Falls the Shadow

by Stefanie Gaither

  “I know this sucks, okay? And I’m sorry about everything the CCA has done to you. I really am. That’s why I’m here—to apologize.” He steps cautiously toward me. Takes a deep breath. Hesitates, like he hasn’t completely decided whether or not he wants to say this next part out loud. “Because just for the record?” he finally continues. “I don’t agree with everything that goes on here. I don’t agree with a lot of it.”

  “But you don’t agree with people like me, either, right? People like my sister.”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  “You think my sister killed Samantha Voss. That’s why you brought me here. You think I know what happened and I’m just not telling you.”

  Another deep breath. In his nose, out his mouth. He doesn’t answer me.

  “That’s what I thought,” I say.

  “Well,” he says, “do you know what happened?” His features are perfectly stoic. He’s actually asking me that. He actually thinks I might be an accomplice to murder.

  Suddenly I’m so angry I can hardly breathe, much less talk; after several attempts, I manage to force two scathing words from my mouth: “Get. Out.”

  He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall, frowning.

  “Okay, then you stay. I’ll leave.” I shove past him just as the door slides open again, and Seth Lancaster—of all people—steps inside. Because that’s what I get for thinking today couldn’t get worse.

  “You too?” I mutter under my breath, staring at the huge grin on Seth’s face.

  “So it’s true,” he says. “She really is here. Excellent.”

  My face flames. Of course he’d find it excellent. I’m sure he thinks this is fantastic payback for me punching him yesterday. Although I’m not sure it’s a fair trade-off—since his nose seems perfectly fine today. If I’d known he was CCA, I probably would have punched him harder and at least made it worth getting suspended over.

  “What are you doing in here?” Jaxon asks. The edge in my voice is in his now too, and Seth seems taken aback by it. He gets over it quickly enough.

  “Looking for you, actually,” he says, “because I was wondering how things had turned out. But now I see it for myself, of course—and can I just say thanks?”

  I’m even more confused than ever, but Jaxon shakes his head and says, “You and Alex have been betting again, haven’t you?”

  Seth beams at him. “You know that moron bet me a fifty the other day that you wouldn’t be able to pull this one off?” he says, pointing at me. Because I’m apparently just a “this” now. “And when you f’ed up yesterday, I talked him into going double or nothing. So you know what that means? It means I’m a hundred bucks richer because I kept the faith in you, my friend.”

  My eyes narrow. “You were placing bets on whether or not Jaxon would manage to kidnap me?” I ask, taking an angry step toward him.

  He spins around and does this crazy kung fu pose, his hand up like he’s going to karate chop me or something. “Back up, devil woman,” he says. “You punch me again and I’m hitting you back this time.”

  “No. You are not,” Jaxon says, grabbing Seth by the sleeve and jerking him back.

  “Did you see what she did to my nose yesterday?” Seth protests, shrugging his arm free. “She has a mean right hook. I don’t care if she is a girl—it would still be a fair fight.”

  “Yeah right,” Jaxon says. “She would kick your ass, and we both know it.” He flashes me a quick smile. I don’t return it, as charming as it might be. That charm is what got me into this mess in the first place; I’m not falling for it again.

  “That was cold, man,” Seth says.

  “Get out, Seth,” Jaxon says.

  “Are you betraying me for the clonie? Because I feel like I’m being betrayed for the clonie.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  Seth’s grin is unapologetic. “And getting defensive, too? Right . . . I think I get what’s going on here. Did I interrupt something? Is that why you both looked so pissed off when I walked in?”

  “Out, Seth.”

  “Because, you know, you could have just kept on doing your thing. I could have sat quietly in the corner and waited.”

  “Kept on doing what thing?” I ask.

  He cocks an eyebrow. And I clench my fist and draw it back, thinking about hitting him on purpose this time.

  “Please don’t hit me,” he says, throwing his hands in front of his face. “Save your wrath for someone less handsome. The world can’t afford to lose a face like this.”

  “Debatable,” Jaxon says.

  Seth fakes a crushed expression. “If that isn’t betrayal, I don’t know what is.”

  “Can I make up for it by walking you to the door?” Jaxon suggests.

  “All right. Okay. I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

  “Sometimes I wonder about that.”

  Seth’s smile only widens before he turns and walks to the door. “Oh, and by the way,” he says, glancing back at Jaxon, “mama-president was looking for you. Said it was urgent.”

  “You couldn’t have told me that five minutes ago?”

  He just shrugs and then disappears into the hallway.

  “Sorry about that,” Jaxon says.

  “Why are you apologizing for him?”

  “I think it’s just a reflex at this point,” he answers, trying that smile out on me again.

  Still not letting it work.

  “Sometimes I don’t even listen to what he says,” he goes on, “but I still apologize for it, because nine times out of ten someone needs to.” He laughs, shaking his head. “He doesn’t mean half of what he says, though. Especially not the name-calling part. The clones and Huxley and the CCA—I don’t think he could care less about any of that.”

  “But he’s CCA, right?”

  “Technically, yeah. But mostly he just hangs out around here because he’s got nowhere else to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Both his parents are dead, we think. He’s never told me how, or when; he doesn’t talk about it much. I just know my mom found him wreaking havoc in this park near where we used to live, like ten years ago; he threw a rock at her car, and she chased him down and made him apologize for it. She brought him home when she found out he was alone, ’cause he looked half-starved. Wouldn’t even tell us where he’d come from or anything. He’s been sort of like a little brother to me ever since he got here; sometimes I think that’s why Mom actually brought him home—because I always complained that I didn’t have any siblings or anything, and it was boring as hell around the headquarters here by myself. Like how some parents get their kids a dog for company, you know? Well, my mom got me a homeless kid.” He raises one shoulder and lets it drop. “Same difference. Except Seth doesn’t fetch worth crap, and he’s proven impossible to house-break.”

  So they’re family, then. And now I understand why he apologized. I’m guessing it’s for the same reason I find myself apologizing for the things Violet says and does—even though there’s no way I can control them. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do for your family, right? Try to protect them from everyone who doesn’t understand?

  “So he lives with you?” I ask.

  He nods, and then there’s a long, uncomfortable silence where I think we’re both wondering when and how we started conversing civilly again, and whether we’re supposed to pick up our argument or just let it fade into the background for now.

  I clear my throat purposefully.

  “Your mother’s probably wondering where you are,” I say.

  He frowns again but doesn’t keep arguing. He does pause on his way out, though, and turn to me one last time. “Just . . . look, if you need anything . . .”

  What I need is for him to not be such a liar. I need him to be the person I thought he was, who would never leave me alone in this cell to rot. I need for my sister to stop wrecking everything, and for my life to stop being such a mess. But since I don’t thin
k he can deliver on any of those things, I settle for asking for something more practical: a computer. He looks at me like I’m crazy for thinking he could get away with slipping something like that into this cell. Then he leaves without another word.

  But less than an hour later, he’s back. He hands me a thin tablet computer and then leaves again, just as silently. I stare at the door for a long time afterward, trying to make sense of his motives. He said he didn’t agree with everything that went on here. But was he telling the truth?

  Or is this another trick?

  It doesn’t matter, I eventually decide. I can’t just sit here and see what happens. I have this computer now, for whatever reason—and one way or another, I’m going to use it to get out of here.

  Now I just have to decide how to go about that. My first thought—the whole reason I asked for it in the first place—was so I could use it to send a message to my parents, to tell them what’s happened and to send help. If I could somehow make sure it wouldn’t be intercepted by anyone, that would be the most obvious solution. And home is the most obvious place to go.

  But what’s waiting for me there?

  Jaxon told me there’s still no sign of Violet anywhere, which means our house will still be crawling with expectant police and protestors. I don’t want to deal with them. I don’t want to have to face the press, either, shoving their recorders in my face and demanding to know where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, what I know. Especially since I don’t even know what I know.

  Because, as much as I want to deny it, I can’t help but wonder: What if everything President Cross said is true? What if everything my parents have ever told me about the cloning movement—about my whole life—really is a lie? What if they don’t know what’s really going on either?

  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to separate the truths from the lies, when they both sound the same to me. But there has to be a way, right? Some way to grab truth at the source, instead of waiting for it to trickle down to me only after it’s passed through the filters that my parents and society and everyone else has set up?

  The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that source is Violet.

  And the more I think that maybe I don’t want to go home just yet.

  Since last night, I’ve been running through this list in my head of all the places she might go, and I have it narrowed down to a handful. The most likely location, I decide, is the cemetery about an hour and a half outside the city. It’s where the first Violet is buried, and this Violet has always had a strange, secret obsession with visiting it. It’s far enough from Haven to keep her out of the city police’s immediate radar, and it’s the last place anybody would probably think she’d go—so it seems like a good place for me to start looking.

  Now I just have to get out of this room.

  * * *

  I wait until half past midnight to put my plan into motion. By then, the intercom hasn’t beeped in over an hour, and the chatter of people outside my door has stopped. I still press my ear to the cold steel for a minute—holding my breath and listening for footsteps or voices—before creeping back to the bed and picking up the computer.

  Bypassing the login screen for the Network is a simple matter of finding the right password files and decrypting them. Soon I’ve got full administrator access, and I’m able to configure the connection to use the anonymization proxy server I set up on my parents’ computer (unknown to them) a long time ago. So now I’ve got complete access to wherever I need to go, and anyone who might intercept what I’m doing won’t be able to trace me. Easy enough.

  I find the president’s com-address. I’m signed in as a guest, and the way I have things configured, she should see nothing but an anonymous sender on her end. But now comes the hard part: trying to convince her that the anonymous sender is Violet—and that she’s somehow figured out that the CCA is holding me hostage here. If Cross asks about that, I’m going to have to convince her that someone in here is leaking information. Which will mean I’ll have to decide who I’d rather blame that on more: Jaxon or Seth. Jaxon, probably. It seems like fair enough payback.

  I have the first message already typed: I want to make a deal.

  I tap send.

  I want to make a deal is what Violet would say. She would be straightforward like that. Wouldn’t she? I was so sure when I typed it, but now I’m getting nervous. When and if President Cross answers me, what will she say? And how would Violet reply? I should know. We’re sisters. No one knows her better than I do. Me and the first Violet even used to pretend to be twins when we were little; we’d switch names and spend the day as each other, and when our mother was in a good mood she’d even play along with us. Sometimes I’d be my sister all day long, and then Mother would tuck me into Violet’s bed, and Violet into mine. Just a game, but we took it so seriously sometimes. That was Old-Violet, though. And now I can’t help but worry—what if I don’t know New-Violet as well as I thought I did?

  But maybe what I know isn’t that important, anyway. It only matters what I can make other people think.

  The monitor blinks. I’ve got it set to visual notifications only, because I’m still paranoid that there are people waiting outside, listening for any sort of noise.

  On the screen is a short message, demanding that I identify myself.

  So I do.

  This time my name is Violet Benson. And if the president wants me to cooperate, she’ll bring my little sister Catelyn to the ETS C-station in Westside. Because I’m the one they want.

  Not her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Truce

  The air in Westside always has a metallic, chemical-like scent, thanks to the numerous energy reactors that dominate the skyline. It’s a poor, run-down area filled with people who usually didn’t end up here by choice. Not the safest part of town, but it’s also the place I’m least likely to be recognized (my mother would not be caught dead in this neighborhood), and the station here is the closest one to what’s left of Highway 21, which I think I can follow out of the city and north to the cemetery.

  Once I get outside the city limits, the details of my brilliant plan get a little . . . fuzzier. I know that the only vehicles that really use the old highway system are trucks from the massive complex of warehouses to the south of Haven. They deliver all up and down the East Coast, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to stow away on one of them for most of the trek up to my sister’s grave. It wouldn’t be impossible to walk if I had to; I’d just rather avoid that if I can. The quicker I find Violet, the better.

  “Your sister is late,” President Cross says, walking over to me with her arms folded across her chest. It must be after four a.m. by now, but she still has that tense, hawklike alertness to her face.

  I don’t say anything. I’ve managed to fool her this long; now I’m just waiting for the perfect moment to set off the distress disc I had stashed in the pocket of my jacket. My father bought me several of these discs after Violet and I had a particularly nasty run-in with some persistent paparazzi. Just in case, he said. I had no idea I’d end up being this thankful that he always nagged me about keeping one with me at all times.

  “It seems she doesn’t care very much about you after all, does she?”

  I try my best to look disappointed. Like I was really expecting Violet to show up and rescue me. President Cross looks convinced; her smile is brisk as she whips a phone out of the bag at her side, then walks over and disappears into the shadows of the looming ETS tracks above us. Three of the men she brought along follow her at a distance, leaving only two more that I have to outrun.

  I take one last look behind me. It’s a straight shot to a narrow street that looks like it forks both directions at the end. Not much to trip over; I can run it with my eyes closed.

  I slide my hand into my pocket and find the grooved button on the side of the disc. A high-pitched whine starts, gets louder and louder; I shut my eyes tightly and toss the disc just as the sound is becoming unbearable. Even thr
ough my eyelids I see the explosion of light it releases, and I hear the shouts of agony from the CCA members. I turn and leap into a mad dash. Someone gets a hand on my arm, but I blindly twist free and keep running—hopefully still facing the right direction.

  Once I feel like I’ve made it at least twenty feet away, I open my eyes just enough to see the street beneath me. So I notice the massive crack in the pavement ahead. Just not in enough time to avoid tripping over it. I roll over the ground, scrape my arm and shoulder badly enough that warm blood starts to bubble up on my skin, but I don’t even come to a complete stop before leaping back to my feet. After a few wobbly steps, I regain my balance and decide that it’s probably safe to open my eyes completely now.

  So I do, and I find myself approaching a concrete wall that has to be at least twenty feet high.

  Crap.

  How did I get so turned around?

  I barely have time to curse before I hear more shouts. They still sound disoriented, but it won’t be long until that wears off. To my right is a building that looks abandoned. Half of its windows are missing, boarded up, or broken and glistening in the moonlight. The window closest to me is covered in a thick layer of grime, but still intact; I grab a chunk of broken concrete nearby and fling it at the glass.

  Inside, it’s almost pitch black, and it smells like dust and what has to be years’ worth of rat droppings and whatever trash the rodents have brought in here to build nests with. I hold my breath and feel my way along a narrow hallway, jumping at every noise and sincerely hoping one of those rats doesn’t decide to run over my feet.

  I make it to a large, open room; there’s a huge skylight overhead that’s nearly opaque from filth, but it still lets in enough moonlight to illuminate stacks of metal pallets that have rusted to varying degrees. Between some of the pallets are piles of dirty blankets and pillows and the charred remains of little fires; the air in here smells more like alcohol than dust, and the bottles and beer cans scattered over the floor make me almost as uneasy as the possibility of any CCA members catching up with me. I don’t want to have to fight off any drunken homeless people either.