Falls the Shadow

by Stefanie Gaither

  I take a deep breath and start down the next set of hallways, then up a staircase that’s missing its railing. I reach the top step, and less than ten feet away I see what’s left of a set of double doors leading out into the street. The glass is gone from these, too, and most of the frame is missing from the one on the left. I creep toward them, listening intently to the distant murmur of city traffic, and for any possible sign of people outside.

  I’m about to make a run for it when I hear footsteps echoing off the cinderblock walls in every direction.

  I break into a sprint. Less than two feet from the door, someone grabs my arm and jerks me back, clamping a cold hand over my mouth. I kick the person as hard as I can in the ankle, but the hold just gets tighter and I keep getting dragged backward. It’s not until I bite the hand covering my mouth that a familiar voice hisses in my ear, “Catelyn, it’s me.”

  And I’m so stunned to hear Jaxon’s voice that for a moment I can’t do anything except calm down and let him pull me farther back into the darkness. But after about ten more feet, I get over that, and I kick his ankle even harder this time. He finally lets me go then, but he moves around to block my way back to the exit.

  “Calm down,” he says. In the darkness I can’t see his face, but I can hear the sharp note of anxiety in his voice.

  “What are you doing here? If you came to try to talk me into cooperating, you can forget it—I’m not going back.” I try to fight my way past him, but in the dim light I end up running straight into his chest instead. He wraps his arms around me, refuses to let go even when I get my fingernails up under his shirt and dig them as deep as I can into the skin of his stomach. I keep digging and twisting and kicking, but he’s a lot stronger than I would have guessed from just looking at his skinny frame.

  “I don’t want you to go back.” His voice is a quick, rough whisper now. “I want you to be quiet before my mom and her guys hear us and we both end up in a lot of trouble.”

  I stop fighting as the meaning behind his words sinks in. “Your mother doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

  “She will if you keep making all that noise.”

  Blood thumps in my ears. Is he telling the truth? What am I supposed to do? I can’t trust him. I could probably outrun him if I could get away, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight him off.

  “Let go of me,” I say. “Let go of me and I’ll stop being loud.”

  “And you won’t run?”

  “No.”

  “Or kick me again?”

  “I’m not making any promises about that.”

  He hesitates. Then his hands slide slowly, cautiously, from my waist. But the very tips of his fingers still linger, a ghostlike touch against my skin, anticipating movement. And he’s right to anticipate it. Because my first thought is to bolt, despite my promise. I’m not sure why I don’t. Still too shocked, maybe.

  “Why are you here,” I ask, “if you don’t want to take me back to your mother?”

  “Where are you planning on going?” he asks instead of answering me.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I could help you.”

  “The same way you helped me yesterday? Yeah, thanks but no thanks.”

  “You never really let me explain that.”

  “Is there anything to explain? You lied to me. I trusted you, and you betrayed me before we even—”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “What?”

  “I never said I wasn’t going to bring you to the CCA.”

  “You . . . you are unbelievable, you know that?”

  “And if I hadn’t taken you there, somebody else would have,” he presses. “Because I’ve never seen my mom so desperate to track down a clone as she is with your sister. She isn’t going to let Huxley get to Violet first. And my mom’s convinced you’re the best key to finding her—so there’s no telling what they would have done to get you back there if I hadn’t volunteered to do it myself.”

  “So am I supposed to thank you, then?”

  “No.” We hear footsteps, far in the distance, and he leans in a little closer and lowers his voice. “But you could give me a little more credit. Maybe I’m not as horrible as you think I am.”

  “Or maybe you’re a liar.”

  “Or maybe I’m just trying to figure things out, and you’re making that incredibly difficult for me.” I can hear the frustration building in his voice.

  “Me? What have I done? And what do you have to figure out, anyway? All you have to do is follow orders. The CCA has its mission statement, right? If you get confused, just repeat it to yourself a couple times and that should sort things out.”

  He takes a step back. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  I’d started trying to shove my way around him again, but something in his tone makes me hesitate. I attempt to keep going anyway but only make it a few steps before he says, “You’re thinking about leaving the city, aren’t you?”

  I stop and tilt my face back toward him even though I can’t see anything in the darkness. “How do you—”

  “Why else would you tell them to take you to that particular ETS station?” he says drily. “I know you didn’t come to Westside for the scenery. Or the gigantic mutated rats.”

  “Those are an urban legend.”

  “We hope, don’t we?”

  I suppress a shiver as I turn around. “Fine. Yes. I’m leaving. So what?”

  For a long moment, everything is quiet. No footsteps echoing, no hum of traffic from outside. Just our tense, shallow breathing. Then he takes a deeper breath and says, “I want to leave with you.”

  It starts in my fingertips—the tingling itch of suspicion from before—and crawls over every inch of my skin.

  “Why?” I demand.

  “I told you. I have things to figure out.”

  “Well so do I—and I don’t need you getting in my way.”

  “Getting in your way?” His laugh is sharp and irritated. “I’m the reason you got out of headquarters in the first place. Do you have any idea how much trouble I’m going to be in if my mom finds out I gave you that computer? Even though I knew you were going to use it to escape somehow. How exactly did you manage to trick her, anyway?”

  “So you’re running away because you’re afraid of your mother?” I ask, ignoring his question about my methods. The first secret to success: Never reveal everything you know. Advice from my father that feels especially relevant at the moment.

  “No,” Jaxon says. “No, I’m running away because I want to see if I was right to help you. And because I want to find out firsthand what really happened to Samantha—which means finding your sister before anybody else, right? Because Huxley will twist any confession they get out of her.”

  “And so would your mother.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” His expression is pained. “Anyway, Samantha was my friend—so, believe whatever you want about me, but I’m going to find out what really happened, for her sake. I just thought it made sense for the two of us to work together on this.”

  He sounds sincere. As always. But for all I know, delivering that line was just him following another order.

  When I push by him this time, he doesn’t try to stop me. But he does follow me.

  “You don’t have to go alone,” he says to my retreating back. “I could help you. I have a car, and I can get Seth to come—he’s annoying, but he can be useful too. He’ll know how to disable the tracer on the Camaro, for starters, so we won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Maybe I want to go alone.” The words are automatic. They’re not entirely untrue, either—even though he did just remind me of an important point: He has a car.

  Finding Violet would be a lot easier if I had him to drive me around. Of course, that means trusting him more than I’d planned on ever doing again. But the alternative is walking. Or hitchhiking with complete strangers, since the ETS doesn’t have any routes that go very far outside of Haven.
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  “So we form a truce,” he’s saying, drowning out my racing thoughts. “We forget what I did for now. Forget I’m CCA. Forget you’re an origin.”

  Like I could honestly forget all of those things.

  He did help me escape, though. And I don’t think what he said about Samantha was a lie; they were friends. When I think about it, I can picture them in my mind, in vague memories of the two of them moving through the halls together, sitting at the same table at lunch, that sort of thing. I guess it’s possible that he really is looking for the same answers as me, even if it’s for different reasons.

  More importantly, I’m tired of standing here arguing with him. Plus, he’s proven ridiculously stubborn already—two days ago when he talked me into riding home with him, and practically every day before that when he tried tricking me out of the shadows with kind words and smiles, even long after anyone else would have given up on me.

  I have a bad feeling that he’s not going to give up on me now, either.

  So maybe I should at least work this to my advantage if I can? We take his car. I get to where I need to go, and then if I have to, I’ll find some way to ditch him. It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever had.

  I’m still searching for the precise, careful words to agree with this temporary truce, though, when I hear voices. They’re only quiet, distant mumblings at first; but unless it’s my imagination running wild and scared, they sound like they’re getting closer. Jaxon moves closer too, and I can almost feel the unease rippling through him when his hand brushes my arm. And like I’m absorbing it from his touch, anxiety twists through me and dives straight into my gut.

  I’m running out of time. The people following me are close enough now that I can make out what they’re saying.

  I know I saw her come in here.

  We should have shot her the second she ran.

  Would’ve meant one less Huxley freak for us to deal with later.

  We should have shot her . . . should have shot her . . . They-shouldhaveshotme, freak, freak . . . Iamafreak—

  “Fine.” My own voice surprises me, because I don’t remember the exact moment I made up my mind. All I know is that I’m past the point of changing it now.

  Jaxon looks equally shocked. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Come on.” I give him a little shove. “But I swear, if you try anything funny—”

  “I won’t. Trust me.”

  Don’t count on it, I think as I step past him, cautiously making my way back toward the lights of the city.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Persistence

  “This is creepy.” The sun’s coming up now, and Seth is squinting at Jaxon from underneath a hand that isn’t blocking out much of its light.

  Looking around, I have to admit that I agree with him; this place isn’t exactly well kept up. Grass and weeds grow wild and free in every direction, and most of the headstones are cracked and crumbling, their inscriptions unreadable. Only a handful of the stones have flowers or any other sort of memorial decorations to brighten them up. Not surprising, when you consider the distance we are from town and the poor condition of the road we had to take to get here.

  That, and the fact that this is a quarantine graveyard.

  We could never forget that, either, thanks to all of the biohazard symbols imprinted on every surface, from the headstones to the random, vine-covered signs spaced evenly throughout the rows of graves. This is one of the areas designated by the government as an acceptable, safe burial spot for the infected like my mother, and any others—such as her children—who might have been exposed to her enough to contract her “disease.” It was a response to public outcry and the fear, mainly, that decaying bodies of the infected might somehow contaminate cities like Haven. If people bothered to learn the facts, they would know that none of the mutagen’s effects ever proved to be contagious; but they’re too busy being afraid to see that, I guess. And fear can make a truth out of a lie faster than anything I know of.

  “Why are we here again?” Seth asks.

  “There’s something I want to see,” I say. My tone might be a little shorter than necessary. But an hour-long car ride with Seth Lancaster—and his horribly off-key singing—will do that to you. It doesn’t help also that the only words he’s said to me the entire trip have been thinly veiled insults at best. The only reason I don’t protest his coming too much is because Jaxon insisted he’d be useful in case we ran into any trouble; apparently, Seth has a way with weapons and a collection of them that would rival the arsenal of the entire Haven city police force.

  I don’t know why Jaxon thinks we need all the firepower. Mostly I’m trying not to think about it—which means not arguing about it either.

  “You could wait in the car,” Jaxon says, glancing back over his shoulder at Seth.

  “Good idea. And when I see the police and the CCA guys pull up looking for us, I could just leave you two here and haul my own ass to safety,” Seth says. “Every man for himself and all that.”

  They keep bickering as we make our way through the graves. It’s easy to believe they’re brothers now; blood related or not, they definitely tease each other and fight like siblings. I let my focus drift away from them, paying only enough attention to make sure I get out of their way when they start shoving and punching each other. Playfully. I think. But then, sometimes I’m not sure I really understand guys.

  I know where my sister’s grave is, not because I’ve been to it frequently but because I remember the hill that it sits on. It’s off by itself, and there’s a lone, skinny tree at its crest, bending in the breeze like a flag someone just happened to plant there. I remember thinking on the day of my sister’s funeral that the tree looked dead, like one decent storm might uproot it and finish it off completely. It’s not much healthier looking now; the limbs are bare, the gray bark weathered and all but completely stripped off. It’s still standing, though.

  That tree is all I focused on during the funeral. Counting the scars and knots on its trunk is what kept me from crying, and I automatically start doing the same thing now, trying to keep myself from being overwhelmed by the sudden surge of emotion that hits me.

  I should have braced myself better, I guess; after all this time, I just didn’t expect coming here to still be this hard.

  The grave is in much better shape than most of the others, and it’s obvious that someone’s visited it recently. The site is free of weeds and dead leaves. There’s a bunch of fresh purple wildflowers piled at the base of the headstone, all the way up past the biohazard symbol etched in the center of it. I’m still staring at them when Jaxon walks up behind me.

  “Your sister’s clone?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Why does she come here?”

  I shrug, partly because I’m still not ready to open up to him again—about anything—and also because I’m not really sure. I’ve always just assumed it was that persistence of life that drives her to this place; the persistence of the old Violet’s memories that are never far from her mind. Because it’s not like she doesn’t know she’s a replacement. Our parents may blindly insist that she’s the same as the one who came before, but they can’t change the hateful things that other people say to her. Or to me. However angry I might be with her for disappearing and causing me all these problems, when I think about that, I still feel a quiet sort of sympathy for my sister’s clone.

  It isn’t the first time I’ve felt it either. It’s just that I always try not to dwell on these kinds of thoughts, because they inevitably lead to bigger questions that I can’t answer. Questions about what’s really going on in this Violet’s head, about why she really does any of the things she does. And all the questions I’m not supposed to ask, of course, like how different things would be if this grave wasn’t here, and the first Violet wasn’t six feet underneath me.

  Not as different as the CCA and all of those news reports are claiming; I feel like I should be sure of that much at least. Because no part of my siste
r is a murderer. She wasn’t before and she isn’t now. She can’t be.

  I keep running these thoughts over and over in my mind, and soon they start to feel like lines I’m rehearsing, like I’m trying desperately to force myself into character. I’m just not sure who that character is anymore. Who am I playing now? The loyal sister? The persecuted voice of truth? The delusional hero?

  And if I can’t get a read on this part, then how am I supposed to know how to play it?

  The wind picks up a bit, and I absently reach for my arm, trying to smooth away the bumps that rise on my skin. The action makes me think of my mother. Of her constantly tugging on her sleeves, constantly trying to cover up her scars. It’s no different, maybe, from the way they bury the quarantined so far away from the city—almost as if keeping things out of sight will make them less real. Or less scary, at least.

  And now I find myself wondering, What if people are right to be afraid? What if I’m the one who’s got it all wrong about everything?

  What if I should be afraid too? Because if what President Cross said was true and I’ve inherited my mother’s sickness, what happens then? My parents can keep trying to hide these things from me, but they can’t stop them from happening.

  The wind’s grown calm again, but my skin still feels cold.

  “Company,” Seth says suddenly. I hear him, but I’m still so focused on my sister’s grave that my reaction time isn’t what it should be. Jaxon takes care of that for me, though—by throwing his arm around my waist and pulling me to the ground with him. I break the fall with my elbows, the right one falling on top of a sharp rock. I ignore the pain and lift my gaze toward the cemetery gates. A group of armed men are filing through them, the one in front giving orders in a loud, booming voice.

  Seth drops down beside us a second later.

  “See?” he says. “This is why I didn’t leave all the guns in the car.” He leans over on his side, reaches into the cargo pocket of his pants, and pulls out something that looks like a small silver pen.