Falls the Shadow

by Stefanie Gaither

  I open my mouth to speak, but she continues in a rush, “And to answer your question, origin, I’m afraid the president is in a very important meeting at the moment. I’ll have to take a message.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” I say. “Her son . . . he . . .” It turns out to be even harder to say these things out loud than I thought it would be. “Something is wrong,” I finally manage to whisper. “Something she should know about.”

  She smiles placidly, focusing on setting her gun to recharge. “What could an origin possibly have to say that would merit the president’s attention?”

  I clench the fist that isn’t splinted and immobile, digging my nails into the palm of my hand so I can focus on the pain it causes instead of how angry I’m getting. “If she knew about her son, if she knew what had happened at your headquarters—”

  “At headquarters?” The woman’s gaze shifts abruptly back to me. “You’ve been there recently?”

  She finally seems at least mildly interested in what I have to say, so I give her the quickest recap possible of everything that happened.

  When I finish, she turns to the man on her right and says, “You were with the ones who took care of Voss’s group, weren’t you?”

  My heart skips a beat when the man nods. “We took care of most of them, intercepted the ones who had the president’s son when they were on their way back here. Both Jaxon and the other one—Seth, isn’t it? They’re both around here somewhere. Or they were earlier. Against the president’s wishes, I believe, but . . .”

  It’s like mental whiplash, what those words do to my brain. Jaxon is alive. Jaxon is here. Or he was here, at least. He could still be here. He could be looking for me. That’s probably why he was here in the first place, right?

  At first I’m too dazed to speak, or to try to stop the CCA people when they make their way around us and continue down the hall. But soon my feet are moving automatically after them. I catch up to the blond woman, ignore the irritated glance she gives me, and cut directly into her path.

  “Where is he now?” I demand. “Where are the rest of the CCA? Is that where you’re going? Back to them?”

  “You are annoyingly persistent, aren’t you?”

  “I just need to find Jaxon. I just need to see for myself that he’s okay. Please. Let’s just pretend we’re all on the same side here for a second, and you just tell me where you saw him last, or just point me in the right direction, or something, anything . . .”

  She raises both of her pencil-stroke eyebrows. “Fine. You can come with us if you can keep up.” Without another word she starts to turn around, and me and Violet both move to follow—but the woman stops Violet with a single finger against her chest. Her nails are painted the same violent red shade as her lips. “I should have been more specific,” she says with that calm smile from before. “When I said you, I meant her.” She nods in my direction. “If I had any sense, clone, I’d kill you right now. It’s going to come to that eventually anyway. But for now I’m willing to let you walk away—so long as you aren’t going the same way as me.”

  “I’m not leaving her,” I say.

  “Then you are not coming with us,” the woman says simply. And then she turns and continues walking away, the rest of her group falling silently in line beside her.

  “Wait!”

  “It’s not really keeping up if I have to wait for you, is it?” she calls without looking back.

  “Just go with them,” Violet says under her breath. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Shut up,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’ve spent my entire life worrying about you. You really think I can just stop now?”

  “They’ll take you to Jaxon. I know you want to see that he’s all right, and he’s probably worried about you, too.” Her voice is quiet, and more detached than ever. I can tell by the look in her eyes that her mind is someplace far away; I’m a little afraid to think about where it’s gone, exactly.

  “What about you?” I ask, my gaze jumping back and forth, from Violet’s empty eyes to the CCA group. They’ve almost made it to the end of the hall. Almost out of sight. My heart aches at the thought of staying behind, literal pain shooting through it every time the group takes a step. I should be going with them. It isn’t a want. It’s a need. I need to see Jaxon, because I don’t trust their words; I won’t believe he’s okay until I see it for myself.

  “There’s something I need to do, anyway,” she says. “And I’d rather not have to worry about you while I’m doing it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She smiles slyly and in typical annoying big-sister fashion informs me that it’s none of my business. “Look,” she adds with a sigh, “I’ll catch up with you when this is over with. I always do, don’t I?”

  She says it like this will all be over with tomorrow. Like somehow we’ll wake up in the morning and everything will be different, and none of the things we’ve done or seen will still be there, weighing us down. Like we’ll be normal and everyone will accept us and me and her and Mother and Father will all be one big, happy family. Complete again.

  I wonder if we’ll ever be complete again.

  “Now get out of here before I make you,” Violet says.

  I still don’t budge. “You take too long, I’m coming back for you. Whether you like it or not.”

  “I know you will,” she says, and then she meets my eyes—truly meets them—for what might be the very first time in her life.

  She reaches for the key cards I’d clipped to the bottom of my shirt. Her focus grows hazy again. “I’ll be needing these,” she says. She looks over her shoulder, finds the door to the clone-holding room. Every second her eyes stay locked on it makes the uneasy feeling in my stomach creep a little farther up the back of my neck.

  I know I can’t make her come with me now any more than I could back at the graveyard, though. I’ve spent the past four years wishing I could control her, and letting her control my life because of that. But maybe sometimes you have to let go of people, and of all the things they do, and just hope that they’ll find their way back to you if they’re supposed to.

  * * *

  I catch up with the CCA group a few hallways down. At first they don’t acknowledge me, but soon I guess they get tired of listening to all of my questions, and so they start answering. And they tell me why they’re here: not simply to get even with Huxley for plotting against them, but also to initiate their own plot to stop the clones at their source. They tell me how successful they’ve been in destroying computer after computer full of vital information, in ruining the equipment responsible for transferring thoughts, images, orders—all of the things Huxley has been using to give life to their clones and their plans.

  I can’t help but wonder, though, what else they’ve destroyed in the process.

  As we make our way through the halls, I see entire rooms that have been reduced to pieces of broken things: cracked computer screens, twisted, melted file cabinets, and shattered lights. The scene is almost a perfect reflection of the obliteration back at the CCA headquarters. So much destruction on both sides that it’s hard to say which side won this round. Neither of them, from where I’m standing.

  By the time we reach the north wing, where most of the fighting took place, I can’t look anywhere without seeing signs of ruin and devastation. I was so angry with Huxley before, and so a part of me feels like I should be glad for this. But all I feel is that thick and pressing numbness of uncertainty, of a chaos so overwhelming that I don’t know what to make of it.

  We’re almost to the entrance, to those same glass doors that I walked through four years ago, when another alarm starts to echo through the intercom system. It’s different from the one before. It’s higher pitched, and joined soon by a recorded voice repeating warning after warning in a stiffly urgent tone:

  Security threat, holding room B13.

  Contamination threat, holding room B13.

  Bio threat, holding r
oom B13.

  All available personnel report.

  B13. That was the number above the clone room. That’s where Violet is.

  Of course it is.

  One by one, our group slows to a stop and looks back. I think about saying something. About telling them what I saw in holding room B13. But for some reason I don’t want to. What will happen if they all go rushing back there? Will they lose their patience with my sister this time? Will they kill her? What about the rest of the clones in there? Surely they’ll kill them. While their eyes are still closed, their brains still without conscious thought.

  Maybe that would be for the best, in the grand scheme of things. Because if the clones in that room wake up, how many people are they going to hurt? How many will they kill? If we can stop the possibility of Huxley turning them into monsters, shouldn’t we?

  If only it was that simple.

  If only I could not think about how many in that room would be like my sister’s clone. Maybe they wouldn’t be monsters at all, despite what I know the CCA members think. Maybe they would fight for control. And even if they didn’t win, how could I take away their chance? I should just keep quiet. Pretend I don’t know anything about room B13 and just keep walking away.

  We’ve started moving again, still heading for the main entrance, when another group of CCA people meet us. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to look at any of them or have to answer any of their questions. But then I hear a familiar voice.

  Seth.

  “Cate? What the hell are you doing here?” He grabs my arm and pulls me away from the crowd. It’s so quick, and I’m so overcome with emotion at seeing him alive, and without so much as a scratch on his tan skin, that the only thing I can think to do is throw my arms around him. Because yes, it’s Seth—but maybe he’s grown on me more than I’d cared to admit. Plus, if he’s here, then Jaxon has to be close, as inseparable as the two of them are.

  “Cut it out,” he says, shoving me away.

  He seems considerably less excited to see me than I am to see him.

  “Sorry,” I stammer, confused. “I was just . . . I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “As okay as I was twenty minutes ago—it’s a miracle, isn’t it?” There’s definitely something wrong with that tone he’s using. I’ve never heard him so angry. “Now answer my question—why the hell are you still here? And where is Jaxon?”

  “Jaxon . . . ?”

  “You two were in such a damn hurry to leave.”

  “I—”

  The realization of what’s happened hits me all at once, so hard and so fast that it’s a miracle I manage to stay standing.

  “Where did we say we were going?” I ask. My voice is shaking. I can’t help it; all of my strength is being channeled into my effort to not pass out, leaving nothing to steady my words.

  “Are you serious?” Seth snaps. “Your house? Your parents? Your hysterical insistence that you had to go make sure they were okay, right this second? That I was a terrible, terrible person who didn’t care about anyone but himself? None of that ringing any bells?” His voice gets quieter toward the end, the edge of it softening as his gaze fully meets mine. The realization hits him more slowly, but when it does, the horror that spreads across his face is quick and merciless.

  “I probably should have tried a little harder to stop him.” His words aren’t much steadier than mine. I nod, even though I know he isn’t asking a question.

  Because now we both uncerstand.

  Jaxon didn’t leave with me. He left with my clone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Shattered

  Jaxon’s car is parked at the end of our driveway.

  We’re the first ones to make it here. Partly because Jaxon is the one who taught Seth how to drive, and partly because the rest of the CCA members were too busy arguing among themselves about who should go and who should stay, and who should investigate what was happening in room B13. It was easy enough to talk one of them into lending us his car, because so many seemed more eager to keep fighting at the lab, more interested in running back to that room and dealing with whatever pandemonium my sister created this time.

  I’d worry about them dealing with her, too, but there’s no need. Because she’s waiting on the front porch steps for us.

  “I told you I’d catch up.”

  “What did you do back there?” Seth demands. “What was going on in that room?”

  Instead of answering him, Violet lifts her gaze and stares dreamily off toward the city’s center. I follow it automatically, and just as quickly wish I hadn’t. Because there’s a plume of smoke rising in the distance, tendrils of it reaching like long, dark fingers out across the skyline.

  “Is that coming from over the lab?” Seth asks.

  “You know, I think it might be,” Violet says. Then she smiles at him.

  And it turns out that it actually is possible to render Seth Lancaster speechless.

  “We’re here for Jaxon,” I remind them both. I jog up the steps and into the house before they have a chance to start arguing, and before my brain can get too caught up in thoughts of what’s happening at Huxley.

  Inside, the familiar scent of cleaning supplies and a busy top layer of lilac potpourri hits me harder than I expected. It’s only been, what, three days? But somehow it feels like it’s been years since the last time I stepped through these doors. Maybe because the Cate I left behind is years away from who I am now.

  At least half a dozen people originally followed Jaxon and my clone, Seth told me; President Cross insisted on it the second she found out he’d left with who she thought was the actual me. We find the first of those people lying in a pool of blood at the foot of the stairs. There’s a long, thin burn across his neck.

  “Well that’s not encouraging,” Seth says, stepping between me and the body, shielding me from the sight in a way that’s almost protective.

  He’s right. And it’s not any more encouraging than the silence, or the burn marks along the walls, or the broken vases and picture frames littering the floor. Where is Jaxon? Where are my parents?

  Maybe I should be used to destruction, since it’s all I’ve seen these past few days. I should be immune to it. But I don’t think anything could have made me numb to what I see now: the huge family photo—the one that used to hang proudly over our fireplace—lying facedown on the living room floor. I crouch down beside it and flip it back over. It’s heavier than I expected, especially since I’m lifting it one-handed. I don’t manage to do it gracefully; it lands hard against the floor, and the spider-web cracks across its glass front spread even farther.

  I’m still staring at it when Seth reaches my side.

  “It’s not a very good picture of you anyway,” he says softly. “Your hair looks awful.”

  “That’s true,” I agree, trying to find the heart to smile, because I know that’s what he’s hoping for. I remember when my mother made me get that haircut. I remember how much I hated her for telling them to cut it so short, because I thought it made me look like a boy. So of course she just had to blow it up as big as she could and put it over the fireplace. Five years ago that picture was taken, and so it’s the old Violet staring back at me.

  And the new Violet is staring at me now too, watching me with one shoulder leaning against the door frame.

  I don’t know why I never thought about it before now, but I wonder if it was hard for her to look at that every day? I wonder if it was hard for my clone to look at that picture of me, too? Maybe that’s why she knocked it down and did her best to shatter it.

  “I’m going to go check the other rooms. For more bodies or something,” Violet announces.

  She’s gone before I can say anything, before I can suggest that we stick together. I glance one last time at the family portrait before rising again. My parents’ smiles are familiar, of course, because by that point they were practiced and so they were always the same. Staring at them, I almost want to shatter them furth
er, stomp my foot across their faces until the glass breaks into enough tiny little pieces that it’s impossible to make out what’s underneath. Because I want someone to blame for all of this. And right now, all of the reasons I know they had for the choices they made don’t really matter. Not when there’s a dead body by the stairs and who knows how many more still left to find.

  “Come on.” Seth grabs my arm and pulls me back toward the hall. “Not important right now,” he says. And he’s right. Because the people in that picture might share my blood, but family isn’t just about blood; it’s about who comes to your side and who stays there without flinching even when everything goes to hell.

  Jaxon isn’t in that picture, but he still feels like family to me.

  He has to be here somewhere, and I have to find him.

  Outside the living room, Seth heads straight for the steps at the end of the hall. I’m not far behind him, until the door to the basement catches my eye. It’s halfway open. I slow to a stop, staring at it. That door is never open. For most of the past two years it’s been locked, even, ever since the basement flooded during a nasty summer storm; my mother keeps saying that she’s going to go through everything down there, sort through the waterlogged boxes of keepsakes, of damaged photos, of mine and Violet’s old school projects and honor roll and perfect attendance certificates. But she hasn’t yet. Maybe because she’s afraid of how much is ruined, and how much she’d have to throw away. And I guess she was afraid of anyone else throwing any of it away too, because she even had a new door installed—a metal one with an electric control panel and everything.

  That computer panel now has a gaping, jagged hole in the center of its screen, as if some blunt object was thrown against it.