Three Fates Entwined (The Defectives Book 0)

by Jamie Campbell

Nothing happened in Aria without me knowing about it. It wasn’t only a threat that I targeted toward my people, it was true. I had eyes and ears everywhere, all looking for acts of treason that would see the perpetrators killed.

  I didn’t believe in empty threats. All my threats were carried through to the end. Nobody ever said President Portia Stone wasn’t true to her word.

  He offered me a seat while he spoke and pointed at the screen in the middle of the wall. “This is footage from the college today. As you know, we scanned the crowd for anything that might be suspicious. There were two things we found. This is the first one.”

  He zoomed in on a face in the crowd. She was standing at the back under the shade of an Elm tree. My younger face looked back at me. I remembered being eighteen, how the youthful glow would beam from my eager young face.

  My clone had none of that glow.

  She didn’t take any pride in her appearance. Her hair was unkempt, her cheeks sunken, and she was covered in a layer of dirt. If she hadn’t been born with her defect, she would have been welcome to spend time with me in my mansion.

  If not for that bloody defect, I would have been able to create as many clones as I wanted.

  She ruined everything for me.

  I would have changed the legislation but some of my parliamentary members voted against it. They were all so unruly back then, thinking they had a say in everything that went on in Aria City. It was cute, really.

  I’d fixed that.

  And nobody had noticed.

  “She remained and listened for the whole speech,” the guard continued. “She didn’t seem to do much else. The boy here, he was with her for most of the time. They left together.”

  He zoomed in on the pair, the boy just as disgusting as her. I’d given her the genes that could have made her great and instead she was a poor excuse of a clone. Her little friend seemed to be exactly the same.

  I would make him pay for helping her. No doubt he was aiding her in evading my guards and troopers. They seemed close on the surveillance footage. He would regret that friendship one day.

  One day soon.

  When I was that age I was taking control of Aria and commencing my reign. I was working seventeen hours a day to make this city what it is today. I was contributing, building an empire that was never going to fall.

  What was my clone doing?

  Nothing. It was why she deserved to die. She was a complete waste of space and I resented having to use any resources to keep her alive. I should have stopped the monthly supply of food years ago and rounded them all up. The scientists said sixteen was a good age to take their organs, anything above that was bonus time for them. I would be able to get legislation passed through parliament now to mandate their capture upon maturity.

  I would make that my priority.

  All Defs would need to watch their back then. On their sixteenth birthday they would get to Serve Their Purpose. The city would save on monthly food deliveries and their Makers would have surety that their organs were being frozen and ready for use.

  Win-win all around.

  “What else is there? You said there were two things,” I pointed out, having to tell him to do his job. I swear everyone was a sandwich short of a picnic. They were lucky to have me as their leader, I was the only one with a full working brain.

  “Uh, yes, there was.” He typed on the keyboard and the image of my useless clone switched to another group of the crowd. It was frozen before he touched the screen to make it play. “This occurred at the end of your speech just as you left the podium.”

  One man crossed his arms over his chest.

  The biggest idiot of all.

  “Find out who he is and have him arrested. I want his death to be a public spectacle,” I ordered. “If he isn’t found by morning, it will be your life I take instead.”

  I turned and left the room. I’d seen enough for one day. In just a few minutes, the high I had been riding all day had been vanquished by those blithering idiots.

  My clone didn’t deserve to live the eighteen years that she had. For the last two years I had been trying to find her so she could Serve Her Purpose. At the time I hadn’t required her organs, I just wanted them to be frozen so I didn’t have to worry about the girl carrying them around.

  She had lived an extra two years.

  That was enough.

  If I did nothing else, I would make sure she was captured and sent to the labs for freezing. There was no way for her to escape from Aria. Her time was limited and I was going to find her.

  Even if it was the last thing I ever did.

  the story continues.

  READ ON FOR THE EXCLUSIVE FIRST ChAPTER OF:

  Two Beating Hearts

  Chapter 1: Wren

  “Run! Run!”

  My eyes snapped open from the fitful sleep I had been in. It took a few moments for the words to sink in and be processed through my sleep-addled brain.

  “Run!”

  The shrieks repeated as if they were stuck in a loop. Over and over again I was screamed at to run. It was so dark in the cold room that I could barely make out which way was up and which way was down.

  “Run!”

  I needed to run.

  There were no such things as false alarms around here.

  Pulling myself to my feet, I felt around in the dark until I could pull open a door. It groaned with my efforts, inching open just far enough so I could see through the slit.

  Straight beams from flashlights ran over the warehouse walls, illuminating everything in their wake, even the corners of the large area. They matched the rhythm of the security troopers’ boots.

  Thud thud thud.

  I wasn’t sure if the beat belonged to them or my own heart.

  “Clone! Make yourself known and nobody has to get hurt.” A male voice, yelling louder than all the others.

  One of the president’s security troopers.

  “I know you’re in here. There is no place to hide.”

  He was right, there was no place to hide. I needed to get the hell out of there before they found me. Because they lied, everybody would get hurt with them there. They wouldn’t spare anyone – especially me.

  I had to make it out.

  Doing a quick sweep of all the shadows in the room, there had to be at least a dozen troopers in sight. Twelve of them against one of me.

  I didn’t like those odds.

  They were never in my favor.

  “Come out come out wherever you are.”

  The door creaked no matter how slowly I moved it. But there was no way out of the room besides through that door so it had to be done. I pulled it back until I could squeeze through.

  Immediately, I crouched to the ground, telling myself I was invisible the entire way. It was beyond difficult walking like that with my foot. When I walked normally it was little more than a limp. But when I had to be quiet and small it slowed me down and dragged like it was a completely useless appendage.

  Which it pretty much was.

  I didn’t have too far to creep, if I could make it to the next room over, there was a window. All I needed to do was find it in the darkness and somehow crawl through it.

  Then I might have a shot of making it out alive.

  Providing the troops didn’t think to cover the outside area too. They probably didn’t think I was intelligent enough to escape, that I would hide until they found me and haul me off to my certain death.

  I was much smarter than they gave me credit for.

  I’d survived this long. Eighteen years was nothing to be ashamed of. Some might call it miraculous. I certainly did.

  “Step out where we can see you and put your hands on your head.”

  I froze.

  They had found me. Every nerve in my body stood at full attention and waited for the flashlight beam to wash over me. The troopers wouldn’t shoot me when they saw me, they wouldn’t kill me yet, but they weren’t afraid to beat me into submission. Anything that didn’
t injure my organs was fair game.

  “Get out here!”

  The order made me jump but I could not move any muscles to comply with the order. Not when every instinct I owned screamed at me to run.

  Footsteps pounded as someone else stepped out of the shadows. “Hands up! Get down on the ground. Now now now!”

  It wasn’t me they had spotted. Temporary relief flooded through my veins, quickly followed by guilt over someone else being caught. Their blood was going to be on my hands.

  But I couldn’t think of that right now. I had to keep moving or I would be the next one they found. My feet shuffled along as quietly as they could possibly move.

  “Clone, where are you? We’re going to find you so you may as well show yourself now.”

  Where was the door?

  I had spent so many hours studying every inch of the abandoned warehouse I thought I had it memorized. I knew one day my survival would depend on it and now my memory was failing.

  One step after the other, that’s all I needed to do. One barely functioning foot after the perfectly good one.

  Step step step.

  “This is your final warning.”

  I ran into something hard. The door. I almost fell to the floor in a puddle of relief.

  My hand ventured over the smooth cold steel until I found the knob. Praying it wouldn’t squeak like the last one, I pushed on it. Inch by inch it moved.

  I slipped inside.

  The moonlight was shining on the window like a beacon of hope. I made a direct line for it, willing myself to go faster. I could almost feel the freedom offered by the outside. It would be a small drop to the ground but then I could run. I could find a new place to hide, somewhere the security troopers would never find me.

  “Stop!” The voice was too close.

  No no no.

  The flashlight caught me in its spotlight, the center focused right on me and only me.

  I slowly turned around, my hands up in surrender while I figured out a way to get away from him.

  He was tall, at least six foot. He wore the troopers’ uniform like it was made just for him, perfectly sculptured to his body and showing off the hard muscles underneath.

  In one hand he held a flashlight, in the other a gun. They were both pointed directly at me with hands so steady they could perform microsurgery.

  Any words I might have used to plead for my freedom were caught in my throat. I was too scared to move, pinned in place by the trooper’s green eyes.

  He stared at me, our eyes momentarily locking together as everything unspoken passed between us. In about two seconds he would throw me on the ground and secure my hands with cuffs. He would take me back to the rest of his troop and they would parade me to the president’s house like I was a prized cow.

  Then I would die.

  The entire scene played out in the blink of an eye as I stood there. These were going to be the last moments of my life. I could probably count them down.

  Ten.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  He wasn’t even blinking. He stood there, unwavering as he stared at me. Was he waiting for backup? Prolonging my agony? Deciding exactly how to punish me for escaping this long?

  Seven.

  Six.

  Five.

  He finally tore his gaze away from my eyes and looked at something behind me. Was someone else hiding in the room and I hadn’t noticed them? Was it another trooper?

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  He looked behind me again, this time gesturing with his gun. I risked looking around, seeing nothing but the window in the room. Was he hoping for me to run so it would make my capture that much sweeter? So more violence could be justified?

  One.

  He held up a finger to his lips, shushing me as if I might be able to speak. Or scream. I could do neither as I watched him approach. This was normally when they made a fist and bashed it against my frail body over and over again.

  I was planted in place, unable to move. As he drew nearer – so close I could smell the sweat – my heartbeat went off the charts. I mentally prepared myself for the beating, remembering that it would be nothing compared to my death.

  I wondered if this guy would be like the last one who had caught me. Would he try to twist my arms around so tightly they wanted to snap off? Or would he prefer a simple throw down so he could kick me repeatedly?

  Would he find something even worse to torture me with?

  The trooper stepped around me and reached up to open the window. A gust of frigid night air rushed through and swirled around me. My skin prickled with goosebumps.

  “You’d better hurry,” he whispered right by my ear. I hadn’t realized he was so close. I jumped from the feel of his breath on my neck.

  He strode back to the door, glancing at me once more before looking at the window. Was he telling me to run? Surely I had to be mistaken.

  The trooper stepped outside. Just as he closed the door, I heard him say, “She’s not in here, this room’s clear.”

  My limbs unfroze.

  I scrambled up the wall and through that window faster than I ever thought possible. The drop to the ground wasn’t even felt on my sore body.

  I ran and ran and ran.

  The whole time, I reminded myself that I wasn’t only what they thought I was. My name was Wren. I was the Defective Clone of the most powerful woman in the country.

  I was being hunted.

  And I would not let them catch me.

  OUT NOW

  Two Beating Hearts

  BOOK ONE OF THE DEFECTIVES SERIES

  THE DEFECTIVES SERIES:

  Book 1: Three Fates Entwined (Short Prequel)

  Book 2: Two Beating Hearts

  Book 3: A Hundred Stolen Breaths

  Book 4: One Spark of Hope

  Read them all now.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  Jamie Campbell grew up in the New South Wales town of Port Macquarie as the youngest of six children. She now resides on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.

  Writing since she could hold a pencil, Jamie’s passion for storytelling and wild imagination were often a cause for concern with her school teachers. Now that imagination is used for good instead of mischief.

  Visit www.jamiecampbell.com.au now for exclusive website only content and free downloads.

  Jamie loves hearing from her readers, send her an email at Jamie@jamiecampbell.com.au

  Also by the Author:

  A Hairy Tail

  Fairy Tales Retold

  All The Pretty Ghosts

  Ashes to Ashes

  A World Without Angels

  Angel’s Uprising

  Gifted

  Fashion Fraud

  Liar

  The Project Integrate Series

  Dark Eyes: Cursed

  Songbird

  The Star Kissed Series

  Through a Tangled Woods

  Trouble

  Two Beating Hearts

  Copyright © 2016 Jamie Campbell

  Jamie Campbell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.