“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes. I do. I just haven’t been able to say it until now. But I’m done, okay? We’re done. This—whatever this is between us—it’s done. Now get away from me.”
“I’m not just going to leave you out here.” He reaches for my arm, and I’m so into this act now that I respond without even thinking about it; I grab the gun from his belt, lift it between us so quick that it takes him a moment to realize what I’ve done. He stops reaching for me and lets his hand fall slowly back to his side.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You’re CCA. I’m an origin. We’re enemies, Jaxon. We always have been, and we were stupid to think we could be anything else.”
Enemies. Even now, the word makes me feel like someone is taking my heart in their fist and clenching it as tightly as they can. I take a deep breath and try to imagine myself on stage, try to convince myself that these are just lines I’m reciting. It’s all made up. Fake. Everything is fake.
Everything except the hurt in his eyes.
“Put the gun down, Cate. Come on.”
“You wanted to stop pretending. So here you go. I’m not pretending anymore.”
“Cate, please . . .”
“No!” I have no choice but to shout it; no choice but to take my performance to the next level if I’m going to convince him to let me go. “Go back to Seth. Go back to the city, and stop thinking about me, stop worrying about me, stop following me everywhere. It’s pathetic, all right? Surely you have better things to do.”
The words have exactly the effect I wanted. He doesn’t just look hurt anymore; he looks angry, too. More angry than I’ve ever seen him, and who could blame him?
Have I mentioned how much this sucks?
It only gets worse. Because as angry as he looks, he still doesn’t speak. Or move. He only glares at me until all I want to do is dig the deepest hole I can and just crumple down into it and never climb out again. But I can’t crumple now. All I can do is take a deep, shaky breath and tell him good-bye in the steadiest voice I can manage.
And then I turn and walk away, praying he doesn’t follow.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Expectations
He doesn’t follow me.
I didn’t expect him to. I didn’t want him to. So why does it still hurt so much when he doesn’t call my name, or even once tell me to stop? I don’t know if he even watched me walk away before going back to the car, because I don’t trust myself to turn around to check. I can’t see him again. I can’t look at the hurt on his face again, because I know it would be my undoing, and I can’t afford to come undone now.
I try to calm myself down. I try reciting lines from every play I’ve performed in; try softly singing lyrics from every song that I can think of. But with every word, my voice only gets shakier.
The sky is a dusky shade of purple by the time I make it to the edge of the woods.
My palm is covered in sweat. I set the gun down while I dry my hands on my shirt, and I stare at it for a long moment before I convince myself to pick it back up again. It would be foolish to meet Violet unarmed. Even if I probably won’t be able to shoot her, if it comes to that. Not to mention I’m not sure what type of gun this is, or if it could actually stop a clone. Though judging by the way Jaxon looked at it when I pointed it at him, I’m guessing it would at least slow them down.
But hopefully I won’t have to find out.
I linger around the outskirts of the woods. Watching. Waiting. My whole body tingles with nervous anticipation, and several times I start into the dark web of trees, only to double back out into the open. She could be anywhere in there. If she really wants to see me, she can come out here and meet me. I’m not playing psychopath hide and seek with her.
At least thirty minutes pass. The sky fades from purple to a deep, starless black, and I feel like shouting at the trees, demanding that they stop hiding her. After what I had to do to Jaxon to make it here alone, I’m going to be seriously pissed if she doesn’t show up.
Maybe I should stop waiting. Maybe I should track her down myself and refuse to let her make me look any more stupid; but how do I know she’s even anywhere close? How do I know she didn’t just suggest a meeting at the first random place that came to mind? My cheeks burn, and my grip tightens on my gun as it occurs to me that that’s probably exactly what she did.
I should never have come here.
I spin around and am about to head anywhere but this place when I hear it: a scream, cut short by a terrible choking sound.
And it sounds a lot like Violet.
I should keep walking.
After everything she’s done . . . god, how I wish I could keep walking away and let whatever is in those woods take care of my problem for me. But then I hear another scream—quieter, weaker this time. My stomach sinks, and the sick feeling in it makes my decision for me.
I turn and race back toward her voice, tripping over roots and brush, stumbling through the darkness. Limbs and briars grab at my arms and face, scratching bloody trails across my skin. A patch of briars catches me by the hair and jerks me to a stop, and while I try to unsnarl the strands I’m holding my breath, listening, trying to hear what I can’t see in the shadows around me.
A twig snaps somewhere close by. I twist toward the sound, yanking out a fistful of my hair in the process.
No one’s there.
“Violet?” I call softly, uncertainly.
No answer.
I draw my gun and maneuver carefully around the thorn bush, moving on silent feet toward the sound of the breaking twig. After about ten steps, though, I hear something else. Laughter. Then a man’s voice, directly ahead of me.
And then another man’s voice.
How many of them are there? What are they doing in here?
I really, really don’t want to know. But I’m going to have to find out—because the next voice I hear is definitely Violet’s, and though most of what she’s saying is lost under the frantic pounding of my heart, one word is still terribly clear: Stop.
Either this is her most horrible trick yet, or she’s in trouble.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it—especially if I’m outnumbered—but I have to do something. The thought of going back to Jaxon and Seth for help briefly flashes through my mind, but I dismiss it just as quickly; there’s no time. Jaxon probably wouldn’t help anyway. Not after what I said.
I slip from tree to tree, picking up my feet so they don’t drag noisily through the brush. Soon I can hear the voices more clearly, and I pick out at least three distinct people—the two men, and what sounds like an older woman. I press close to a wide-trunked tree that’s missing most of its bark. I draw the gun back to my chest, just as the light at the base of the barrel glows the green of a full charge, and then I dart to the next closest tree that’s big enough to conceal me completely. Keeping as close as I can to the trunk, I curve around and scan the woods for someone, anyone—
There.
To the left, less than twenty feet away, I see a light—the pale blue fluorescent of an electric lantern. The bodies are hazy in the harsh light, but there are clearly three of them, surrounding a fourth person who’s on the ground, her body doubled over at an odd angle. A mass of wild, tangled black hair hides her face. But I don’t need to see it. I already know it’s her.
Violet.
I draw in a sharp breath just as the man closest to her kicks her hard in the side. She rolls over with a muffled groan. The man draws his foot back for another kick but stops as Violet’s groan transitions into laughter—soft at first, but then louder and louder still until it echoes through the muggy night air.
“You’ve got a strange sense of humor, clone,” the man says. He grabs her arm and jerks her to her feet, while the one beside him holds a gun to her forehead. My stomach lurches. I shrink back against the tree, close my eyes, and try to take a deep breath.
“You won’t be laughing much longer.” It�
�s the woman talking now. Her voice is like ice water drenching me, leaving me cold and shaking. “Not after we take you back to the lab and have you properly dealt with.” I don’t have to be able to see her to know those last words were accompanied by a nasty snarl. And whatever feelings exist between me and my sister’s clone, that still sends a tremor of fear skipping through me.
Back to the lab? So these are people from Huxley, treating a clone like this? And dealt with? What does she mean by that? What are they planning to do to her?
“But don’t worry,” the woman continues, “we’re going to find your sister, too, and bring her along so you won’t be lonely. President Huxley is very, very interested in the relationship between the two of you.”
“There is nothing interesting about us,” Violet says, her voice sharp and afraid. I assume it’s from the fear of herself being dragged back to Huxley, or at least of the gun that’s pressed to her forehead now. Until, in a calmer voice, she says, “And you won’t find my sister, anyways. She was supposed to meet me here several hours ago, but she never showed up. My guess is that she’s on her way back to Haven—probably already there. You’ll have to face the CCA if you want her now.”
She’s lying.
For me.
The fear in me tangles with confusion, into a ball that sinks deep into the pit of my stomach. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel; for the second time today, she’s defying Huxley to protect me. It would make sense, maybe, if the cuts she gave me herself weren’t still burning in the tiny bit of breeze slipping through the trees.
“Lying to your superiors,” says the man’s voice from before. “Do you honestly think that’s going to help your case, clone?”
“You are not my superior.” Violet laughs.
I hear a vicious slap, the sound like a whip cracking. I swear I feel it across my own skin. The pain is white hot, stinging through the half-healed cut on my cheek. And for the millionth time since this Violet came to live with me, I find myself silently willing her to just shut up. To just stop provoking everyone within a ten-foot radius of her.
At least long enough for me to take aim.
I crouch down until I’m level with a low-lying branch, then press my gun into the crook between it and the trunk to steady it. The first shot will have to be perfect, and the next two will have to be perfect and impossibly quick. I’m hoping this gun recharges fast and that by some other combination of miracles I’ll be able to stop all three of them before they even know where I’m coming from.
Stop them.
I have to stop them.
The words are nearly a battle cry in my thoughts, but I still find myself hesitating. How is this gun going to stop them? Is it going to be permanent? When I stop firing, will I have to avoid the dead stares of these three, the same way I tried to avoid the eyes of the man Violet killed earlier?
I’m not like her.
Am I?
I don’t want to think about it. Not right now. I’m running out of time to think, anyway; because just then the communicator clipped to the woman’s belt lights up, and after only a few seconds of conversation I can’t hear, she angrily tosses it aside and draws some sort of skinny, cylindrical weapon in its place. It looks terrifyingly similar to that illegal gun Seth had in the graveyard the other day. The one that Jaxon said could cut a person’s limb cleanly from their body.
She aims it at Violet’s chest.
“This is your last chance,” she says. “All you have to do to make this stop is tell us where, exactly, your sister is—and why we haven’t been able to get a clear mind upload from her for hours now.”
The terror in Violet’s eyes fades, and that crazy, defiant gleam comes back to them. “If I knew where my sister was, you would be the last person I would tell,” she says.
Then she spits at the woman’s feet.
All at once there’s a flash of light, the smell of burning flesh, and the terrible screech of my sister’s pain.
Something inside me snaps.
I fire. The gun kicks back more than I was expecting, but the recharge is even faster than I’d hoped. I take aim again. The woman is on the ground now, and my only thought is to make the other two follow her. The silent, stoic man with the gun seems like the next most important target; my first shot grazes his side. Not enough to stop him, but enough to make him trip and drop the gun. Violet grabs it. She doesn’t move as quickly as she normally does, but she still manages to get the gun turned around and aimed at the last man still standing, and when he makes the mistake of turning to shout at me, she fires. His shout dies in his throat. He staggers a few more steps toward me and then falls face-first to the ground, stirring up the leaves and twigs and dust around him.
The man that my second shot hit lets out a groan. Violet lifts her gun to his head.
“Don’t!” I shout, lowering my own weapon.
Her arm drops slowly, reluctantly. Even just that little bit of movement makes her eyes tighten with pain. Once she recovers from that, she lifts her uncertain gaze to me.
“He’s unarmed now,” I explain. “And I want to talk to him.” I want to know exactly what’s going on here, and you can’t get answers from a dead man.
“He deserves to be shot,” Violet says smugly. But the strength seems to be fading from her body even as I watch; the hand holding the gun starts to shake, and then she drops it and collapses back to the earth.
“Violet?”
She doesn’t answer me.
That fear from before emerges with a whole new strength, and I rush to her side, crouch down, and lift her into my arms. It’s then that I finally get a good look at her.
It’s awful.
There’s a bruise already forming all along the right side of her face. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth and from the blistered, burned skin along her chest and up across her neck.
I try to remind myself that it’s not as bad as it looks. That she’s not human like me. Her body is different. Even as I watch, the edges of one of the deepest burns starts to glow with that strange scanning red light that eventually spreads over the entire wound. I’ve seen it before, and I know it’s the electronic sensors in her body communicating with her supercomputer brain, surveying the damage and initiating the necessary biological reactions. Within seconds, scar tissue begins to build—the artificially engineered cells regenerating themselves at insane speeds.
But her breathing still comes in weak trembles, each one making her eyes roll a little farther back into her head.
“Violet?” I gently pull the strands of her hair away from where they’ve stuck to her bloody lips. My hand lingers against her cheek, and she tries, halfheartedly, to pull away from my touch.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says quietly.
“You told me to meet you here.”
“After everything I’ve done, you’re still listening to me?” She laughs weakly. “Stupid.”
I shake my head. “Are you honestly calling me names right now?”
“I’m your sister. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?” Her eyes close again, and she’s quiet for a long moment before she asks, “But I was never the same, was I?”
“Don’t talk like that.” I don’t like the note of finality in her voice. Or the way her skin feels cold and clammy against my hand. She’s too pale. Too corpselike.
Too much like the first Violet the last time I saw her alive.
“Why do you always have to be so dramatic?” I ask, and I try to laugh too. Like this is all one big joke. It must be a joke, because the universe can’t be cruel enough to make me watch my sister die twice. It can’t be.
So why is her breathing getting slower and slower? Why is she so still, so silent, even as her body continues to put itself back together right before my eyes? Is there damage inside that I can’t see? Damage that even the most advanced technology can’t heal fast enough to save her?
“Why did they do this to you?” I whisper. Just for myself to hear, because
I’m not really expecting an answer this time.
But her eyes flash open. When she tries to focus them, though, her gaze still ends up distant and hollow. “I guess I just didn’t live up to their expectations either, did I?” she says.
“Forget about Huxley and their expectations.” A terrible, numbing rage courses through me. “They’re going to pay for this. Me and you are both going to make them pay. So you better keep your eyes open. We have people to get even with.”
Her head shifts just slightly in my hand. She’s trying to shake her head no. Eventually, she gives up, and with a feeble cough, she rolls her head away from me and spits a dark red glob of blood onto the ground.
“You should go.” She coughs. “Before . . . before . . .”
“Before what?” I ask, shaking my head. Violet doesn’t answer me.
Someone else does.
“Before it’s too late for you to get away,” says a voice from somewhere behind me. A voice that’s so impossibly familiar, I have to turn around. There’s a gun pointed at me, but my eyes linger on it only for a fraction of a second. I’m much more interested in the person who’s actually holding the gun.
Because there’s no mistaking it. That fierce smile. Her father’s blue eyes. That white blond hair that she claims is natural but that I know for a fact she’s been bleaching since she was five years old.
That’s Samantha Voss staring back at me.
And she’s supposed to be dead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Control
A million different questions and fears and possibilities race through my head. Luckily, one single thought manages to make itself heard over all the others: Move.
I grab the gun from Violet’s limp hand and roll out of the way just as Samantha fires a shot that burns a clean, smoky line along the forest floor. It radiates so much heat that I can feel it even as I dive aside. I’d be surprised if it didn’t singe the hairs off my arms; I don’t stop to check them. I sprint for the closest tree and scramble behind it. I’m not going to run from her and just leave Violet there—but I need a second outside the line of fire so I can get my body and my thoughts to stop shaking. Otherwise there’s no way I’m going to win this fight.
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