Imitation (20 page)

The stomping ceases. She looks up at
me, apparently satisfied with her handiwork and oblivious to my
confusion. “Now we can talk.”

“
Who are you?” I
ask.

“
Who are you?” she fires
back.

“
I am Raven,” I say, the
words tasting uncertain in my mouth.

Her hands are on her hips, the scab
glaring at me. “Wrong answer. Try again. Who. Are. You?”

I don’t answer. Every other Authentic
I’ve met here has some small tell that gives them away as
different. So far, I’ve seen nothing to suggest she isn’t the girl
I nod at every morning. But that’s not possible. She was there when
I left.

“
What do you want?” I
ask.

She reaches up and pulls her hair away
from her scalp, exposing the spot just behind her ear. There, in
plain black ink, is the mark of a tree with tiny numbers stamped
along the base of the trunk.

I gasp. “Anna? It’s you. But how? You
were …”

“
Still at home when you
left?” She shrugs. “Not anymore.”

“
And Ida? Lonnie?” Hot
tears brim at the edges of my lids before I can stop them and I
almost choke on my words. “How are they?”

“
Ida’s … she’s having a
hard time,” Anna says quietly.

I nod and a tear slips out. I don’t
bother to wipe it until it’s halfway down my cheek. I feel
responsible, though it’s not as if I had a choice in leaving.
“Lonnie does a good job distracting her, though. Some new music and
movies came in just before I left.” She stops abruptly as if she’s
changed her mind about whatever she wanted to say.

Something about her expression makes
me nervous. “When did you leave?”

“
Couple of days ago. Marla
had a car waiting for me and they snuck me out a back
door.”

I know all too well the door she
refers to. Memories of that door, of my last steps inside Twig
City, make me nostalgic. My stomach twists. With homesickness,
longing. Regret. I hate that I feel as if I’ve abandoned my
friends.

“
Do you—I mean, how are
you doing with your … role?” I ask. I am unsure what to call it or
what is expected of Anna. I don’t imagine her circumstances are
anything like my own, but I have no way of knowing.

“
My role is a
lie.”

Her words are twisted with disgust and
I cannot disagree, though I am hesitant to voice my own misery just
yet. My suspicions haven’t been alleviated at her finding me here.
If anything, they’ve heightened. If Annalyn—the Authentic—was a
staple at these sorts of functions, wouldn’t I have seen her by
now?

“
Your arm …” I trail off,
unsure how to finish. “Your GPS?”

“
Gone,” she says
simply.

I shake my head. None of this makes
sense. “But … how are you here, Anna? How did you find
me?”

Something subtle changes and I know
I’ve hit the mark. “I didn’t,” she admits. “Well, not on my own, at
least. I had help.”

“
Who?” The knot in my
stomach tightens.

“
Don’t get upset, okay,
she won’t hurt you anymore. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
She’s—”

Anna is cut off as the bathroom door
opens and a girl walks in. Her red hair hangs loose down her back
and she smirks when she sees me, a satisfied, confident sort of
smile.

I scream. The sound is muffled by
Anna’s hand clamping over my mouth. She yanks me backward against
her chest and holds me by wrapping her free hand around my neck
while my feet hop and jump and struggle to carry me
away.

“
Relax, Raven,” the
redhead says. “Or should I say, Ven. I’m not here to hurt
you.”

The sound of my real name sends a
shock through me. I go still in Anna’s arms and for a moment, I am
lost. I cannot remember how I got here or who I’m supposed to
be.

I don’t know who I am.

But then she smiles and it
all floods in again. This party. The night in the alley. Her words
just now:
I’m not here to hurt
you.

I don’t believe her. I can’t. Not
after the marks she left the last time we met. I renew my struggle
against Anna’s hold. I can feel her arm loosening. Adrenaline
surges through me and I yank sideways and then I am free. I barrel
into the redhead with my head down and my shoulder jutting out, the
force of it knocking her aside as I tumble out the restroom
door.

The hallway is empty. Obadiah is
nowhere in sight. My shoulders heave, the exertion and panic
wreaking havoc on my bruised windpipe. But I will not be cornered
by the redhead, not again.

I am frantic to find Obadiah. I know
she has done something to him. That thought is enough to tempt me
to turn around and fight. If not for me, then for him. But I am no
match for her. My only option is escape. At least until Linc and
the others come for me.

I shove the stairwell door open and
hurry through.

I have only a split second to decide
up or down before I hear the door opening behind me. Anna and her
friend with the iron fists are chasing me. I race downward. I am
faster heading down. And I am too afraid of being trapped on a
rooftop to go upward. I hope Obadiah is down.

My heels create an echoing thump
against the stairs. The sound is drowned out by the masculine
pounding of boots as the redhead—who has not bothered to dress for
a party—gives chase. I reach a door and race through too fast to
read the sign above.

Inside, it is pitch-black and I dart
sideways around some sort of exhaust system just as the door opens
behind me. I crouch down, my heart thumping so loud I am sure it
will give me away.

When my vision adjusts enough to make
out shapes, I continue left, darting farther inside what is
apparently a boiler room. Exhaust steam rises up around me, sucked
out massive piping capped with giant fans that carry it toward a
ventilation shaft overhead. The booted footsteps have faded. The
redhead has, for the moment, chosen a direction opposite of my
hiding spot.

I calculate the distance to the
glowing exit sign.

My escape plan is sidelined when far
back, I hear voices. One of them is obviously male and annoyingly
familiar and I cannot fight my curiosity. I hurry closer, careful
to stay hidden behind the exhaust units. It isn’t until I’m almost
upon them that I realize it is Daniel and the redhead. I inch
closer until their strained conversation reaches me.

“…
Wasn’t the agreement,”
Daniel says.

“
Obviously. Anna came on
her own—”

“
Annalyn,” he interrupts.
“I’ve told you over and over, Mel, you have to call them by their
Authentic’s name. One slip-up is all it would take to bring this
whole thing crashing down.”

Daniel’s words are starkly similar to
the stranger I heard with Titus yesterday. But Daniel can’t
possibly be referring to the same thing. Can he?

“
Whatever,” the girl
mutters. “
Annalyn
broke protocol. She got excited seeing a familiar face. I had
to haul ass to get down here before she did any real damage.” Her
tone is absent of the malicious twist she always uses with me. She
sounds annoyed. And slightly defensive.

“
Are you saying you can’t
handle one measly little product?”

“
Please,” she scoffs. “I
handled it. Stop worrying.”

“
As long as you keep
screwing it up, I’ll worry. Please tell me no one else saw
you.”

“
No one else saw
me?”

“
Melanie,” he growls.
“This is serious.”

Melanie. Her name is
Melanie.

She sighs. “There was a guy standing
outside the bathroom when I got there. I handled it.”

“
What guy?”

“
Whitcomb, I
think?”

“
Father or
son?”

“
Son.”

Daniel curses. “You can’t hurt him.
All we need is his product coming in.”

“
I only knocked him out. I
don’t even think he saw me.”

“
You better hope so.
Where’d you stash him?”

“
In the coatroom. I still
don’t understand why we need this chick. We’ve got plenty of others
already stashed.”

“
And you don’t need to
understand,” he snaps at her. “You only need to follow orders. And
you can barely do that.”

“
Bite me.”

He grins. “Plenty of time for that
later, baby.”

She sidles up to him and presses her
body to his. “Promise?” she asks in a husky voice.

“
If you finish what you
started with Raven, then yes.”

Melanie scowls and steps back. “I’ll
finish what I started all right,” she mutters.

“
No more trying to kill
her,” Daniel says. “We want her alive. And besides, she’s only a
product.”

“
I know that. I just …
when I saw her, all I saw was the other Raven. I couldn’t help
myself.” She shrinks under Daniel’s glare. “It won’t happen again,”
she adds.

“
Where’s Raven
now?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably
slipped out.”

“
I need to go wipe the
security feed. Make sure no one IDs either of us. No more
screw-ups, Mel. I mean it. Next time I tell you to grab this girl,
make it happen.”

“
It’s not my fault. That
freaking security guy is like a ninja,” she says. “He keeps saving
her ass.”

Daniel nods. “Linc Crawford. I’ll
speak to Gus.”

“
Can’t you get him
reassigned?”

“
Not without tipping off
Titus.”

“
What the hell good was it
to force Titus to switch Gus for his product if he can’t help with
stuff like this?”

“
Because, idiot, it gives
us the inside track on Titus’s whereabouts. I made sure he was gone
tonight, didn’t I? And now it’s all for nothing because you
couldn’t control one stupid product.”

“
Don’t call me an idiot,”
she snaps.

“
I’ll figure something out
to deal with Crawford. Get the hell out of here and back to base.
And no more calling me to social events. This was too
risky.”

“
Yes, sir,” she says, her
words full of sarcasm. She gives him an exaggerated salute. Then
she presses a quick kiss to Daniel’s scowling mouth and slips
away.

Two days later, I have examined every
book, essay, and newspaper I can find in Rogen Tower. None of them
mention what I’m looking for: Twig City. I wonder how many others
from this world know its name or even that it exists. I am tempted
to ask Gus. I’ve seen him only twice since the night I heard Daniel
and the redhead—Melanie—say that he is an Imitation. A product, as
they call it.

Both times he is the same old Gus,
grouchy and silent. His examiners would be proud of the way he’s
integrated himself as his Authentic. He seems completely immersed
in his role. Because of that, I can’t bring myself to give away
what I know. About him. Or Senator Ryan. Or his son.

One thing is clear. Titus
has no idea it is Daniel trying to kill me. And I have no idea if
he’ll even believe me if I tell him. Or if I want him to. The
redhead’s words replay in my mind so many times, they are imprinted
on the inside of my eyelids:
or the others
we’ve got stashed.

I go back to what the stranger in the
study said to Titus, about being disturbed by all of the
disappearances. And I think he must mean Imitations are
disappearing. Being taken. By Daniel, it looks like. The idea of
Imitations being held against their will somewhere in this city
gives me enough pause that I don’t tell Titus what I know. Not all
of it. And then I remember the fresh wound on Anna’s arm. Her
missing GPS. Her complete willingness to be aligned with
Melanie.

Deep down, I know my reticence is due
to one thing. Would I be better off letting Daniel and Melanie have
me? I don’t have an answer for that yet.

The only reason I went forward with
the story of my attack was for Obadiah. By the time I arrived at
the coatroom to check on him, he’d already woken and notified
security. The police were called—the first time I’d seen a
legitimate police officer since arriving at Rogen Tower—and an
official report made. Titus showed up and swept me away before I
could give more than a preliminary statement, shushing me all the
way to the car.

Once inside, I gave him an edited
version of events, careful to leave out all mention of Annalyn
being Anna or the fact that Daniel was there, a veritable
string-puller. When I mentioned Melanie, Titus’s face went red and
he pressed his lips together so tightly they turned white. He
hasn’t been home since. From Gus and the other security guards who
watch me, I’ve gathered he is holed up inside Twig City. I can only
guess he’s trying to ready his new product line more quickly than
intended.

The men are tight-lipped about
everything. My exercise routine goes by the wayside. They are all
on edge and I overhear a couple of them talking about the men who
were with me at the party that night. Both team leaders were fired
and no one has heard from them since. The general consensus is that
any one of them will be next.