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

by Schow, Ryan

  I start to apologize, but he’s already hugging Victoria. Cicely I mean. He doesn’t look at me when he leaves, which makes me feel even worse.

  The way Damien sucks at expressing himself is the same way I absolutely suck at being friends with boys. It’s like I can’t do anything right.

  8

  I shake off Brayden’s comment long enough to go with Maggie and Cicely to Tempest Hill’s room on the third floor. We knock on her door and she opens up. She’s in a oversized t-shirt and nothing else, leaving most of her stellar legs exposed. Her red hair is pulled up in a ponytail, she’s got no makeup on and a toothbrush stuck in her mouth.

  She pulls the toothbrush out and, with a foamy mouth, says, “No.”

  We didn’t even ask her a question.

  I push open the door and the three of us walk in. She’s overwhelmed, but if she is Georgia, she won’t push back. If she’s Bridget, chances are she might attack us. I guess time and the pressure of the situation will tell us if she’s either Georgia or Bridget. Or neither.

  “Shut the door, Maggie,” I say. She does it.

  “What do you want?” Tempest demands.

  “You don’t exist,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t exist,” Cicely repeats. “Not beyond a couple of years ago. You have got high school records, but nothing before that. You have a social security number issued to you weeks ago, and no ID beyond your driver’s license and school photo. On the internet, on social media, nearly everyone exists, but you don’t.”

  “Why is that?” I ask.

  She says, “Get out,” and I say no. I tell her we’re not leaving until she gives us an answer. That’s when I mention Gerhard.

  “You know him, don’t you?” Cicely asks. “Gerhard.”

  “He’s the school doctor,” she says, angry. “Everyone knows that creep.”

  “He’s the school doctor,” I say, “but not everyone knows him. Where did you spend winter break?”

  “With my parents.”

  “And their names are?” Maggie presses.

  At the rate we’re firing off questions and Tempest is firing off answers, the tension in the air is getting thick. The three of us are trying to be low key, but when you get strangers barging into your room and grilling you about your life and family, it’s kind of hard to want to ask them if they want to stay for tea and crackers.

  “If you don’t leave, I’m calling security.”

  “What, the guy in the wheelchair?” I say. “A boat load of good that’ll do.”

  She’s Georgia, I know it. If she were Bridget, she would have punched one of us by now. I decide to hit it hard, but Cicely beats me to the punch.

  “I was in San Francisco with you,” Cicely says. “In stasis.”

  “So was I,” I add.

  This stops her. Something floats through her eyes, then clarity. It’s like Victoria, I mean, Cicely, when she was deciding to come clean.

  “Everyone in the room knows it’s you,” I say, hoping she won’t feel so threatened. “We know who you are. We know you’re one of us.”

  “She’s not,” Tempest says, pointing at Maggie.

  “Yes she is,” I say, so thrilled inside I can hardly contain myself. Of all the girls I’ve missed, it’s been Georgia I’ve missed most. “Only I didn’t tell you guys because her transformation was different.”

  Tempest stares at Maggie in wonder. “This whole time you were friends with Julie and Cameron and Theresa? What was that about?”

  At this point the giddiness in me feels torrential, an energy forcing its way up me that about has me jumping out of my skin.

  “I was scared of what would happen to me if people found out,” Maggie says. “At least the four of you had each other. I had no one. And if I hung out with them, they wouldn’t suspect me of being a GMK.”

  Looking at me, Tempest says, “Who are you?”

  “Savannah.”

  “No,” she says dumbfounded and taking me in. “Really?” I nod, up and down fast and giddy. “But you’re…you’re white.”

  “Surprised us both,” I say.

  “You look,” Tempest says. “Really good. God, you look amazing!”

  I give her a heartfelt hug and say, “You’re Georgia, right?” The fact that she didn’t assault us means she’s Georgia.

  She steps back and looks at me. “Bridget.”

  My face must have betrayed me because she frowns and says, “Hoping I was Georgia?” With a huff, she says, “I knew you always like her best.”

  “We all liked her best,” Cicely says. “Even you, dummy.”

  “Victoria?”

  Cicely nods and the two of them embrace.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” I say, positively coming out of my skin. “Really, I am.”

  She turns and pulls me into another hug and says, “I know you are, bitch. And I’m damn glad to see you, too. All of you.” When we get done with the reunion, Bridget says to me, “So you’ve got a story to tell, looking totally different, and sexy as hell. Tell it already.”

  I fill her in on everything, but I didn’t want to because when I told Brayden and Victoria everything, it kind of stole their moment. With Bridget it’s no different. After I’m done, I can’t help feeling like I’m coming across as the world’s biggest buzz kill. Of course, that has me thinking, do I even know what it’s like to be happy?

  I do.

  I’m happy with Netty, happy with the non-triplets, who now really are the non-triplets. I try to remember those days, and finally, I feel myself smiling again.

  “We have to find Georgia,” I say. “I want us all back together again.”

  Georgia

  1

  Months have passed and we still haven’t found Georgia. She isn’t Lana Monroe. She isn’t anyone here. For the first few weeks I’m manic about this, but then we get sidetracked with the Bitch Brigade. Julie, Theresa and Blake finally return to their old selves, but they don’t say word one to me or my friends. Several times, when Blake and I were leaving our rooms at the same time, Blake would look at me and I would look at her and we’d nod at each other. An acknowledgement of each other’s willingness to do the unthinkable, if driven to it. I never did retaliate for being tazed in the hallway, and for this reason alone I think our mutual dislike for each other never escalated beyond that.

  But Julie and Cameron? Now there’s a different story altogether. Cameron took to Facebook with a vengeance. Like last semester, Brayden hacked into her account and added me as a friend so I would have access to her wall. I went about posting comments on every slanderous thing she said about me. Where she caught me looking ugly in certain photographs, I wrote things like: HOLY COW, TALK ABOUT A BAD HAIR DAY! And the picture that had me looking like I was picking my nose, I wrote: IT WAS THE BIGGEST BOOGER EVER!

  Then there was this picture with me and a very skinny, very emaciated looking Oakley walking down the hallway and she wrote: DO YOU THINK SHE HOLDS ONTO HIS RIBCAGE WHEN SHE’S BLOWING HIM? and I wrote, YES. I DO. I HAVE TO BECAUSE HE’S GOT A GIGANTIC…WELL, YOU KNOW! The thing about bullies is you can beat them at their own game by not taking yourself too seriously.

  Eventually I turn her own game against her. People started to comment about how she’s being rude and immature, that I was cool and she should leave me alone. Basically, by making fun of myself more than she could, people started to like me, forcing Cameron to pump the brakes.

  Julie, on the other hand, took a different tact. Whenever she would walk by me she’d say things like, “I just saw some guys laughing about the shirt you’re wearing,” if I was wearing something unique. On days where my hair wasn’t exactly perfect because of the rain, or the breeze or whatever, she’d walk by and whisper, “Bad hair day.” This would be no big deal if it was maybe once a day or once a week, but it was constant and daily. Sometimes it would be five or six times a day. At first, the newly acquired and merciless part of me ached to throw her down and claw her eyes o
ut, but then it occurred to me I could handle her the way I handled Cameron.

  So when she’d say things like, “That hairstyle makes you look butch,” I’d say, “That’s the look I’m going for.” When I was walking with Damien one day, being infatuated with him and—as usual—having him not be infatuated with me, she said, “He will never like you like that.” I simply smiled and said, “I know, I use him as bait when I’m trolling for other, hotter boys. Like Caden.”

  I knew she liked Caden and Caden liked me (but I am not acting on it because for some asinine reason I’m still holding out for Damien), so she said, “Me and Caden are seeing each other on the side,” which was a total lie, so I said, “I know, he told me you were the part-timer.” Of course, Caden said no such thing, but the look on her face was priceless.

  She never got a rise out of me so after about six weeks of this tirade of bullsh*t, she finally stopped. I was determined to outlast her, and she was determined to break me, but she didn’t. I won. But I was losing in other ways.

  Jake still made me crazy horny, but more and more he didn’t look so crazy horny for me. The shine in his eyes took on a dull hue over time. It was a travesty to watch. Eventually we were teacher and student again, as if our lips hadn’t touched, as if it had never been lust at first sight between us. Say what you want, but he is still the best piece of eye candy ever. I still get wet thinking of him. Since I’ve got other boys in my life—Brayden, Damien and Caden, and even Jacob at home—I try not to dwell on Jake too much, but part of me wants to. If only to be sad for what could have been, and will most likely never be.

  Then there’s Georgia. The fact that we haven’t found her yet is most depressing. It’s a dark hole I can’t crawl out from. I can’t go through life without ever seeing her again, I just can’t!

  Brayden hacked every set of records he could trying to find her parents, but they seem to have fallen off the radar, like me and my dad when we changed our identities, and it’s frustrating him. Hell, it’s frustrating us all.

  I do my part trying to find her, too. Not that it does any good. I press the other nine new girls, who all but hate me now because—when being nice and subtle didn’t produce the Georgia I was looking for—I pushed harder, got more brazen. Even now, I’m convinced none of them are Georgia.

  Gerhard hears from me regularly, too. He plays the doctor/patient confidentiality card every time I needle him for the truth about Georgia. Sometimes we’ll be cordial, other times I threaten him with blackmail, and still other times he says the absolute worst things to me. He once said if the corporation didn’t kill me he was damn well going to do it himself.

  The manic look in his eye was convincing.

  Then, finally, Brayden got a break. He called me from my room not ten minutes ago, and I’m practically walk-running there across campus, dragging Maggie in tow.

  2

  We get to my room and I’m out of breath, but hopeful. Me and Maggie are staring at Brayden, our perky chests heaving, our minds burning with anticipation.

  “I found them,” he says from behind my computer, proud. “Georgia’s parents.”

  And just like that, Christmas comes way early.

  “You’re sure it’s them?” I say, not fully trusting our good fortune. We’ve been searching a long time. Please, please, please be them!

  “I’m sure.”

  “How did you find them?” I ask.

  “Threat fusion centers.”

  “Like we know what those are,” Maggie says.

  “We live in the surveillance society, which means our rights to privacy are largely ceremonial. The NSA has these threat fusion centers across the nation, and basically they are huge centers for data mining and collection. Your personal emails, all your cell phone and home phone calls, your internet activity, your social networking comments…they’re all recorded, logged and stored. We’re talking millions of square feet of the most powerful servers and data storage you can’t ever imagine.

  “This whole push to go paperless…we’re totally susceptible to fraud. Plus there are hackers, and like I said, government sponsored data miners. And believe me when I tell you, there’s no entity more thorough about collecting your information than the NSA. That’s how I found out everything Georgia’s parents do financially gets done in their corporate business name. I located copies of their electronically filed tax returns. Long story short, they have an LLC in Wyoming because it’s a domestic tax shelter, but most of their stuff is legally run through offshore accounts. I followed the trail back to their home in Seattle.”

  “You hacked the NSA?” Maggie asks, dumbfounded.

  “Go on, say it,” he says, gloating. “I’m a freaking genius.”

  “You’re a freaking genius,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. He blushes, but I’m less concerned about that and more concerned with finding Georgia.

  “Looks like I’m heading to Seattle,” I say.

  “I’ll go with you,” Maggie says. “Oh, wait, crap. When are you going?”

  After a second’s thought, I say, “This weekend.”

  “You can’t,” Brayden says. “They’re currently in New York.”

  “So when will they be back?”

  “A week from tomorrow. Next Wednesday.”

  “That’s like ten days!” I say, all but throwing a tantrum. “We’re practically in May!”

  “I’ll tell Tempest,” Maggie says. “And Cicely, too.”

  “Maybe I could go to New York,” I say, wondering out loud.

  “Not with mid-terms coming up,” Brayden says. “You can’t stay focused and leave at the same time.”

  “Fine,” I say, shaking my head. “Dammit! Fine. Ten days.”

  The ten days pass faster some days than others. The entire time I’m moody and super short with everyone. Not a good friend at all. Brayden said if I wasn’t already so hot he’d tell me to go set myself on fire.

  I guess I didn’t really blame him. I’ve been a giant butthole, after all.

  3

  By the time I go through airport security, get my tits roughed up by a fat TSA broad looking for breast bombs, and my lady-junk thoroughly searched in case there are weapons in my vag, it’s all I can do not to write letters to my local Congressmen complaining about the TSA’s horrible, illegal treatment of US citizens. The way you get violated by those freaking creeps just because you want to board a plane, you almost forget each year more people die of bee stings in the U.S. than terrorist attacks. Don’t tell them that, though, or they may not let you fly.

  When I finally land in “rainy” Seattle, when I’ve shaken off most of the shock of feeling gate-raped, I’m like, thank freaking God it’s over.

  I don’t have to wait long in the downpour because there are several cabs waiting to pick up fares. I grab the closest one, give the driver the address to the Quick’s home, and try not to be depressed at the dark, wet skies. Even in the cab, I feel I should be cold. At Georgia’s parent’s house, I ask the driver to wait. The residence is gorgeous, an Aspen style home fit for an A-list celebrity.

  I ring the doorbell.

  A moment later an unattractive woman with kind eyes and hard frown lines opens the door, her eyes looking first at me, then over my shoulder at the cab.

  “Mrs. Quick?” I say.

  “Yes?” Still no smile. Then again, the last thing I expect is a smile.

  Mr. Quick might make all the money in the world financing start-up businesses, but that didn’t stop their son from dying in a car wreck two and a half years ago. It didn’t stop the breast cancer from taking both of Georgia’s mother’s breasts. And when you add to that Georgia’s need for a lung transplant, and her diagnosis of Cystic-Fibrosis—which rendered her infertile until Gerhard fixed her—you can see how every single line on Mrs. Quick’s face was earned through pain and suffering.

  “My name is Abigail Swann and I flew here all the way from Sacramento because what I’m about to say is that important.”

  “Ye
s?” she says, curious, perhaps a little uncertain. It’s like she’s terrified someone will see her in her front door and it has me a bit on edge.

  “My name is Abigail Swann, but it used to be Savannah Van Duyn.”

  Recognition hits her face and suddenly she’s dead silent, like the bundle of nerves she’s been fighting against just freaking won.

  “I don’t look like the earlier version of myself because, like your daughter, I’m a patient of Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard.”

  “I know who you are,” she says in an almost shameful whisper. “But why are you here?”

  “I need to find Georgia.”

  After a long minute of me standing in the moisture laden air, she opens the door wider and says, “Come in, dear. Come in.”

  Inside Georgia’s mother fixes me a warm cup of Chamomile tea with local honey (she points this out for whatever reason, and for whatever reason I nod and act like I’m relieved—like those out of town bees just aren’t doing it for me), then brings the cup to me on a saucer. The house is lovely inside, but there’s a pervading emptiness of emotion that hangs in the air like sickness. Looking around, smelling the odors of old age and cleaning products, no amount of over-the-top décor could make this place feel like home.

  Not even the gigantic plant in the corner. Which is beautiful and unusual. I can’t stop seeing it.

  “I thought you were dead,” she says, sipping from a cup of her own.

  She must have seen the news. “Where is she?” I ask. The air of pleasant subtlety is not a skill I hold in my wheelhouse.

  “Before people talk business, they should always get to know each other.” Like I’m twelve and this is my first foray into society.

  “Georgia isn’t business, Mrs. Quick. She’s my friend and it took me a lot of time and effort to find you and your home. I’m tired and I miss her. I need to know where she is.”

  She sets down her tea cup, makes a big deal of wiping the corner of her mouth, then takes a deep breath, looks me dead in the eye and says, “She’s at Astor Academy.”