by Meg Collett
“Please, call me Hutton. We’ll be on a first-name basis soon.”
“Yes, ma’am. I—”
“I’m sorry if your pickup was a little …” Hutton searched for the right word. “Abrasive. I’m sure you understand our need for discretion.”
Wren was a dust bunny hidden behind a too-gorgeous piece of furniture. “Right. But what—”
“Bode,” Hutton interrupted, “can you update Hazen? I’m sure he’d like to know Wren has arrived.”
Bode gave Wren an encouraging smile as he left the room, his footsteps silent over the floor, as if moving quietly were innate.
Hutton’s spotlight attention landed squarely back on Wren. “Let’s chat on the couches. You must be so overwhelmed.”
“Okay?” Wren followed Hutton into the living room, which sprawled across the penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows, white furniture, heaps of flowers, and a massive ceiling fan slowly oscillating.
“When Hazen said we were going to check out the Links’ stoppage reports first, I doubted him. But you’re practically Sloane’s doppelganger. With a few adjustments … Anyway, we’ll get to that shortly.”
Hutton gestured for Wren to take a seat on a white suede sofa. Wren eyed it wearily, all too aware of her dirty clothes and rancid smell. In the car with Bode, she’d fooled herself into thinking she could handle this, but now, here with Hutton, nerves pooled in her stomach.
“Um,” she stuttered. “I don’t want to get anything dirty.”
Hutton cocked her head and studied Wren in such an analytical way, Wren expected to hear something whirring behind Hutton’s ears. “Don’t worry about the couch. We can bring in a new one.”
“Oh.” Wren still stuffed her hands under her legs as she sat down, perching herself on her knuckles. Her legs started aching immediately, but to distract herself, she looked outside.
A large window took up the entire wall of the apartment and overlooked a city of flashing lights. A flock of birds flew by, silhouetted against the billboards behind them. Hutton settled into a leather wingback chair, gracefully arranging her long legs and running a hand over her perfectly styled chignon. Wren straightened on the sofa.
“Do you need anything to drink? Eat?”
“No.” Wren’s voice cracked. “Thank you.”
“Good. In that case, let’s get down to business, shall we?”
Not knowing if she was supposed to answer, Wren nodded. She prayed she didn’t choke or cough.
“Why are you here, Wren?”
The question startled her. “Because I look like Sloane Lux?”
“You do.” Hutton smiled, but it wasn’t warm. It was too sharp and jagged. “But that’s not enough. You must convince everyone watching the show—and trust me, everyone will be watching—that you are Sloane Lux. How will you do that?”
Wren rearranged her aching hands. She had the awful feeling she wasn’t doing this right. “You brought me here. Shouldn’t you be telling me that?”
“I’ll tell you that and more, I promise. But you see, Wren, you have a unique set of circumstances that make you an exceptional candidate. As such, we need to make sure you understand the magnitude of your responsibility.”
“What sort of circumstances?”
Without answering, Hutton retrieved a file from the silver side table next to her chair. The folder wasn’t very thick, but she pulled out a long sheet of black film. A reverse image of a pair of blotchy lungs interspersed with dark spots caught the light. Wren’s mouth went dry. She’d seen that x-ray before.
“Those are my lungs,” she said.
“Yes.” Hutton held up the film. “They are. Wren, you’re very sick. You have an advanced form of lung cancer. It’s the same cancer that killed your mother.”
Wren couldn’t respond. Put like that, so simply, there wasn’t anything she could say.
“These lungs are your unique set of circumstances. Your disease makes you exceptionally qualified to be Sloane Lux. Do you know why?”
Wren might be frail, but she wasn’t stupid. “Because VidaCorp can cure me if I replace Sloane. It’s leverage.”
Hutton dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “Your lungs ensure you will appreciate the stakes here. We need you to convince the world you’re Sloane Lux, but we have to know when things get hard, you won’t give up or make a mistake. We need to trust you’ll play your part.” Hutton waved the film, and it crackled as it bent to and fro. “This ensures you will.”
Wren’s nerves were cooling into something more solid. She had some power here, and she needed to use it. “When you say it like that, it sounds like blackmail.”
“Consider it a carrot dangling in front of your cute little bunny nose. Pacem can heal you once it’s legalized this November. And you need to be healed because, according to VidaCorp’s doctors, you’ll die in twenty-three days, give or take a few hours.”
Give or take a few hours.
Wren’s mind spun around the words. Twenty-three days. That was all? The ever-present death clock in the back of her mind tilted off its axis. She didn’t even have a month left. She felt like she might throw up. Twenty-three days might as well be a day. An hour. A minute. It was nothing. She was nothing more than a dead girl—unless VidaCorp saved her. The sliver of power she’d felt seconds ago zapped out of sight.
“You don’t want to die, right?”
Tears stung Wren’s eyes. “No.”
The word was like a plea.
Twenty-three days. Give or take a few hours.
All she felt was desperation. Thick, hopeful desperation. VidaCorp had to save her. Her tears fell.
“I didn’t think so. You’re a fighter, even if you don’t know it yet. You’ll convince the world you’re Sloane Lux, because you want to live. But if you mess up, if something happens …” Hutton let the threat dangle like she was too kind to speak the words aloud, but Wren understood. If she messed up, she wouldn’t get her final cure. “After the show, you’ll get a free lifetime supply of Pacem, in addition to living here in the city. You won’t be Sloane anymore, of course, and you’ll receive more alterations, but you can remain in the city. You’ll be healthy, rich, and beautiful and have a completely new life if you give us what we want.”
All this hinged on the legalization of Pacem, but everyone acted like Beau had already won the election.
“What if he doesn’t win?” Wren asked.
Hutton’s brows spiked over her warm caramel eyes. “Beau?” She laughed. “Of course he’s going to win. The people are begging for Pacem. They refuse to support a president who backs the current government’s attempt to block a drug that will save lives. Glass House will show them how important Beau is to our future. After the show wraps, there won’t be any question as to who the next president will be.”
Never before had a presidential nominee been on a reality show. Beau was young and beautiful, and when he spoke in his slow Southern drawl, people listened. He said what everyone wanted to hear: I can heal you. I can save you. You can live healthy, long lives. And people believed him. If citizens heard his rhetoric every day for an entire season of Glass House right before the election, there was no way he would lose.
With a shiver, Wren understood what Mak had been saying. VidaCorp had their fingers on the pulse of this election. Pacem would be legal within months. The only hitch in the plan was Sloane’s death.
“We need a new Sloane,” Hutton said. “Glass House will be the success it’s meant to be. Which brings us back to my first question. How are you going to convince the world you’re Sloane Lux?”
This time, Hutton expected an answer. Wren glanced around the room like she might come up with an answer if she wasn’t staring at Hutton’s blinding perfection. The walls were papered in a reflective gold wallpaper, and warm light streamed in from the bay of windows. Wren never could’ve imagined all this luxury in one place, but she spent a moment imagining what city air would feel like in her lungs. What clean air would taste like. How it wou
ld feel on her skin.
Those sensations were within reach. And the fact she’d have to pretend she was a dead girl? Well, Wren had that down.
Her eyes drifted back to Hutton. She had her answer.
“Because I don’t want to be me anymore,” she whispered. “I want a new life. I want to be someone else, anyone else. I planned on running away when the coughing got bad.” Wren didn’t let herself think about Mak or how she’d planned on leaving Sunshine Heights to die, but the hope monster gave her another idea, another thought that felt infinitely more hopeful: living. “When you spend your life planning to die, you never get to live. And I want that. I want to be more than a sick, dying girl. You won’t find anyone else who’ll be a better Sloane than me. I’ll become her, I promise.”
By the end of her answer, Wren was leaning forward. She sat back, stunned, but also proud of herself.
Hutton considered Wren’s response. “We can make you look and sound exactly like Sloane. In the three weeks before the show starts, you’ll learn how to act and speak like her, and when we’re on set, I’ll help you. But only you can convince the world. If you do a good job, you’ll get your health back. You’ll get a whole new life. Are you ready?”
Hutton slipped out another piece of paper from the file and handed it to Wren. It was a contract. The paper started to shake in her hand.
“Are you ready?” Hutton repeated. Her fingers skimmed the x-ray in her lap, over the image of Wren’s battered lungs.
Wren unclipped the pen attached to the top of the contract. “Where do I sign?”
Hutton paused, surprised. Wren guessed that didn’t happen often with Hutton. “Don’t you want to read it first?”
There were only a few pages on Wren’s lap, but they were heavy with the weight of her new life, her new hope. The words on the cover page swam. She’d never been good at reading because the letters always moved too much. She bit her lip; she didn’t want to tell Hutton she couldn’t read the contract.
“You’ll tell me what I need to know?” Wren ventured.
“Of course.”
“And … and I have a friend back in Sunshine Heights. Her name is Mak. She’s like a sister to me. Can … can she come here?”
“Wren,” Hutton said heavily, “that’s not possible. Your life outside the city is over. Soon, this girl”—she gestured at Wren’s dirty clothing—“will be gone. Your friends will be the ones on the show. Although, I should warn you, they won’t really be your friends. You’re on your own now.”
Wren had to look away as fresh tears filled her eyes. She scrutinized the dirty spot on her hand. If she stayed here, she would lose Mak forever. But leaving meant giving up a cure to her cancer. She’d go back to Sunshine Heights and die in a few weeks. Through the window, she saw nothing but city lights dancing across the bright sky.
She could belong here.
Mak would want that, right? And maybe … maybe if Wren made this work, she could leverage for Mak to come later. Wren couldn’t give up, not when she was this close to a cure. Could she be selfish enough to survive? She thought she could.
“I don’t need to read it,” she murmured. “I’m ready to start.”
Hutton’s face lit up brighter than the city beyond the window as she beamed at Wren. “You know, I think Sloane would have liked you. Sign on the dotted line.”
Wren slashed her signature, her hand trembling. Her writing was illegible, but Hutton swept the contract up and tucked the papers beneath a toned arm. She stood, brushing off her pristine pants, and grinned down at Wren.
“Before we get started on your alterations, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Wren heard nothing beyond Hutton’s mention of alterations. “We’re starting today?”
“We can’t waste any time, can we? Don’t worry. You’re in great hands.”
Just then, the elevator into the penthouse dinged, and the doors whooshed open. Sick with nerves, Wren stood and turned toward the entry. She tried to smooth her rumpled, filthy pants, but it was useless. She tucked a stringy lock of hair behind her ear as the visitor’s worn boots appeared in her line of sight. Slowly, she looked up.
Roman Wade.
Wren knew he was beautiful from all the times she’d seen him on television—she’d been braced for that—but what she hadn’t been prepared for was how terrifying he was. His black hair was disheveled and shoved back from his forehead. Heavy brows lowered above angry dark eyes. He didn’t smile, and when he moved farther into the room, he prowled. He could devour the world and still be famished.
There was a scar beneath his right eye, jagged and raised. It should have been ugly, but it wasn’t.
“You must be Wren,” Roman said, stopping a few feet from her. She fought the urge to step back. He said the next words like he was naming her form of execution: “I’ll be your boyfriend for the next few months.”
6:
Wren had been staring at Roman for a moment longer than what was comfortable. She went to speak, but the words lodged in her chest.
Oh no, she thought. Not this. Not now.
Her lips parted on a wheezy gasp. The air wedged in her throat and twisted like it wanted to come back out of her mouth. She coughed.
“You okay?” Roman asked, frowning.
Horrified, Wren nodded furiously and struggled to hold back a second cough.
She couldn’t.
The cough tore through her clenched lips. Its force doubled her over as her stomach contracted.
“God, Hutton. You couldn’t even wait until she got settled before you paraded her in front of everyone?” Roman growled the words over Wren’s head.
Wren screwed her eyes shut and coughed again.
“Not everyone,” Hutton said with a sniff. “I wanted you to see who you’d be working with these next few weeks.”
Wren winced at Hutton’s sugarcoated words. They sounded nice but left a bitter sting under her skin. She needed to get away and hide out in a bathroom until she’d collected herself.
“Maybe I—” she wheezed.
Roman’s eyes slashed back to hers. “Maybe you should sit down.”
He advanced toward her, and she instinctively stepped back and bumped into the couch.
“You’re being too sensitive,” Hutton told him.
“Maybe you should try it sometime.”
Wren pressed a hand against her chest to steady her bucking lungs. Roman took another step toward her, reaching to guide her back onto the couch, but Wren didn’t want to sit. Sitting made the coughing worse. Roman kept coming, and then his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her down onto the white cushions. Her lungs bucked in her chest, and the room slanted. White spots burst across her vision. She put her head between her legs as her coughing fit built into an unending gasp for air.
“Does she have an inhaler?” Roman asked.“What’s wrong with her?”
“She can’t have any medication until Hazen approves—”
“What the hell?” The sharp staccato beat of the voice accompanied the military-like march of boots across the floor. Bode.
“She’s fine,” Hutton said from a few feet away. “Just got overexcited when Roman came in. A little fan-girl moment is all.”
“Get back.” New hands descended on Wren. They wrapped around her and gently laid her on her back on the floor. His hand cradled her neck. She opened her eyes between fits, and Bode’s face filled her vision. He lifted her head to open her airway. The spots across her vision faded. “Go get the medicine,” he commanded Hutton.
Had he barked the order at her, Wren would have listened. His eyes held the kind of authority that made her nerves dance. But Hutton argued. “She can’t—”
Bode reared up. “Now.”
Wren shivered at his tone—and even Hutton didn’t argue with that single word. Heels clicked over the floor and disappeared into another room.
“Is she okay?” Roman asked from somewhere beside Wren.
Her coughs were deep, slow
gasps. Her breathing sounded ragged and weak.
“She will be.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Cancer,” Bode said, his attention returning to Wren. He leaned closer to her face. “You’re okay. Just breathe deep. Relax.”
Hutton’s clicking heels returned, faintly at first, then growing stronger the closer she came to Wren. “Here.”
Bode reached over Wren’s body and took what Hutton offered. The device was small in his hand as he shook it.
“Open your mouth,” he said, bringing the thin inhaler to Wren’s lips.
She did as she was told. The metal was cool against her mouth.
“Ready?” he asked.
As she took a stuttering breath, Bode dispensed the medicine into her mouth. It rushed into her lungs and fanned out. Wren exhaled, and like magic, her lungs complied. Her next inhale was miraculous, long and easy, without any spasms or gasps. Normally, she just passed out during these fits.
“Better?” Bode asked. She nodded. “Keep lying down for a minute.”
There was nothing else in the world she’d rather do, except maybe lie down in a dark corner with no one around to stare at her. Closing her eyes, she stayed limp on the floor and breathed. Already, the headache was going away. Each exhale applied a cool balm to her sore throat. As her awareness returned and she felt the white fur rug at her back, she realized everyone was likely marveling over the spectacular blue color of her skin. She moved to sit up.
“No,” Bode said, putting a hand on her chest. “Stay down for another minute.”
“I’m getting the rug dirty,” Wren slurred, but he must have caught the words, because his expression softened.
“The rug is fine. Just catch your breath. Do you cough like that often?”
“I’m fine,” she answered instinctively.
“What stage is she?” he asked Hutton. Wren enjoyed the clipped tone he used when talking to Hutton.
“Four. The cancer has metastasized to her adrenal glands. No other mets at this time.”