The clone flew at him, cracking Sir Kendall’s head on the table, smashing the gun out of his fingers.
“Crap!” Alix yelled. Again, Lindy began to bark.
Sir Kendall lay stunned—searing pain in his head, his chest, his hand—staring at his enraged double, who stood over him now, eyes blazing. Sir Kendall’s own eyes, blazing back at him with hatred. Sir Kendall’s own gun, pointed at him.
The way he’d flown at him—Sir Kendall had never seen anything like it. So reckless. Suicidal. The clone hadn’t telegraphed, hadn’t even oxygenated. Just flew, with a total disregard for his own safety. And oddly, it had seemed to be the phrase old chap that had set him off. Conditioning of some sort?
“Give me the keys to those cuffs,” the clone growled.
Sir Kendall nodded at his pocket. “I’m going to reach down to my right pocket with my left hand, which seems to be in better shape than my right at the moment.” He spoke carefully. A sane man didn’t fly at a man with a gun. The impulse toward self-preservation typically prevented it.
“Slowly,” the clone said.
Sir Kendall extracted the key, sharp pain twisting up his chest. Broken rib. The clone snatched it from his hand.
He’d heard of cloning organs and farm animals. Hyko had cloned him. Maybe they’d taken his DNA during one of his prison stints and grown a copy to match his chronological age. It had been eight years since he’d chopped off Hyko’s thumbs, and he’d dreaded Hyko’s revenge ever since…sometimes he even craved it so that the waiting would be over. Was the clone part of Hyko’s revenge?
“Got any more weapons?” The clone asked. “Lift your other pant leg.”
Sir Kendall complied and the clone pulled out the knife and tossed it. He patted him for more. Found nothing else. Poorly trained.
“You can’t possibly think this will work,” Sir Kendall said. “The Falcon letters are released on inaction, not action, and you can’t imagine I’ll divulge what I do to keep them under wraps. There is simply zero chance. My people will know.”
“Shut up,” the clone barked. “You can cut the Sir Kendall crap right now.”
“You simply can’t take my place—”
The clone replied. His voice was laden with disgust. “Take your place?” He wore jeans and a red T-shirt, muscles bulging with fury. But when he went around the couch to unlock Alix’s right wrist, his gaze softened. He gave Alix the key. “Your wrist. You’re bleeding.”
She stared at the clone, transfixed. “I’m fine.” She unlocked her other hand. “You have to go.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Can we maybe talk—”
“No! I’m fine.” She pulled Lindy close to her and scratched the dog’s neck.
In fact, she wasn’t fine. Sir Kendall had never seen her so distraught.
The clone gazed at her. “You’re bleeding, and you were handcuffed to a couch by a nut job.” A pause. “Alix—”
Her lips parted; she hadn’t expected him to say her name. Why? She stood. “We’re fine. You don’t understand, and you don’t need to.”
“I understand that this guy here thinks he’s Sir Kendall Nicholas the Third. Even that accent—the man’s a nut job.”
“Enough! Stop!”
The clone straightened.
It had to have cost Hyko millions to have him cloned. Why fill the clone’s head with putty? Why give him an American accent? And why, then, when he looked at the clone, did he feel such a sense of pain? He stuffed it down where it belonged and quickly regained his remoteness, his detachment.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” the clone said, straightening up. “You’re going to cuff this guy to the radiator.”
Alix rubbed her wrist. “Or what? You’ll shoot me?”
The clone turned the gun on Sir Kendall. “Maybe I’ll shoot ol’ Sir Kendall here.”
Sir Kendall smiled coolly. “Can’t say I saw this coming. Certainly not the brutish boor bit. Could this be an attempt to annoy me to death? Is that it?”
The clone’s neck tendons bulged, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “Do you want me to kill you?” His nostrils flared. Oxygenating. Yes, some type of conditioning. Conditioning meant the clone could be controlled.
Something afoot within Hyko’s organization. Had it factionalized? He could learn quite a bit from these two.
The clone motioned Sir Kendall to the radiator. He’d been taught to hold a room, at least. He wasn’t comfortable with the gun, but he knew how to use it. “Now.”
Alix stood. “Look, let’s dial back the He-Man level, okay?”
Another tell—she always used humor when put up against a wall. One rarely saw that in a spy.
“Call me crazy,” she continued, “but one of my big hostess things is that nobody gets cuffed to a radiator. Everybody gets a napkin with their drink and nobody gets cuffed to the radiator.”
“It’s all right.” Sir Kendall sauntered over. “We’ll get this sorted out.” He sat against the radiator and put his wrist near the end pipe. If the clone meant to kill him, he would’ve done it.
“Fine.” Alix glared at the clone, then kneeled next to Sir Kendall, looking aghast at his split lip. “God!”
He wiped away the blood with his hand. “Quite all right.” Still that allegiance to him. Good.
Sir Kendall watched her eyes as she closed the stainless steel bracelet around his wrist. The handcuffs were police issue; he could have his way out of them in under a minute…if he so chose.
But he’d let the clone stay in charge for now.
“Don’t listen to him,” she whispered. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about—at all, okay? He’s going to leave.” She lowered her voice even more— “Though I’ve got half a mind to jettison you, too, after that tickling crap.”
Sir Kendall smiled. “There’s my girl.”
“I mean it.” She stood and spun around to face the clone. “Happy?”
“Not exactly.” He strolled over to the radiator and checked the tightness of the cuff. A line of blood was drying on his chin, one eye was puffy; it would be swollen nearly shut in no time. “Now we’re going to go outside and have a conversation, and after that, if you still want me to leave, I’ll leave.”
“I daresay,” Sir Kendall intoned, “you’ll want to work on that accent, old chap.”
The clone flew down at him, slamming the back of Sir Kendall’s head into the radiator. “Stop doing that!” The clone grabbed Sir Kendall’s shirtfront with his fist, and pressed the gun to his chin. “You stop it!”
“Stop what, old chap?“
A jolt, like an electric shock, shook the clone. Conditioning. “Stop talking like Sir Kendall,” the clone said through gritted teeth.
“But I am Sir Kendall.”
With a jerk, the clone pulled Sir Kendall’s face nearer to his. “Stop it!”
“Hey! Leave him alone!” Alix cried. “What the hell. You want to talk? We’ll talk.”
“I daresay you should—”
Another jolt. “Talk normal!” The clone breathed heavily, seemingly agonized. “Talk normal!” The clone twisted his fistful of fabric, causing the shirt to tighten around Sir Kendall’s neck, as he pressed the gun barrel into Sir Kendall’s cheek.
Sir Kendall knew men, and he knew when a man was on the verge of losing it. In probing the clone’s conditioning, had he pushed the poor devil too far? Would the clone pull the trigger?
But it wasn’t fear that speared through Sir Kendall; it was dread. A kind of pain. What was it about this man that hooked under his skin?
“Stop it,” the clone whispered, blue eyes wild, breathing labored.
Alix hovered, sensing the danger. Even she could see that this extraction had to be delicate. There was a tense silence.
Somewhere in the background, Lindy’s nails clicked back and forth across the wood floors.
And then the clone did something strange; he tipped his forehead forward and rested it on Sir Kendall’s forehead. “Please,�
� he whispered, eyes squeezed shut. “Just stop talking like that.”
Sir Kendall stayed nearly motionless, engulfed in the man’s body heat, foreheads touching, as though they were lovers.
Was the man unraveling?
Sir Kendall slid his gaze sideways to Alix’s feet; her toenails shone with a bright blue opalescence.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Paul jerked away from the nut job and backed off as the old, fierce feelings washed over him—smashed over him—tossing him like a rag doll. Just hearing a woman’s screams had set him off, but to bust in and find it was her, helpless and being hurt by this guy, it was beyond everything—as if the wires of unrelated nightmares from his life had gotten crossed.
He felt cold, skin clammy. Never mind that it was probably eighty degrees in the room and he’d been fighting; he was cold, all the same, sweating and shaking deep in his core.
“Hey,” Alix said softly. “We’re stepping outside to talk, right? You just wanted to talk to me outside, right?” she said. “Let’s go. Let’s talk.”
Focus, he told himself, follow her. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the man, this lunatic who looked exactly like him and had tried to hurt Alix. He knew all too well what it was like to be helpless and at the mercy of somebody with bad intentions.
The man smiled up at him, and Paul swallowed back the revulsion, searching for differences—nose, lips, neck, anything—but the harder he searched, the stronger the likeness became. There was no way he had a twin, and anyway, a twin didn’t do this. Didn’t act like Sir Kendall.
Okay. He was officially freaking out.
It was just plastic surgery, he told himself. People altered themselves in screwed-up ways every day. He’d seen a documentary once on a guy trying little by little to turn himself into a tiger; modified ears, nose—the fellow had even gotten his hands altered to look more paw-like. But this was far more horrible. Funhouse-horrible. Not only had this nut job gotten his face and body just like Paul’s, but he had the Sir Kendall accent and voice down. And to top it all off, the freak fought just like him—not quite as well, but close. Like a slightly less in-shape Paul, right down to an obscure Master Veecha move, a way of slipping punches. Paul had trained it for years. You didn’t pull out that move without training it for years.
Sweat rolled down his forehead. Was this even real? Had he finally snapped?
A hand on his arm—he jerked away, but it was only her. Alix. He couldn’t believe it was her. He should go with her, but the man was moving again, sitting a bit more upright. Then he straightened his legs on the floor, crossing them at the ankles, and laid his non-handcuffed hand over his belly, casual as you please. Every movement intensified the man’s Sir Kendall-ness. Paul needed to stop him—stop him from moving, stop him from breathing, stop him from being.
The man pretending to be Sir Kendall tilted his head, regarding Paul as if he were observing an interesting specimen in a laboratory jar. This man was beaten badly—that lip was split nearly down to the chin. He was pretty sure he’d cracked a few of the guy’s ribs—and he had him handcuffed to a radiator, totally subdued. So why did Paul feel like the one in trouble? The gun felt like it weighed twenty pounds.
“Don’t you want to talk?” she asked softly. “Hey, look at me.”
She didn’t understand: he couldn’t look away. This man—this lunatic—was being Sir Kendall. And he’d made her helpless and tried to hurt her.
“Hey!” She yanked Paul’s arm and finally Paul turned and looked. “Come on.” Warm gaze.
She backed away, pulling him. “We’re going to get some nice fresh air outside and talk like you wanted.” This, as if Paul were the lunatic.
Paul let her pull him across the room. He needed to get out of there—she was right about that. She needed his help, too. He would focus on that. “I’m okay,” he said.
Wary squint. “Okay.” She dropped his arm. “Come on, then.” She turned and led, checking back on him every few steps. He followed, not daring to look back at the man cuffed to the radiator. They went through the kitchen, a mud room. Paul wiped his forehead with the back of his free hand. Paul hated guns. His stepbrothers Gene and Gary had loved guns, of course, loved killing whatever they could. Standing over that disturbed man back there, cuffed to the radiator, Paul felt the presence of Gene and Gary more strongly than he had in years.
He reminded himself again that they were housed in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane, and would stay there for the rest of their natural lives. They can’t hurt you now, he whispered silently.
And nobody would hurt Alix, either. He’d see to it.
They emerged onto a stone stoop and the screen door clapped behind them. He followed her to a grassy backyard. A white wooden carriage house stood across a clearing, almost a house in itself, with a small gravel drive leading up to it from the side of the main house. To the left was a hammock and a clothesline, all hemmed in by thick forest.
She turned. “Okay,” she said, rapt, breathless.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Her messy hair shone like a gleaming pink crown, bright, even in the shady yard. Still a goddess. With eyes the color of ale. “Shit.” She bit her lip, shifted her gaze. “I can’t believe you remember my name.”
“Of course I remember,” he said.
Hell, he remembered everything about her. He remembered how she’d breezed into his class all those years ago, so sweet and hot in her artfully torn-up workout clothes and high blonde ponytail. But it was more than looks with her—it was her energy, so big and exuberant that it filled the space. And her sassy strut, as though she found private delight in the mere act of walking across a martial arts dojo.
He remembered how good it felt to stand near her, a good feeling tinged with the sort of agony that bright, beautiful, out-of-reach things always evoked in him.
She’d made a comedy routine out of being forced to take off her bracelets the first day of class and then again the second day. He’d drawn her silently and sternly across the room to the desk and she’d followed. She’d pulled them off slowly, holding his gaze. He remembered her steady, sexy eyes and the fact that he couldn’t breathe.
He’d wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to consume her, like she was a wild bright presence he wanted to interact with and contain, to subdue her and revel in her all at once; it was as if she’d crashed a gate in his heart and made him feel happy. Just happy.
He could barely teach the class after that. Could barely focus. He felt happy when she messed up the drills and happy when she didn’t. He’d tried to keep a lid on it—Veecha had a strict code about his instructors flirting with students, and Paul would never cross him. But Paul planned to ask her for a date once the class was over. Four weeks. Veecha wouldn’t like that either; Veecha thought girls eroded a fighter’s will and regimen, but Paul felt strongly about Alix.
She’d galvanized him with that brightness, and he wanted to…what? Engage with her, capture her, grasp her—something, anything.
He was training for nationals at the time, and sure enough, his regimen fell apart. Master Veecha accused him of being distracted, but really, it was happiness overshadowing the hunger and misery and fear that had always driven him. He cared only about the excruciatingly beautiful agony Alix created inside his heart.
And he got trounced in the ring at Nationals.
Paul was devastated; Nationals was supposed to have been his big break. He’d been favored to take it all, and instead he’d lost. Master Veecha’s disappointment was even worse than the humiliating loss. The man had rescued him from the streets and given him a home, been a father to him, had molded him into an elite fighter, and this is how Paul repaid him?
The next day back in class, he found himself standing behind Alix, holding her arms, moving them in the correct pak-sao motion. And she’d laughed, playing the floppy-handed puppet, and then he’d had the impulse to laugh. Even after losing at Nationals, he wanted
to laugh with her. He felt happy. It was such a new feeling she woke within him.
It was then that everything flipped—he remembered the moment exactly, when he decided, in a flash, that she had to leave. He’d pointed at the door and ordered her out, saying something asinine about her only wanting to play games. He was really saying it to himself. It was as if she’d woken something inside him, and he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t tamp it down, cut himself off from it. As if this new feeling she evoked was so beautiful and fragile, it might turn his life inside-out.
It was like a dream, even then, watching himself do this terrible thing, as though he was cutting himself off from his own heart, becoming his own torturer.
He remembered the bewilderment in her eyes, right before she’d covered it with bravado. “Come on,” she’d said to her friend, and she went and snatched her bright bracelets and strutted out. The sound of the door shutting behind her hit him like a shock wave. And right afterwards, perversely, the familiarity of the pain and misery comforted him.
It was a good minute or two before he realized somebody was speaking to him, a student with a question; he answered in a haze as the enormity of his mistake came over him.
What had he done?
He had an assistant take over and ran out onto the street, up and down, but Alix and her friend were gone. After class, he rooted through the desk and located her sign-up form in the files, thinking to get her contact information, to call her, apologize, see if she was okay. But there was only one legible word: Alix. The ‘i’ was dotted with a sloppily drawn star; her last name and address were scribbled. Impossible to make out. She’d scribbled her friend’s information in the same way.
His heart fell.
He’d watched for her long after, hoping she’d come back to class, but she never did. Why would she want to? How could he have kicked her out like that? He channeled his anger at himself into his fighting and slowly regained his focus. But, for years after, he kept an eye out for that blonde ponytail and that sassy strut. When his fights started being televised, he sometimes wondered if she was out there, if she might see him.
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