“I thought Mom took that away from you,” Jaxon says.
Seth shrugs. “I got it back.”
“Why would she take it away?” I ask. It doesn’t look especially dangerous.
“Because it’s an illegal weapon,” Jaxon says, reaching over me and forcing Seth’s hand—which is already aiming the pen-weapon—to the ground, “and the laser in it is powerful enough to cleanly slice a person’s arm from their body at a close-enough range.”
“Oh.”
“Key words there are ‘at a close-enough range,’ ” Seth says. “It would only leave a little burn on those guys from here. Stop trying to make me look crazy.”
“Pretty sure it’s not me that’s making you look crazy,” Jaxon says.
The man shouts another order, and my gaze snaps back to him. And as if he can feel my eyes on him, he suddenly stops. Then he glances in our direction, and even from here, I can see the way his eyes narrow suspiciously. He lifts his gun and then uses his free hand to gesture for the others to follow him.
They’re moving straight toward us. Fast.
“We can’t fight all of them,” I say, terror filling my lungs and making it hard to even whisper the words. “I feel like we need to move.”
“And I feel like I agree with Clonie for once,” Seth says. I jerk my head around to tell him—for the millionth time—to quit calling me that, but he’s already army-crawling his way toward the back side of the hill. The crawl quickly turns into a dramatic roll down the steep slope. We catch up with him at the bottom, regroup, and head for the nearby trees. Once we’ve weaved our way deep enough into the forest that we can’t hear the men behind us anymore, I turn back to Jaxon.
“Who were those people?” I ask, my heart still pounding and the words coming in between sharp gasps for air. The question—and the sick feeling that Jaxon knows the answer—has been eating away at me since the second we left my sister’s grave.
But I’m not surprised when he claims he has no idea.
“So they’re not CCA?” I press. I can tell the question frustrates him, but I don’t really care; I don’t see any benefit in pretending to trust him at the moment.
Seth is watching Jaxon out of the corner of his eye, and when his brother doesn’t answer me this time, he jumps to his defense. “If they were CCA, do you honestly think I would have been pointing a weapon at them? Ten to one says those were Huxley creeps—and who knows how many more we’ve already got chasing us.”
“They weren’t exactly chasing us,” I point out. “We don’t even know that they were looking for us.”
“Right,” Seth says, his tone bitingly sarcastic. “My bad. They were probably just out searching for new friends. Should we go back and introduce ourselves?”
“She has a point,” Jaxon interrupts. “They could have been looking for her sister’s clone, or for anybody, really.”
“Or hell, maybe they were just out for a leisurely stroll.”
“I’m serious, Seth.”
“Of course you are,” he says, glaring at me now. “You agree with her. Big surprise.” His chest rises and falls with an irritated sigh, and the tension that filled the car on the way here is suddenly back, suffocating us even in the wide-open space. I’m relieved when he turns and starts to walk away from us.
“Come on, Seth,” Jaxon calls after him. “Where are you going?”
“To get a better angle on the situation. I’ll let you know when the coast is clear and we can get away from this place. Assuming those guys don’t blow up the car on their way out.”
“Don’t joke about things like that,” Jaxon says, sounding a little faint.
“Casualties of war, man,” Seth calls back, waving a dismissive hand behind him.
I wait until he’s out of earshot before commenting. “He’s pissed.”
Jaxon shrugs. “Give him thirty minutes and he’ll be making inappropriate jokes again,” he says. He’s trying to sound casual, but there’s a note of brotherly concern in his voice that I can’t help but notice. And then it hits me the same as it did when he talked about Seth in the CCA headquarters yesterday: that feeling of something familiar settling between us. He knows what it’s like to have to worry about someone else constantly, the way I do with Violet. Is that part of the reason he left the city with me, I wonder? Because he understands what that’s like?
“You’re worried about him,” I say. It’s not a question, but he nods anyway.
“He doesn’t think it’s a good idea, being out here,” he answers. “Being with you.”
“He might be right.”
“He probably is.”
“And yet here you are.”
His lips slide into a half grin. “Here I am.”
“For reasons neither of us can guess.”
He picks a stick up off the ground and starts absently stripping the bark from it. “Would you believe me,” he says after a minute, “if I told you I just prefer the view out here to the dirty, crowded city?”
“No.”
“Yeah. Somehow I didn’t think you would.” He tosses the stick aside and glances up at me from underneath raised eyebrows. “So. Where to now?”
I don’t answer him right away; mostly because I’m still trying to figure out the answer myself. If she was the one who put those flowers on the grave, then it means Violet did leave the city, just like I thought. And with everyone searching for her, and all of the police and everything swarming around our house, something tells me she won’t be in a hurry to go back anytime soon. I’m not really in a hurry to go back either—maybe because now I have even more questions than I had when I left. I want to know who those people in the cemetery were. Were they from Huxley? And are they hunting for my sister? What do they plan on doing with her when they find her?
I’m afraid to think about it. So I know there’s no way I can stop searching for her now. I can’t just go back to my house and wait, and listen to my parents’ lies about how everything is going to be fine. Because I know they’re lies now. Nothing about any of this is fine.
But thinking about my parents just confuses me more, because if those people are hunting for Violet, then who’s to say they won’t take their guns to my house next? I’m not sure what I would do if I was there, but part of me wants to go back anyway.
Jaxon is still looking at me expectantly.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe we should go back.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“What?”
“You don’t want to go back to the city,” he says. His matter-of-fact tone annoys me. Because he’s right. I don’t want to go back—it’s more of a need. I just need to know my parents are okay.
“Seth doesn’t think this is a good idea, right?” I say, diverting the conversation so I don’t have to admit how easily he’s managed to figure me out. “So maybe we should at least take him back.” And while we’re there, I could always check in at my house. It doesn’t mean my parents have to see me, or even know I’ve been there; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d gone unnoticed by them.
“He won’t stay there if I’m still out here with you, so there’s no point.” He casts an anxious glance back toward the graveyard. “Because I’m not leaving you out here—especially not with those guys running around, whoever they are.”
It would be stupid to argue with him now. He’s proved useful so far, and as long as he’s still willing to help me find Violet, I know I should take advantage of that. So I just nod and suggest we try to catch up with Seth.
But I trail a little behind him as we walk, my phone in my hand and my house number pulled up on the screen.
It isn’t the same as seeing them. And I don’t know what I’ll say when they pick up the phone; I can ask them if things are okay back at the house, but I can’t trust anything they tell me. They’ll want to know where I am, but I’ll have to lie to them. They can’t know what I’m doing. Who I’m with. I can’t tell them about any of this.
I
might not even speak, I decide; just hearing their voices would be enough for now.
So I hit call. And I listen to it ring over and over, piercing the thick morning silence around us. I keep waiting. Keep listening. But no one answers. I try my father’s cell next. Same result.
Mother’s number takes me straight to her voice mail; no ringing, just her perfectly rehearsed words telling me to please leave a message after the beep. I remember her standing in the kitchen in her shirtwaist dress and heels, re-recording that message nearly ten times and trying to get it right.
Maybe if I could run through all the things I want to say ten times, I’d be able to decide on the right words to use.
But instead, I just end the call with numb fingertips and slip my phone back into my pocket.
CHAPTER NINE
Infatuations
“Where are we?” I ask.
We’ve been driving for what feels like hours before we finally slow to a stop. My legs are cramped, my shoulders stiff. I’m not complaining, though. At least we still had a car to ride away in when those people at the cemetery finally left.
“On what used to be Main Street, Lenoir,” Jaxon answers. “Hopefully there’ll be someplace safe to spend the night here.”
Lenoir. The name doesn’t ring any bells, and the place looks completely abandoned—just one of the hundreds of other ghost towns the war left behind. The scarcity of supplies and the difficulty of shipping over the decaying road system meant that smaller towns like this often got overlooked, and after years of struggling to get by, most people just gave up and migrated to larger cities. There are a few that manage to self-sustain, but not many.
The sacrifice of towns like this has actually been part of the government’s ongoing rebuilding efforts; with limited manpower and resources, the idea was to purposely focus growth and financial support in a few designated Restoration Cities, and to then allow the eventual outward spread of population and commerce to occur naturally. It’s a slow process, though. So while places like Haven—which is one of those designated cities—are currently bustling, most of the areas around it are far from lively.
And this town looks a lot like some of the pictures I’ve seen in Social Studies class: buildings with crumbling faces and weathered, barely readable signs; broken, dirty windows; gravel side roads that have been all but overtaken by weeds. It’s a depressing scene. Because despite its run-down state, it’s still obvious that there was once life here. If I squint, I can almost see people rushing in and out of its many shops, and in the low whistle of wind I swear I hear laughter and the chatter of gossip, the sound of someone crying, and maybe even someone singing nearby.
“This is your first time in one of these actual ghost towns, I’m guessing?” Jaxon offers me a hand and pulls me out of the car. “It’s eerie, isn’t it?”
I take another look around, watch an empty tin can roll back and forth in the wind. It clinks and clatters over the broken pavement, and the sound echoes between the buildings. It drowns out any laughter, any singing I might have been hearing. To think this is all that’s left of the entire lives built here, that those people had no choice but to leave everything behind. . . . “Eerie” isn’t the right word, I decide.
“It’s . . . sad.”
“That, too, I guess,” Jaxon agrees.
“Is anybody going to help me with these bags?” Seth calls. “Or did you two just bring me along so I could be your personal slave?”
“We’re coming,” Jaxon shouts back. He’s frowning. Probably because those are the first words Seth has said to either of us since we left the graveyard. The thirty minutes Jaxon insisted we give him have passed, and Seth isn’t exactly back to his joking self. Far from it, actually. And I know it’s my fault—that I’m the wedge driving its way between them. But I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it. It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose.
We go around to the trunk of the car, where Seth is standing over a pile of backpacks and a suitcase that’s almost as big as me. He’s got a gun in one hand, and in the bag slung over his shoulder I can see the barrels of three more sticking out.
“You weren’t kidding about all the guns you packed, were you?” I ask. I’m just trying to make conversation. As long as we’re together, I figure I should probably try to smooth out some of this tension.
But he doesn’t answer me.
“Just out of curiosity,” I say, still keeping my voice as friendly as possible, “did you pack anything besides guns?”
He finally stops messing with the bags and looks up at me. “If you’re asking if I packed all your girly necessities, then no,” he says. “Jaxon told me I had twenty minutes, and to worry about essentials only. So we’re roughing it. No nail polish or hairspray or frilly little hair bows or anything like that. Sorry.” The smile he gives me is razored with annoyance.
“For the record,” I shoot back, “I haven’t painted my nails in almost eight years.” The first Violet and I used to do that sort of girly stuff together before she got sick—I guess I kind of grew out of it after she died. I’m not sure why I feel like Seth needs to know that, or why I have this weird, sudden urge to convince him that I’m not as bad as he seems to think I am. To do more than simply get rid of the tension.
Since when do I care what anybody thinks about me? Especially Seth Lancaster?
I’m glad when Jaxon steps between us and rescues me. “Probably not a good idea to hang out in the middle of the street like this,” he says. “How about those bags?”
Seth shrugs the bag of guns from his shoulder and tosses it to him. “Here,” he says. “You can carry those; they’ll make you look tough. Less like a girly man.”
“Thanks,” Jaxon says, picking up the bag and rolling his eyes.
“Just looking out for you,” Seth says, cracking a grin that’s a little closer to genuine.
Jaxon grabs the huge suitcase and heads toward the nearest building. I grab two of the backpacks and sling them over either shoulder, then follow him into what we quickly decide used to be a mini department store. The space is huge and open, with broken mirrors lining the walls and graffiti-covered elevators in every corner. Tons of racks and shelves have been left behind, and a few of them still have faded, dust-covered clothes left on them.
We move through the ghostly silence. Jaxon is tense, and without meaning to, I find myself mimicking his stiff, cautious movements. Seth, on the other hand, seems to be slowly returning to his loud, careless self; we’ve barely made it out of sight of the road before he’s grabbing a sequined cocktail dress off one of the racks and holding it up to Jaxon.
“This one is definitely your color,” he says.
“Are you kidding me?” Jaxon says. “That cut is all wrong for me. It would make me look dumpy.”
“You say that about everything I pick out. Sometimes I think you just have self-esteem issues.”
I can’t help but join in. “You could pair it with this hat,” I suggest, swiping the most ridiculous-looking fedora I’ve ever seen from a nearby shelf. It’s bright red—even through the layers of dust—and has a huge white feather tucked into its band. Even Seth laughs at the sight of it. “It would draw people’s attention away from how dumpy you look.”
“There’s an idea,” Jaxon says, holstering his gun and taking the hat from me. He wipes away the dust, turns it over in his hands a couple times, then plops it down on top of my head. It’s too big on me, and the front of it slips down over my eyes until all I can see is a blob of red with Jaxon’s shadow behind it. “It’s better on you, though,” he says. “Somehow you manage to make it look good.”
“I don’t know,” I say, “I don’t think red’s really my color.”
He tips the hat back so he can meet my eyes. “I’m going to have to disagree with you there,” he says.
And I almost slip.
I almost let myself get caught up in the warmth of his voice and in that spicy scent that clings to him. I almost, almost let my thoughts
drift with the hazy summer air and into a daydream of us—one that doesn’t take place here. One that’s somewhere less complicated. Someplace where he never lied to me. Where I’m not an origin, Samantha isn’t dead, and his mother isn’t trying to hunt down me and my sister. We go to school. Wave to all our friends. He takes my hand, and nobody thinks twice about it. There are no cameras, nobody’s shouting or whispering things like “freak” as I walk by.
But deep down, I know that place doesn’t exist. I know that he’s spent his whole life surrounded by CCA members. How many awful things has he been told about clones, about origins like me, I wonder? And some part of him must believe those things. That’s why he took me to his mother in the first place, isn’t it? Because he thinks families like mine are a danger to society. Because we’ve been born and bred to be enemies.
When I think about that, the possibility of us lasting past anything more than this strange infatuation seems so far-fetched that it’s almost laughable. Like a cruel joke the universe is playing on me. And standing so close to him is doing nothing but dragging out the terrible punch line.
So for once I’m thankful when Seth’s big mouth interrupts, calling to us from the back door. “When you two are done making out,” he says, “there’s something back here that I think you might be interested in.”
But Jaxon doesn’t move; not until I clear my throat and slide past him. I can feel his eyes watching me go, and I force myself not to look back at him.
You can’t trust him, I remind myself fiercely. Don’t be stupid. You have more important things to worry about, anyway.
I take the hat from my head and let it fall behind me as I walk to Seth’s side.
“Check it out,” he says, pointing down the narrow street that runs along this side of the department store. It’s lined with more run-down buildings, mostly; but at the end of the street is a sign that’s actually still readable, even though the H is almost completely gone: HOTEL.
* * *
Inside, the hotel isn’t much better looking than it is on the outside. Most of the furnishings are missing; though after a few minutes of searching, we do manage to find a room with two lumpy beds and pillows—which seem like extravagant extras when you consider the moldy ceiling and the piles of tiny bones and dry feces left by who knows what kind of animals. The walls are cracked, their paint, peeling. But at least there’s no writing on them, no graffiti or anything that would suggest this place might be frequented by other people.
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