Monarch: A Contemporary Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 2)

by Schow, Ryan

  Most of the girls get that giddy look on their faces, the same look you get when secrets are being divulged, and it encourages me.

  “So on the poison list—as I’m sure you all know—is Julie Sanderson, Cameron O’Dell, Theresa Pritchard and, of course, Maggie’s step-sister, the now-infamous Blake Fischer. Those are the obvious ones. There are others. Plus, there’s a long list of boys to avoid, and you’ll be shocked to find out some of the nicest guys here are not at all who they portray themselves to be.

  “But first, I want to give you an example of how not to be this semester. The girl I’m going to talk about is no longer at this school, and thank God because, what a bush-league troll! She lived in this very room. Her name was Savannah Van Duyn and my sister said she was as antisocial as they come.”

  One girl raises her hand and says, “I heard she had friends.”

  “She had GMF’s. Genetically modified friends. We’re talking about three girls who looked exactly alike but weren’t even related.”

  “How is that possible?” one girl asks. Her face is curious, not at all emotionally invested.

  “The thing about today’s science, and my sister said we’ll learn all about it, is what you’re now seeing is science that’s thirty years old. And the real science? There’s no way the elite will share such gems with the dumbed-down public. They tried that with cloned sheep, remember? How well did that go over?”

  “It was a catastrophe,” one girl says. Other girls nod, too.

  “Right,” I add. “And that was Savannah Van Duyn and her three GMF’s. Science made the leap from sheep to people.”

  “You’re not suggesting her friends were cloned, are you?” a brunette with brand name clothing and an air of superiority says. “Because that would be science fiction, not reality.”

  “Ten years ago, today’s reality was science fiction,” Maggie says. “But if the science we see now is really thirty year old science, then today’s version of an impossibility is not only possible, it is achievable.”

  Eyes sparkle at the possibility.

  “Say that five times fast,” I say, and people laugh.

  “What were her friends’ names?” a shy girl in back asks.

  “Georgia, Bridget and Victoria. Last names, just like them, are totally irrelevant. They were the prettiest girls in school, and not a bright one in the mix. In fact, those three girls were so freaking dumb and useless, it’s no wonder their parents pulled them out of here. They weren’t worth the money.”

  No one says a word, and a few of them look downright offended. This was supposed to be a nice party, an orientation, not a gossip fest.

  That was the premise.

  The ruse.

  “So this Savannah pig,” I say, “she starts making waves right off the bat, but it’s understandable because she’s a head case, right? Social anxiety disorder. Always puking and crying, always having to start trouble. Have you guys heard about the food fight last year?”

  “I hear it was legendary,” one of the blondes replies. She’s pretty, and talking to her she seems smart, but she isn’t one of the three. Not by a mile. She flips her hair too much.

  “Yes, well, Savannah started it.”

  “I heard Theresa Pritchard started it,” a girl says. Brown hair, soft makeup, conservative clothes.

  My senses flare.

  “No, Savannah started it.”

  The girl says, “I heard from a close friend who went here last year that Theresa definitely started that fight. Right after Bridget hit her in the face with a lunch tray.”

  Feigning anger, but suddenly anxious inside, I say, “You’re new, and you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Bridget did no such thing. That twat had no spine. She was all bark and no bite.”

  “She beat the snot out of Julie Sanderson and gave Cameron O’Dell a bloody nose, so I’d say she’s got plenty of bite,” the girl argues.

  Me and Maggie exchange looks, then the girl says, “Maggie was there. Tell them.”

  “I wasn’t there at all,” Maggie lies.

  “You were, too! You were sitting at the very table!”

  “Moving on,” I say, working to contain my excitement. Whomever that girl is, she’s definitely one of them, maybe Bridget herself.

  “Savannah made friends with these no class GMK’s—”

  “GMK’s?” the blonde playing with her hair asks.

  “Genetically modified kids. C’mon, keep up. She made friends with these GMK’s and then they became friends with Brayden, who isn’t the Brayden you see now, but something worse. A really gross version of himself.”

  “If you can imagine that,” Maggie says with traces of laughter in her voice.

  “He’s not bad,” a redhead says. “I think he’s funny.”

  “He’s not funny, he’s stupid and crass. Anyway, being beautiful or ugly here won’t make you popular or unpopular. This group of misfits went against the grain on everything. No one liked them. In fact, everyone hated them. Everyone. That girl Georgia, what a tasteless Barbie doll. No personality at all. She was supposedly sick with something, multiple-sclerosis or AIDS or something. And Victoria was sick, too—”

  “Chlamydia,” Maggie adds, “from being a raging slut.”

  This garners some laughter, even though the party lost most of the lightheartedness that was its beginning.

  “She wasn’t a slut,” the brunette who questioned her on the food fight adds, her face brewing with hostility.

  “No,” I say, faking my way through the disgusting things I’m saying, “Bridget was the slut whose daddy loved Jesus, but not as much as he loved his daughter, if you catch my drift.” I hate inferring an incestual relationship here, but if you’re going to push the envelope, push it as far as you can as fast as you can.

  “Let’s talk about the boys,” a small girl with a pixie cut in back says. She’s all chipper, like she can’t wait to get the skinny on someone. Maybe she’s just the peppy girl everyone likes but guys won’t date, or maybe she’s a nympho looking to get the lay of the land. Pun intended.

  “Yes,” I say, rubbing my hands together mischiveiously. “Let us talk about the boys indeed.”

  Me and Maggie mostly keep to the facts when it comes to the boys. Then we all finish off the drinks and chocolate-dipped fruit, and of course, the cupcakes. The way they taste, my inner fat-girl is positively dying to lick the plate!

  When it hits ten-thirty, everyone is giving off that “Let’s leave already” vibe and I’m grateful because I’m practically manic inside. I just have to talk to the brunette.

  I ask her to stay for a second afterward and she’s like, “I’ve got homework to do. If you want to do a sleepover, call someone else.”

  “Who are you, really?”

  It’s just her, Maggie and me, and my question stops her flat.

  “What?”

  “Why did you challenge me on that thing about the food fight?”

  “You had your facts wrong,” she insisted.

  “No she didn’t,” Maggie says.

  “How can you stand there and lie?” she asks Maggie.

  “You weren’t even there,” I tell her.

  “No, but my friend was. She saw everything.”

  “That’s a bunch of crap,” I say.

  “It’s true!”

  “Okay, what’s her name? This friend of yours?”

  “Uh—”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, we caught her.

  “Which one are you?” I ask softly. “You’re Bridget, aren’t you?”

  She starts to leave and I grab her by the shoulder, haul her around and say, “How was your Christmas in San Francisco? A little chilly in the pink goop?”

  Now it’s dawning on her.

  Growing incredibly still, looking at me as if she’s trying to see inside me, she says, “How?”

  “It is you,” Maggie says. “You’re Bridget.” There’s something in her eye that connects with the brunette, something
that pulls down her walls. “Oh, thank God!”

  “I don’t live in San Francisco,” she says, but the force of her conviction has gone soft.

  “I know all about the pink goop,” Maggie says.

  “Just admit it,” I say. “It’s okay.”

  “I don’t know you,” the brunette says, but the lie is written all over her face. Looking right into my eyes, not blinking or looking away, she says, “I just met you and to be honest, you’re rude, and you are a liar.”

  “We know it’s you, Bridget,” Maggie says. “Just say so.”

  The girl looks down, then up at Maggie, and finally at me. “My middle name is Victoria.”

  Based on the records Brayden pulled, I know for a fact Victoria isn’t her middle name, which is so very, very important in this moment. We’ve found Victoria.

  With puddles of tears forming in my eyes, I say, “My middle name is Savannah.”

  Her legs go a little weak and both hands go to her face, as if to catch her escaping breath, or still herself from the impossible. Her eyes glisten and she says, “No,” like she can’t fathom the idea.

  “Yes,” I say, giddy, excited to reunite with my friend.

  I pull her into a hug and Maggie joins us. She’s crying, then Maggie’s crying and pretty soon I’m crying, too. She can’t stop saying, “Ohmigod,” over and over again.

  “I’ve been so alone at this place,” she says in a rush. “I can’t find Bridget or Georgia anywhere. And I didn’t know what happened to you after the news said your family was killed. I’ve been worried. What happened to you?”

  I tell her the story and she sits in amazement as I tell her how Gerhard poisoned me, how I’m pretty sure the Virginia Corporation hired someone to kill me and my family, how I turned into a giant half-sloth and almost melted to death.

  “You’re gorgeous,” she says, looking me over. “More perfect than before.”

  “Uh, yeah, so are you!” I say.

  “When I heard what you did to Blake and Theresa, I was sure you were Bridget, but then you started saying all those awful things tonight and I knew I was wrong.” Then, looking at Maggie, she says, “And I was so pissed at you for not defending us, but…wait a minute, how do you know about Gerhard?”

  “How do you think, dumb-dumb?” I say.

  I never gave away Maggie’s secret—about her being a GMK, too—and thankfully Brayden and Damien never did as well.

  “You? You’re…you’ve had the treatment, too?” Now she’s really startled. When Brayden, Damien and I saw a clone who looked just like her in the lab, we knew she was one of Gerhard’s girls. Now Victoria is having the same kind of epiphany.

  “I was turned before you,” she says. “That’s what I call it. Turned. Anyway, I had a severe learning disability. Unlike Savannah, I came here first, got my treatment in secret, then started school as me.”

  “Let’s go see Brayden,” Maggie says, excited. “Hopefully he can tell us if Bridget or Georgia was here.”

  We’re about to leave when Victoria asks, “Wait a second, is that why you threw this party?”

  “It was Maggie’s idea, and, hello, here we are. Together again. Now let’s go see Brayden and find the rest of our friends.”

  7

  In Maggie’s room, Brayden is bristling with excitement. He gives Victoria a hug, but Victoria isn’t Victoria. She’s Cicely Harley Wright. The same way everyone’s going to have to get used to calling me Abby is how they’ll have to get used to Victoria being Cicely.

  “Just so you know,” Brayden says, stepping back to look over Victoria, “you are still smokin’ hot.”

  Victoria was the Goth chick of the bunch, but now she looks more conservative. The maroon streaks in her black hair are gone, and instead of doing the whole gorgeous, rebel undead thing, she looks like Milla Jovovich of the Resident Evil movies when she’s dressed for a photo shoot or a movie premier. She looks every bit the English beauty her name would suggest.

  “I love your new name,” Maggie says.

  “Cicely means ‘blind,’” she says. “I looked it up.”

  “Blind,” I say. “Why’d you choose a name like that?”

  “It’s a long story that has nothing to do with blindness,” she says.

  Brayden says, “So give us the short version.” I smack him on the arm.

  “My father loves Jazz music. And he’s obsessed with Myles Davis. When I was a kid, he told me about Cicely Tyson, Davis’s wife for awhile, and an actress in the movies Sounder and Roots. In the seventies, Cicely was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in Sounder, and she received two Emmy’s for her role in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. If you’ve ever watched her, she’s an incredible actress. The thing I love most about her is she managed to do something that even today seems impossible. In 2009, she earned an honorary degree from Morehouse College, a private, all-male, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. I chose the name not because of its meaning, but because Cicely Tyson is one of my heroes. Like her, my life is a study in doing the impossible. I’m barely a fraction of the woman she is, and I would never claim otherwise, but I do adore her.”

  “Wow,” Maggie says, breathless.

  “Yeah,” Brayden echoes. “Wow. And here I thought you liked Underworld and Twilight and all those vampire movies. I mean, I would never have taken you for a Roots kind of girl”

  “I’m not one dimensional,” she says with a grin. “In spite of my obsession with everything dark and sexy.”

  “So is this the new you or are you simply easing your way back into your more edgier self?” he asks.

  Brayden loves the word ‘edgy.’ He’s saying it all the time now, but that’s only because he’s transforming, too. Just not as drastically as us.

  “I look different than before, but not by much,” she says. “Mostly it’s my face and voice that have changed. But I don’t feel so rebellious either. The fact that my father is now telling me how beautiful I am and it’s killing my older sister—who used to brag that she was the pretty one—it’s put the kibosh on my more seditious side. For now, I think I’ll blend.”

  Her face is different. Her eyes are rounder, she’s now got a widow’s peak, and her jaw line is different, more slender. Even her ears are different, which for some reason is amazing to me.

  “So here’s what I’ve got,” Brayden says, opening his laptop to a split screen image of two girls from the party. The redhead and the small brunette with the pixie hair cut. “Oh, and by the way, thanks for saying how ugly I was,” he says.

  “I said it because everyone likes you and would defend you,” I told him. “I know I would.”

  “That’s right,” Cicely says. “The redhead came to your defense. What’s her name again?”

  “Tempest Hill,” Brayden says. “The brunette is Lana Monroe.”

  I say, “The body size is too small, Lana’s I mean. Don’t you think?”

  Looking like a Hollywood starlet, but in a totally innocent, unknowing way, Cicely says, “Gerhard’s a miracle worker. I grew taller the first time, so what’s to say his science can’t shrink people, too?”

  Brayden and me just sort of shrug our shoulders. She has a point.

  “Okay,” Maggie says. “Show us what you have.”

  Brayden shows us the various reactions from the girls and I think maybe he’s right about the Tempest Hill girl, but not so much about Lana Monroe.

  “Tempest is a ghost,” he says. “I’ve been checking backgrounds, looking for a human paper trail and she doesn’t have it.”

  “What about Lana?” Maggie asks.

  “I just got done looking up Tempest’s. Haven’t got to Lana’s yet.”

  “I’m going to Tempest’s room,” I say, determined. He said he knew I’d say that. Brayden hands me a piece of paper with her room number on it. He knows me pretty well and it has me thinking again about our friendship. And how he’s looking better and better to me by the day.

  Maybe love at fir
st sight is true for lust, but what is it about feeling known by someone that makes you want to be closer to them? Maybe this is a more real love than physical attraction. Maybe love isn’t obvious. Is it possible true love just sort of sneaks up on you?

  “I’m coming with you,” Cicely says. Maggie says the same.

  “I’m going to bed,” Brayden says. “Maggie, I think you should join me. It’ll be more fun, like a sleepover.”

  Inside I’m cringing. If only Brayden knew what I know, he wouldn’t joke like this. Or maybe he’s serious. It’s almost impossible to tell why he says the things he says because anymore he’s more Enigma than Brayden, and I’m still getting used to him.

  Note to self: Ask Brayden if he’s hot for Maggie.

  “There’s something about reunions that make me not think of sex,” Maggie replies with a grin. Her voice is forgiving, but the smile on her face doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  Looking at her, knowing the waking nightmare in her head, I have so much compassion and so much respect for her right now. Brayden is always talking about sex with her, gaming her, and I can only imagine how repulsed she must be by the idea. How can she keep smiling when inside she must want to scream?

  “Brayden,” I say. “Maggie isn’t interested in sex with you so maybe you should run your game on someone else.”

  Inside, I feel crappy calling him out like that, but Maggie is obviously too polite to be rude, so I feel I should stand up for her where she can’t stand up for herself. His face flushes red and he says, “I’m sorry, Maggie, I’m just tired.”

  “It’s okay,” Maggie says. But it’s not.

  Brayden gets up, grabs his coat, then gives me a hug before leaving. In my ear, quietly, he says, “Thanks for making me feel like an asshole.”