Mimics of Rune 02- Surrender (19 page)

He tilted toward the mirror, raising his eyebrows in the process.

Realizing she’d get nowhere with him, and that her only shot at more detail would come if they were alone, Lily pivoted to the window. “Please turn everything off.”

The room’s door opened. James stood, hand on handle, and sent Lily a nod. “We’re leaving. “A second later, the interior light to the booth clicked on, revealing an empty space where Lily had expected Charley, Wyatt and Cael to be.

Roy jerked his head toward the cameras.

Red lights dimmed a second later. “All clear. It’s just you and Lily,” James said before he closed the door again.

Roy patted his greasy hair, slicking it back farther as his steel-colored eyes shifted to a deep purple. “Now, where were we?”

Lily’s arms shook. When her legs took over in an anxiety-ridden gesture, she forced herself still and sat in her chair again.

“Now that we’re alone …” Roy stood.

Lily backed away, constrained by her chair.

He sat on the corner’s edge closest to her. “Do you know why you were in the institution?”

“That’s not why we we’re …”

Roy shook his head. “Ten years before they created the Mimic project, a scientist had a child who ended up being one of us. The kid was immediately shuffled away to Romania, where they already had a long-term Mimic program hidden in the bowels of their orphanages. Remember, the US hadn’t been around that long in the grand scheme of things. Most stuff happened in Europe at the time, but when you and I hit our coming of age time, the US had finally developed its own program.”

“I wasn’t in California until I was thirteen. I lived with …” …
my fake mom.
Lily’s body continued to betray her with its fidgeting and jerking at random intervals.

Roy repeated his earlier head shake. “Those with a lineage longer than three generations were contacted about sending their children as soon as they thought they saw the signs. So they took the kids, shipped them to Romania to wait, and once they reached thirteen, sent them out to their respective countries. Whomever you lived with before was nothing more than a woman paid to be your guardian until you showed the signs …
if
you did.”

Roy’s words penetrated Lily’s soul and built a headache at the base of her skull.

“The entire premise of the program was to learn what we could do as Mimics.” He cocked an eyebrow up. “We are quite useful, wouldn’t you say?”

Lily stayed silent, unsure how to respond.

“They gathered samples of hair, fluids …”

Bile rose in Lily’s throat as she remembered being forced to endure blood draws, x-rays and countless other tests. She imagined the more current tests would far outweigh what she went through herself.
And if generations of Mimics knew to send away their kids, did my own grandmother take me from my Mom?
Lily’s foot twitched as if her thoughts pushed through her entire body in an anxiety-ridden fervor.

“… They saved all of that, and now, with DNA technology, they’re backtracking. You know, Mimics are diluting with each human blend, but the government wants more of us around, so they’ve been searching for the new generations and—”

Lily’s head popped up from her slump “And you’re searching for them? How could you?”

“No, no.” Roy waved his hands in front of her. “I just happened to have heard about this. It’s worse than that. They’re also attempting to re-engineer us. They want our genetics to create a new ‘crop’ of Mimic kids. They’ll take your DNA, for example, and inject it into embryos to fashion the latest and greatest of the newest generation.”

“Wha—” Panic consumed Lily at the thought of Leigh as a test subject—like Lily had been. “Why would they do that?”

He hitched up a single shoulder. “To make us stronger, better, whatever. Take the most useful parts of our genetics and put them in others … if that’s possible. Hell, they said cloning wasn’t possible, and we’ve seen that happen. Who knows what really goes on behind closed doors?”

That’s not how our lives are supposed to work! They can’t do this!

Roy nudged himself closer to Lily’s side, laid a hand on her forearm.

Lily bumped him off, staring at the floor as her stomach gurgled its disgust. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to know that they’re looking for you. Two years ago, I was hired to find “Baby A” as she’s known. When I realized it was you, I put them off. I did it for as long as I could. But now … I can’t any longer.”

“Baby … A?”

Roy chuckled, the first real emotion Lily had seen from him. “Yes, Lily. You. You were known as ‘A’ back then and I was ‘M’.”

She straightened again, a hand to her stomach to stop the lurching.

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “You come from the only line that hasn’t diluted, despite the blending with humans. Look back at your lineage. It skips one to two generations and comes back even stronger.”

“O-okay.”
I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean since I only know my niece and no one before me.
“What about Leigh?”

“If you’ll recall, they took most of the samples from you and … me. They want more DNA. Since they couldn’t find you, they took the next best thing. And that’s when I knew what I had to do.”

Leigh.
“What did you … have to do?”

A smirk took hold of Roy’s lips. “I, too, need to pay back those who did us wrong. It was a total coincidence that I happened to intercept your sister’s frantic search. Took me a while to put it all together, but once I did, I knew if they used her to get to you, they’d figure me out, too. So … I made sure I took control of the situation.”

“You set her up?” The idea alone had tears falling over Lily’s lids. “Why would you do that to me? If you knew what they did to me, to us—”

“No! Lily. I was trying to … help … Angela was it?
They
did all that … other. The same people from forty years ago … well not the same, but the newer generation.”

Lily nodded, her emotions on a teeter-totter of highs and lows. She didn’t know what to feel or believe or how to get more information.

“I was hoping I could get to you first with all this, but I’ve failed you, Lily.” He hung his head. “And in that, I’m truly sorry.”

Air choked any words she might have shared. If Roy had gone through what Lily had, she understood his pain.

“I can help you … and help her.”

“H-how?”

“I know where your niece is because, remember, they asked me to help. If you help me, you’ll be able to get her out before they begin their current program, and you can stop them all.”

Lily’s body temperature dropped and numbness took hold. “What …
program
?”

“The next generation of genetically engineered kids needs to come from somewhere, and the best place to go is to the source.”

Oh, god. They want more than Leigh’s DNA.

“They want DNA and … samples from those descended from the original Mimic. That’s you. That’s your niece. But you can stop them. I promise you can if we move fast.”

“Wh-when are they going to … do this? What do I have to do to stop it? What can
we
do?” She’d team up with him without question if it meant saving Leigh.

Roy’s lips curved. He set the ring box back in front of her. “I’m sorry I had to be so covert about it all, Lily. I’m taking a risk by letting you know what’s going on, but it’s all inside there.” With that he stood. “You’ll want to hide that when Cael comes back in because all the details are there, and, of course, he can’t be involved. If they thought any other Mimics knew …” Roy rubbed his cheeks. “Well … let’s just say we’d never be able to beat them at their own game.” He moved to the far wall, put his hand on the concrete and leaned into it. “This is just between you and me. We’ll save your niece. The two of us will. You understand?”

She gave a slight nod.

“See you soon.” His hand merged with the stone.

Lily gasped.
I didn’t know any of us could do that.

His arm disappeared.

His left side.

His right.

Only when his fingertips remained did Lily jump up from her chair. “Cael!”

• • •

Cael stood in the hallway waiting for some sign about how Lily fared. Wyatt, James and Stuart had all had to drag him out, as well as hold him back a number of times while he considered barging in anyway.

When the door flew open and Lily yelled, “Cael!”, he took her in his arms and held her tight, searching the space for the cause of her distress.

He couldn’t find Roy, though.

The room stood empty.

16

Lily tucked the ring into her pocket as Cael launched himself into the room, James and Wyatt just behind him with their guns out and cocked.

“Where the hell did he go?” Cael asked.

She pointed to the wall, unable to form the words.

Tears spilled over as Charley slipped inside. She took Lily by the shoulders and navigated her out of the room. “Are you okay?”

Air, words and bile caught in Lily’s throat.

Cael stormed out of the room to where Lily and Charley stood in the hallway. “Where did he go?”

“Through … the wall.” More tears threatened as Lily tried to understand what Roy had told her and what had been done. That he’d been a pawn like her, just as Leigh would be. “I want to go home.” Wracking sobs took hold of Lily’s body, and she let Charley pull her down the hallway, one small step at a time, until they made it to the exit.

If Roy waited for her somewhere, preparing to snatch her up, she didn’t know or care. She only wanted to cry in the privacy of her bedroom with the doors and windows closed until the memories stopped crashing down on her again.

• • •

Cael paced the hallway outside Lily’s bedroom. She’d shut the door, locked it and refused to answer. Charley had begged him to leave Lily alone, to give her time.

Two hours had passed.

During the first, he’d heard the sobs.

During the second, he’d heard nothing but silence.

It tore at his heart that she wouldn’t let him in, that she’d kept him out of whatever Roy had told her. In all their years, she’d either talked to him or let him comfort her, while he let her tears soak his shirt.

“Cael,” Angela stood at the end of the hallway with a steaming mug in her hand.

He nodded to her.

She walked closer, holding out the herbal tea, mint drifting through the space. “This is for you. Charley suggested you drink it.” Dark circles carved recesses under her eyes.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more to tell you yet.” Cael sipped at the drink.

Angela bit at her lip, her head inclining toward Lily’s door. “Is she going to be okay?”

For the first time, ever, he could actually say, “I don’t know.”

“Can I help with anything?”

“You’re welcome to try.”
Though I can’t imagine she’ll open up to you.

As Angela went to the door, Evelyn stepped up to the second floor. Cael hurried to her, taking her arm. For a seventy-six year old woman, she moved well, but the tiredness showed in shallow breathing and a slowed pace every once in a while.

“Mom,” Angela said. “Maybe you could … ?”

Evelyn knocked. “Lily? It’s your … Mom. May I come in?”

Silence greeted them just as it had Cael, though his own heart soared that Evelyn would consider Lily her daughter even after so many years and with so many oddball new facets to consider.

The lock clicked.

The handle turned.

The door opened a crack.

Evelyn patted Cael’s cheek. “Give me a few minutes with her.”

“Okay,” he said, “but I’ll be right here if she needs me.”

• • •

Lily dropped back into her rocking chair, hugging a giant pillow as a new batch of tears fell. After the first hour, Lily had grown tired of her own scent and opened the balcony doors to let fresh air in. After the second hour, she’d moved to sit right beside the opening, letting nature and earth soak into her pores.

Evelyn settled next to Lily. “You have a nice young man out there … mind if I ask how old he is?”

A tiny smile cracked Lily’s face. “He’s going to turn a hundred and fifteen on Thursday.”

“Well, that’s a mighty fine specimen of man. I do believe he’s quite in love with you, too.”

Lily laid her cheek on her knee, turning toward Evelyn. “I love him, too.”

“So why aren’t you letting him in here? You know he’s been out there waiting to comfort you for over two hours?”

Lily nodded.

“Why are you holding back?”

“Because I’m going to have to do something without him, and if I can’t even get over my own fears, how am I going to be strong enough to save Leigh by myself?”

Evelyn patted the side of Lily’s hair. “Do you know … well … no, you wouldn’t. But every time I saw a baby that looked like you, I wondered. And every time I saw a little girl that I thought might look like you, I wondered.” Evelyn sighed. “I was sixteen and desperate, and your dad was a no-show and, well, it was bad all around. I never thought I’d get through it. Never in my life did I think I would. I was essentially alone, but you know what? We Drakes—that is your real last name if you wanted to know—we’re made of sterner stuff than that.”

Lily gave a light chuckle.

“If I can look at my own daughter, who doesn’t look a day over twenty, and believe you’re actually my daughter, then look at my granddaughter and know she’s going to be capable of the things you are, then I know you’re strong enough to get through whatever this is you’re having to deal with.”

More tears fell but of the happy variety.

“You’re one of mine now, Lily. I will love you until the day I die and hopefully beyond that. Now, what can I do to help you feel better?”

Lily held out her hand, and Evelyn took it in her own. “You already have. Thank you so much for the boost of confidence.” She wiped away the remnants of the moisture still coating her face.

“Well that was far easier than I expected.” Evelyn’s laugh warmed Lily. “Would you like me to let your young man in here—is that appropriate, young? Or is it old? How long have you known each other?”