watch the way she moves her hands. The way she smiles.”
Eva studied her former keeper as she waved to a crowd.
“Mannerisms are all that separate you from being identical. Observe the way she scans then focuses in. You need to absorb her personality, make it your own.” He stopped the video. “Your turn. Remember her body language. The way she stiffens when someone she doesn’t like is around.”
Eva laughed.
Dante glared at her. “This is serious. Focus.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said. “She stiffens whenever her husband is around.”
Dante held her gaze for a moment and then fast forwarded through the recordings. He turned to observe and lifted a brow. “Indeed.” A brief look of excitement crossed his face, and he handed her the remote. “Practice.”
“Dante,” she called after him. “Where are you going?”
“I just thought of something,” he said and then left the room.
Hand to hand combat skills could be downloaded to your brain, but mastering them took physical practice. Eva redirected a punch and slipped to the side, avoiding the cross that followed. So pleased she’d actually avoided getting struck, she underestimated her opponent and realized her mistake too late. Dante came around with a hook to her jaw, dropping her to the floor.
“Why do we block, Eva?”
I watched her, amused, as she mimed him in her retelling. Eva rested her hands on her hips and thrust her chest out, deepening her voice. I could visualize him standing there, lecturing her as though she were an undisciplined child. His question irritated her, and this was the first time I’d seen animation upon her features, any indication she could feel emotions.
She couldn’t understand why they needed to go over it again. His need to repeat often bordered on obsessive and annoying, and for that, she decided to teach him a lesson of her own.
“Eva.” He put his hands up. “Why do we block?”
Instead of answering, she scrambled to her feet and
attacked, throwing kicks and punches, backing him across the mat, catching his arm when he tried to prevent her striking his face. Eva performed a leg sweep, taking him down to his belly, maintaining control, and driving her knee into his shoulder. She wrenched back on his arm until she heard a loud pop. Dante groaned, but he did not cry out. Even so, she held him a bit longer to make a point, before releasing him. Satisfied, she stepped away and gave him the answer he sought. “So I can counter.”
Dante rolled over, cradling his dislocated arm. “This is practice.” He climbed to his feet, still clutching the wounded limb tight to his body. Confusion creased his features, like one of those moments when someone who has kept a tiger as a pet discovers it really is a wild animal… when it bites them.
“Yes,” she said.
He’d staggered past her to door, glanced over his shoulder, and slammed his torso against the jamb. There was another pop when his shoulder snapped back into place. Pain crossed his face, but he uttered not a sound. He nodded at her then exited the room. She’d made her point.
If it had not been practice, she would’ve killed him. There was a difference.
There were others at the institution, clones like Eva. Several had escaped through the underground network, but none of them had murdered to gain their freedom, and she reasoned this was why they avoided her.
Or perhaps they could not abide the object in her cheek. None of them still had their identification chip. Eva reached up and touched her face. Dante had left it in. Once it was removed, she could leave. Dante didn’t want it removed.
Eva took another bite of her stew and watched the others laugh at a private joke. She preferred to be alone, except for Dante. The company of others bothered her. Especially the company of one clone in particular.
It wasn’t him, but her mind refused to see him as anything else.
The commander of armed forces in Aeropia was a tall, handsome man. He was powerful and well spoken of and, to those that truly knew him, a beast. Eva had experienced his true nature when he’d raped her at the age of seventeen.
The Book of Eva: Clone, Book One Page 3