Lenala scowled at her and wrinkled her nose, but Eva did not try to escape. She waited for that smile, unable to understand the change in the woman’s voice and face.
“You’re a filthy beast.” She grabbed Eva’s arm so tightly her fingers left bruises the shape of her hand around her arm. Even if she had wanted to, Eva could not flee.
“Mama,” she said in an attempt to bring back the lovely woman she’d seen only moments before.
“You are forbidden to use that word.” Ana’s mother swung the strap down. It popped, stinging with the vicious bite of leather.
Eva cried out and threw her hand over her face to protect it when the tip of the strap caught her cheek.
Again and again, it thrashed her flesh. She possessed the tender skin of a baby, yet the woman didn’t take care not to break it open or leave marks. “I am not your mother.” Another brutal blow. “You have no mother.” Over and over, until she released her, and Eva fell to the floor like a broken doll. She pulled herself into a ball and cried. Welts covered her skin, and blood welled up in several places. The cold burned the wounds, but the woman didn’t care. She simply walked out of the cage, locking the door behind her.
“You are a clone. You haven’t a mother.” With that said, she called to the caregiver who stood in the other room. “No food for her tonight. She must learn this lesson.” Ana’s mother spun on her heel and left the room.
The beating had stopped. She was alone. Still, she cried. Every inch of her fragile skin displayed the wounds the evil woman had inflicted. But that was not the reason Eva cried.
She cried because she hadn’t a mother.
Not all Aeropites hated the clones or thought of them as inhuman. Some in Aeropia were sympathetic to their plight and smuggled them over the border every chance they got. My parents assumed that was what happened to Eva, but they couldn’t prove it. Every search brought them back to where they started, at the hospital where she’d escaped. They’d tried to track her chip, but it had been disabled prior to the surgery to prevent the pulse from messing with the delicate monitors and equipment, leaving them constantly looking over their shoulder.
I’d heard of the groups who helped the clones flee slavery, like the underground railroad of Middle American history, but I never understood the zealousness with which they carried out their missions, not until I met Axel. It was funny how something as simple as love could change your whole perception of the world and, more importantly, your view of what was right and wrong.
It’s said when you met the one you were meant to spend your life with, you would never forget the moment. Things clicked into place, and you just felt this person was meant to be your one and only, your forever and ever. For Axel and me, it wasn’t so much a meeting as a head-on collision.
The impact forever changed us.
The first time I met Axel, a pack of boys were beating him in the garden on my parents’ summer estate. Five of them pummeled him; meaty sounds and grunts followed each punch.
“That’s for telling me I can’t have it.” Slam. A fist flew and another oomph. “Cocksucker.”
“Hold the fucker down,” another said.
“You aren’t so tough. Big dumb fuck. We’ll teach you your place.”
Easy for them to say when it was five to one. I crept up behind them as quietly as I could, not even daring to draw a breath. With my size and lack of physical strength, the element of surprise would be all I had going for me, and it shouldn’t be wasted.
The person they pounded was out of view, hidden behind the bulk of the bullies’ bodies. Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew they were giving him a terrible beating, and that he must be male, for the slurs from their mouths sounded as though he intimidated them.
Each time their fists or boots connected, as they were kicking him, too, a thud ensued. He didn’t speak, choosing silence over screaming for help. The only sounds he made were the occasional grunt or moan, when someone’s knuckles or steel toes connected with his torso.
From the back, I recognized them. Boys from the local village who had no business here. They’d trapped their victim in the hedges, using the thick vegetation to contain him while they delivered the beating, pounding on his ribs, face, and anywhere they could strike. Certainly they would have killed him had I not intervened.
“Stop!” I moved for the cowards. “I’ll report your trespassing to my father.”
They whipped around, and their eyes widened.
Even though they were twice my size, I did not back down. “You have no official business on this estate.”
“Says who?” one of the more stupid lads asked, obviously unaware of who I was. From the looks on his buddies’ faces, at least they weren’t clueless. They vehemently shook their heads at their friend. One even delivered a sharp elbow to the witless one’s ribs as he opened his mouth to say more.
“Sorry about that. He’s not the brightest bulb on the tree, Ms. Braun.”
None of them were if they were trespassing on the property. “Get out of here.” The conversation was over, and I was only interested in getting to the wounded boy in the hedge. “Now!”
Nobody messed with a Braun. They bolted in every direction, running as though I had a charged weapon pointed at them, and perhaps I had. My family name was something to be feared.
“Come back and I’ll tell my father,” I screamed as they disappeared from view.
On the ground was a bag, fruit from the estate conservatory spilled out onto the pavers, for the fruit outside would not look so perfect. Theft, no doubt.
I looked down into the bushes and saw him. The brown pants and tunic gave away his identity, that of a slave. The boys who’d beat him were the thieves, not this clone. I instantly recognized his face, even though he wouldn’t look at me. General Axis’s clone.
“They were stealing from the conservatory?”
He nodded but continued to avoid eye contact. It was obvious he’d caught and tried to stop them. I’d seen him tending the conservatory orchard from a distance, and supposed it was his primary function when he was at the summer palace from May to November. Beyond that, I’d paid little attention to the clones and what they were doing. Regardless that he was a clone, the lowest in the food chain, he’d done nothing wrong and did not deserve the punishment the boys had given him.
A ball of heat built in my chest as anger seeped into me. This wasn’t right, and my father would hear about it. I didn’t care the victim had been a clone—his suffering had been unwarranted.
I stretched my arm out to help him from the box elder, waiting for him to take my offered hand. He tried to roll to the side, and his gasp told me the motion hurt, but it also told me other things. Like how desperate he was to avoid any contact with me. I waited, ignoring his rejection of help, certain if he couldn’t roll over, he wasn’t climbing out of the hedge on his own. “Come on, take it. Let me pull you out.”
He refused, turning his head away. With a sigh, I leaned down and grabbed his wrist, doing my best to heft his solid frame out of the shrubs. “The more you help me here, the faster I let go of you.”
He clasped my wrist in return and, using the support I offered to climb from the greenery, stood. When he straightened his spine, he towered over me. Most men his height would slump their shoulders in an unintentional need to be smaller. This clone did not.
I gasped and stared at his chest, certain I’d met a giant. General Axis was tall, but I had never been in close enough proximity to him to get the full effect of just how big he really was. Perhaps the shock came because I’d always avoided my father’s military leader every chance I could, not liking the way he watched me when he thought no one was looking. I never understood how he’d commanded so much respect before now.
From where I stood, Axel and I were practically chin to shoulders. I had a hard time understanding why he’d let those boys beat him. He obviously had the size and strength to stop them if he desired.
At the time, Axel was around
the age of nineteen, at least six-foot-four, and twice my weight. Two years senior to my seventeen and healthy to my scrawny and sick. Even though he was a clone, I felt in the presence of greatness and couldn’t help the slight buzz I got from being so near. And then I got a closer look.
I tipped my chin up, and my mouth dropped open. “Oh.” I blinked, and my heart skipped. My stomach did this strange flip-flop thing, and heat washed across my face. “Wow,” I breathed out, almost silently. I was pretty certain he hadn’t heard, or he’d have looked away again.
My knees got all wonky, and little jolts raced up my arm from where we made skin-to-skin contact. I swore I could feel his pulse beat under my fingers, matching time with my own.
He pulled his wrist free and backed away as I continued to stare.
“Wait,” I said, shaking off the awe. “What’s your name?” I didn’t want to call him clone. And wow, seemed a little impersonal. The clone was more human to me than most of the people who came through the palace. He was the hero of my mother’s antique romances, the ones I’d squirreled away in my room and read until the pages were coming free from the spines.
In a matter of seconds, I’d become a victim of hit-and-run love at first sight.
All my life I’d wanted to meet someone like him—the man of my dreams. Only he was a clone, and any kind of a relationship between us would be forbidden. Impossible. I didn’t care. I was captivated and wanted to know more about him. “Please, don’t walk away. Tell me.”
He stopped his retreat. “I have an I-dent, a creation registration number.” He touched his cheek and ducked his head. The act was both boyish and charming on so powerful a figure.
“No, I mean a name, not an i-dent. I’m Olivia.” I stepped closer. “What name do you call yourself?”
“I know who you are. It’s prohibited for me to have a name, to even think about having one.” He eyed the corner of the house. “I should go.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s just us out here.” I picked up the bag of fruit and pushed it at him. “What name do you go by?”
He made no move to take it, as though he was afraid we might accidentally touch again. “I haven’t ever had a need to claim one.”
“We shall have to change that.” I thought for a minute and then smiled. “I think I’ll call you Axel. Do you like that?”
“It sounds like his name.” He shifted on the balls of his feet but didn’t run.
“It does, doesn’t it? We’ll keep it between us. I like it much better than a number, or calling you clone.”
“But that is what I am.”
“And?”
Then he lifted his gaze to mine and smiled. It reached his eyes like the sunlight that warmed me on a sultry day, and it took my breath away. I wanted more. “Thank you,” he said, shifting his attention back to stare at the ground.
“You’re welcome.” I tucked the bag under one arm and reached out to take his hand.
He took several steps in reverse. “Don’t touch me.”
“Why?” The moment of closeness we’d shared, vanished.
He didn’t answer but turned and walked away. I followed him, doing my best to keep up, but his legs were so much longer than mine and stretched the distance between us rapidly. It didn’t take seconds for the wheezing to start. My chest hurt, but I did not let it stop me. I wanted an answer to my question. So I jogged, pushing limits I never should’ve.
He whipped around. “Go away.”
I came to a complete stop and sucked in a sharp breath. The bag dropped from my arms. The fruit rolled all over, scattering at our feet. He’d raised his voice. They never did. My chest cramped, and my heart fluttered inside my ribs. Not the steady beat I usually had, but as though it struggled to find its pace. I dropped to my knees, gasping for air, certain I would die. My hand went to my breast, and I willed my heart to beat normally. I needed my medicine and would never make it to the house to get it.
“You shouldn’t have followed me.” He stooped to brush the hair from my eyes and touched my cheek. “I’m a clone, Olivia. I’m not allowed to touch you or speak to you. They execute us for it.” Then Axel did the bravest thing. He lifted me in his arms and ran to the front steps of my home, calling for help.
Three rules broken to save my life. Three that could get him executed. I had not known. I’d been buried in my own little world of romance novels and gardens, failing to learn the laws of our land, living a fantasy instead of facing reality, and it could cost Axel his life. I’d never felt so ignorant or helpless.
General Axis came out and took me from his arms. “What did you do to her?”
Axel shook his head and retreated a couple of steps. He stared at the ground.
General Axis didn’t say anything further, but the look on his face promised Axel would pay. I worried at that moment I’d killed him, my question of why I shouldn’t touch him clearly answered in the commander’s cold accusation. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell General Axis he’d saved me, but I had no air or voice. Then, I swam in darkness.
Three days later, as I was released from bed rest, I saw Axel. His nose had a bump it hadn’t before, and blood caked around his nostrils. Bruises in nearly every color of the spectrum covered his skin. His lips were puffy and split in several places. He could barely open his eyes, yet he stumbled around, working in a flower garden where my father’s mistress often served tea to her friends and gossiped about the acquaintances who weren’t present.
Grabbing some gloves and a shovel, I started weeding next to where he worked. I glanced over at him and spoke softly, so I could not be overheard. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
He didn’t look at me, but got up and staggered away.
I followed him.
He shook his head and focused on a mound of poison ivy growing around the bitch’s favorite seat. It was spring cleanup, and soon Carmen would be out in the gardens, sipping from expensive china and showing off her new clothes and jewels. Sitting in that very spot…
Axel reached to pull the weed from the earth.
“Don’t. Leave it.” Touching it barehanded—for clones of course worked without gloves—would only make him more miserable, and I thought it had found a suitable location to grow. I envisioned Carmen scratching herself raw after her next tea party. “That’s the perfect place for it.”
If he caught why I thought that, he didn’t say, but in that moment, we became friends. He eyed me from his peripheral vision, and the slightest of smiles curved the corner of his swollen mouth. He rose and walked toward a giant gazebo. The twisted iron trellis panels were covered with old wood stems of roses gone past the need of pruning, begging to be thinned and cut away to invigorate new growth. Axel grabbed a pair of shears and hacked off the stems.
“Not like that.” I stepped up to him, and he went still as the stone gargoyle in the center of the garden, the one I called Carmen. There was a theme to this setting. Perhaps I should let him chop the plants up, but I would hate for the bitch to complain and Axel to be punished. I took the pruners and demonstrated the proper technique. “I read that you should do an angled cut, right above these bumps, or nodes. Cut any branches that cross dead wood.” I pointed. “This hard brown stuff. And try to thin it out in the middle so the sun can get to it.”
“I have been trained how to do it properly.” He took the shears from me and resumed murdering the bushes.
It was my turn to smile. I stifled a giggle. “I see you have. Never mind. You’re doing a fabulous job.”
“You shouldn’t be out here, talking to me.” Chop, chop, chop. Axel continued to massacre Carmen’s flowers.
“No. But I wanted to thank you. You saved my life.”
He nodded. “You should go, before they see you.”
“I should.”
He turned his face toward me and looked me in the eyes. So bold. I seemed to have corrupted him.
“I’m talking to my father about what General Axis did to you.”
“Let it g
o. I’m alive and thankful for that.” He nodded at the sounds of approaching voices. “Go.”
I scrambled to my feet and hid behind a hedge, out of sight of the visitors.
“What a pretty clone.”
I peeked through the vegetation as Carmen and one of her sordid friends approached Axel.
“You ever kiss a woman, clone?” She laughed, in that annoying way that reminded me of a cat in heat.
I rolled my eyes. If she didn’t leave him alone, I’d come out of hiding and catch her in the act of flirting with one. Oh, the horror.
“We were just discussing the various uses for your kind, weren’t we, Melinda?”
“I daresay we were.” A short, plump woman with too much makeup, wearing a garish green dress the color of lime gelatin barf, added her two cents. Rolls of fat encased in shiny fabric folded over in several places, like bread dough that had been allowed to rise too long and spilled from the sides of its pan. She was best described as abhorrently ugly, if one could be so. The nickname Toady came to mind.
Carmen made a habit out of surrounding herself with ugly women. She liked being the most beautiful woman in a room or, in this case, the garden. I assumed that was the only reason she had friends; it certainly wasn’t her charming personality. Most likely, she paid them to hang out with her.
“Being genetically altered and all, is it true you have a great big…” Carmen leaned close to him and touched his shoulder. She whispered something in his ear I couldn’t hear.
My face heated, and if she put her hand on him again, I might explode. I couldn’t pinpoint why it bothered me, but I didn’t like her touching him. I was seconds from springing from my hiding place when someone yelled.
“Carmen!” My father.
She jumped, and she and her toady friend hustled to put space between themselves and Axel, lest their indiscretion be discovered. “Over here, darling. I’m in the garden, planning my first spring tea.”
The Book of Eva: Clone, Book One Page 5