Falls the Shadow (33 page)

His eyes close for what feels like a long time. Then the corners of his lips turn up into that familiar smile, and it tells me that, somehow, even now he remembers what he said the other night.

“That moment in the hotel,” I say, “after we blocked the signal. You held me, and I felt safe. It was me and you, and Huxley will never, ever have that memory. Nobody else will. Nobody but us. And we're going to have so much more that they're never going to get, I know we are, but you just have to stay awake. You have to keep looking at me. Jaxon?”

He keeps trying to speak, but it's hard to make sense of most of what he's saying. He's trying to explain what happened, I think. How he was tricked, and how close my clone came to finishing him off, and how the only reason she left was because they heard something upstairs—me and Seth and Violet. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if we'd arrived a few minutes later.

Or about where my clone's disappeared to now.

“I'm sorry,” Jaxon says suddenly, his voice a bit stronger as his hand finds mine.

“Don't waste your energy apologizing, all right?”

“I understand how you felt now,” he says. “About your
sister, I mean. Because I couldn't shoot either. She looked too much like you.” He tries to laugh but ends up just wincing from pain. “And god knows I could never hurt you. . . . I couldn't even get mad at her. I was stupid to follow her in the first place. Maybe . . . maybe I should have known better, but I . . . I just . . .”

“You didn't know it wasn't me.”

“It's hard to know, isn't it?” That strength is already fading again, the words getting more slurred, more difficult to follow every second.

“Maybe you shouldn't talk right now,” I say. I feel something warm against my cheek, and I reach up and realize I've started crying; my skin is already covered in dried, sticky tears. I hastily wipe away any fresh ones. Crying isn't going to do anybody any good right now.

The movement makes his eyes blink open again.

“Don't do that,” he says, shaking his head. It's obvious how painful just that simple motion is for him. “Please don't cry.”

But that only makes it worse, and soon there's a wall of water blurring his face. And that only upsets me more, because right now I just need to see him. I just need to see life in his eyes, to watch his lips part as he breathes in, breathes out.

Please keep breathing.

I don't know what else to say. I don't know what to do. I feel so helpless holding him like this, like I should be picking him up and carrying him to someplace safe instead, to someone who can save him. But I can't move. I'm afraid to
move him, and I don't think I could lift him, anyway. I try shouting for Seth, but the words scatter soundlessly into the air, like sand swept from my desert mouth.

His fingers are getting cold. So cold. I try to warm them with my own, but it's no use.

I can't just sit here and watch him die.

“I'm going to be right back,” I say, gently laying him on the floor. I pick his gun back up and get to my feet. My balance sways dangerously, and I have to grab the banister to steady myself. I take a deep breath.

“I'm going to get Seth,” I tell Jaxon, even though the thought of leaving him behind now—even just for a minute—makes me sick in the worst possible way. “And the other CCA people . . . I . . . I bet they're here by now. I bet they're looking for us, and for you, and I'll bring them here, and then we'll take you to the hospital and you'll be fine. You're going to be fine.” I push out the nasty voice in my mind that wonders how much of him is already damaged beyond repair, even if he's still alive when we get to that hospital.

“I won't be long,” I say, my voice breaking. “And I swear you better still be breathing when I get back, or I'm going to be so pissed, it's not even funny.”

I want to ask him if he understands what I'm saying. I want to make him tell me—make him promise me—that he'll still be here when I get back. But I'm afraid he won't answer. So I take one more deep breath, and I press my free hand to his cold, clammy cheek. It's probably my imagination at this point, but I could swear I feel him lean into my
touch. The pressure on my wrist sends pain shooting up my arm. But it doesn't matter. Because in that moment, it literally feels like the weight of his whole life is in my hand, and no amount of pain could take my mind off that.

I choke down a breath, turn, and run as fast as I can up the stairs.

Seth. I have to find Seth. Or Violet, or the CCA members. Somebody. Anybody.

At the top of the steps, I don't even slow down; in one fluid motion I'm darting, squeezing my way back through the small space between the wall and the ajar door. I'm still going so fast when I reach the other side that I can't stop in time to avoid colliding with the person standing there. I take less than the span of a second to compose myself in their shadow before I look up. A gasp escapes my lips.

Because it's not Seth staring back at me. Or Violet.

It's myself.

She is my perfect copy
.

Completely.

Perfect.

I wouldn't be so surprised, maybe, if they hadn't gone above and beyond to make her look exactly as I do now; she even has a fresh scar just below her eye, and her dark copper bangs are cut at the same angle, to the same length, as mine. Which just proves that this was completely planned by Huxley. While I was locked in that room for god knows how long, they put the final touches on her and then set her after Jaxon. For revenge, maybe, like Violet said, or maybe just to distract President Cross from her assault on their headquarters. Either way, I should have known they would use him—that they would use everything between us—to whatever advantage they could, no matter how low it meant they had to stoop.

The night I walked away from him, I think this is exactly what I was afraid of, even if I couldn't put it into words then. This is exactly why I wanted to do it. Because of course Jaxon couldn't tell the difference between us. And even if he had been able to, I don't think it would have mattered.

Because she's too fast.

Her hand catches me in the stomach, throws me back against the basement door. She's in my face an instant later.

“Hello, origin,” she says, smiling sweetly. The reflection of my green eyes in hers gives her gaze an infinite, bottomless look. While I'm staring into them I can't think about the pain of her hand pressing up into my rib cage, or of my wrist throbbing from being slammed against the door; I can only think about the pain she's caused everyone else by stealing those eyes. By pretending to be someone she's not. Did she look at Jaxon the same way she's looking at me now? And my parents? Did she smile at all of them? I wonder if it was the last thing they saw before she hit them, bruised them, broke them.

It won't be the last thing I see.

Jaxon's gun is still in my hand.

I get it twisted around, aimed as well as I can in the small space between her hip and mine, and pull the trigger. Light and heat explode between us with more force than I was anticipating; the flash is similar to the one a distress disc gives off, and for several seconds afterward I'm blind. My surroundings come back to me in slow motion, white pinpricks of light still flitting in front of my eyes as my clone materializes in front of me. She's down on one knee and holding her side, her fingers pressed against her charred shirt and the bloody strip of skin showing through it.

I still haven't fully caught my breath after being thrown
into the door. But I can't miss this chance to escape, so I peel away from the support of it and half sprint, half stumble toward the living room. I need to get to someplace more open, to someplace where I have a better chance of getting behind her. Because I remember what Violet said when we fought Samantha: Aim for the back of the head. That's where the central processing unit is. That's the best—maybe the only—way to stop her.

I reach the living room just as I hear her footsteps thundering behind me, and I make the mistake of glancing over my shoulder. Her fist is right there to meet me. I twist violently to the side, and her swing ends up just grazing my cheekbone. I still lose my footing and fall over one of the side tables; I hit the floor on my hands and knees. My gun goes flying, and my head just barely misses the corner of my father's armchair. I kick up and back as hard as I can, catching the glass-topped table from underneath and knocking it into my clone's path so she ends up tripping too. While she stumbles, I scramble after the gun, grab it, and aim directly for her chest.

But when I pull the trigger, it doesn't fire.

I shake the gun, and a strange rattling sound echoes in the handle; something must have been knocked loose when I dropped it. Cursing under my breath, I switch the useless gun to my hand with the weak wrist and use my good hand to grab everything I can reach and fling it at my clone. The TV remote, the picture frames I knocked off the table, that ugly angel figurine my mother loves so much. I throw it all. The figurine's wing catches her just
below the eye and reopens the cut there; while she wipes away the fresh blood, I jump to my feet and start to run. I'm not sure where I'm going—or what I'm going to do—exactly; if I don't have a functioning gun, how am I supposed to stop her?

Shouldn't I have backup by now? Where are the rest of the CCA people? Where is Seth? Violet? Maybe if I can just get to them, or just stay alive long enough to let them get to me . . .

Except meanwhile, Jaxon is dying in the basement, and I still don't know where my parents are. I need to put a stop to this, so I can focus on finding help.

I cut a sharp right into the kitchen, thinking I'll be able to find some sort of weapon in there. I dive behind the island and fling open the drawer above me, sift through the useless slotted spoons and tongs and other not exactly lethal weapons until my hand falls on the grip of the biggest knife we have.

The trick, of course, is going to be getting close enough to my clone to actually do any damage with it.

It's better than being unarmed, though. I set the malfunctioning gun, which is now making a pitiful buzzing noise, safely inside one of the cabinets. Then I gently shut the cabinet door and press back against it, holding my breath and listening to my clone's voice carrying down the hall.

“Come on now,” she calls. “Let's be reasonable about this. We can't
both
live, now can we? That would just get confusing. There can only be one you, and I think we can
both agree that I'm the more impressive one.” She's silent for a minute, and the next words she speaks aren't softened by any walls between us; she sounds like she's standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Huxley has done this country a favor, you know, by creating us. We're going to bring this country back from the edge, and it's going to be even better than before. It's going to be perfect.”

She moves slowly into the kitchen, each unhurried step unbearably loud against the tile floor. Something slams on the counter above me—her fists, maybe—and I jump and scrape my back against the metal doorknob of the cabinet. The handle of the knife is slick and covered with sweat from my shaking hand gripping it too tightly.

“I have a lot of things to do, origin,” she says. “An entire bright, new future to help build.”

A future that doesn't belong to you
, I want to shout. Just like all of the horrible things she's done don't belong to me, and the things I've done don't belong to her. She's an actress. The same way I used to put on all those costumes and memorize all those lines—that's all she's done. She has my mask. My costume. But those things don't make her anything more than a stolen life parading around in a stolen body.

And I'm going to take it back.

She's stopped talking. Stopped moving. I don't even hear her breathing; all I hear is the beating of my own heart as I edge my way along the island. I get to the corner and press even closer to the smooth wood, curving my neck in an awkward, uncomfortable angle so I can peer around.

She's gone.

This is not good.

It happens in a flurry of noise—a thump against the granite countertop, the clanking and clattering of pots and pans being knocked from the ceiling rack they hang from. And her breathing, calm and deep, as if she's savoring the moment, just waiting for me to look up and find her staring down at me.

She jumps.

I thrust the knife up and feel pressure—her tough, biologically enhanced skin resisting at first—and then finally it pierces, allowing the blade to sink in deep, just beneath her rib cage. Blood drips down over the knife, winding a hot, sticky trail down my arm. Her face is right in front of mine, our noses practically touching and her strangely sweet-smelling breath washing over me.

“Why would you do that to your own body?” she asks through clenched teeth. It's hard to tell if the look in her eyes is pain, or just insanity.

“You aren't me,” I say, twisting the knife until she jerks away in obvious agony and I'm able to roll out from underneath her. She tries to grab me by the ankle, but I manage a well-placed kick to her face, right between her eyes. It slows her down just long enough for me to get to my feet.

I don't stay on them long.

She's lost her patience. That much is very obvious very quickly. With a blood-chilling scream she dives after me, and her arms wrap around my waist and drag me down. I hit the tile face-first and feel my lip split, taste the blood
rising between my teeth. The knife slips out of my hand. By the time I manage to flip myself onto my back, my clone already has it in her hand. She looms over me, one impossibly strong hand pinning my chest down while the other traces the tip of its blade across my neck. My skin isn't like hers; it's not nearly as tough, and soon I feel little beads of blood bubbling up and spilling across it.