Mimics of Rune 02- Surrender (33 page)

“You said I was Baby “A” … and that means I’m in the original genetic line. Am I?”

Roy’s smiled bloomed as wide as an open rose. “Yes. It’s very exciting, don’t you think? To know that about yourself? To know the power that gives you as a Mimic?”

Which is none in my case.
Lily figured those genes must have skipped her generation
.
“Why do you need more blood from me, then?” She caught the flinch—a slight and subtle move she’d have missed if Cael hadn’t taught her how to wait for it without looking away. An inner glee at her catch took hold, but she forced the smile inward.

“I’m doing all the tests myself to ensure your safety, Lily. I didn’t want to leave you in the hands of anyone else in case they mistook your reason for being here. What they think and what I know are different, but that’s only to prevent any unwanted attention.” He clasped his palms at his lap. “I know testing is difficult for you, and I didn’t expect you to have to take the full battery, but the blood work was necessary—to confirm your line one hundred percent. Now that I know, we can take the next steps.”

“What about Leigh?”

“What about her?”

“You said she was here, and we could get her out.”

“We will. You just have to be patient with me. I have a plan.” He tapped his temple. “I just really need another day to ensure all the data is proper in their system. I need to manipulate a little bit of it so when it gets into the right hands all the dominos will fall. You see?”

Bits and pieces.
Lily nodded.

“I have matched Leigh’s genetics with yours, if that’s any consolation.”

“How do you do that?”

“DNA sampling. Looking for the few genetic markers that give us our hereditary gifts.” He shrugged. “A bunch of science that’s been developed over hundreds of years but refined in the last, let’s say, ten or so.”

Lily wrung her hands but forced herself to stop. “What’s your plan? When can we take this place down?”

Roy leaned back against his couch. “Don’t you trust me, Lily?”

“No.” An emphatic head shake followed.

The burst of laughter from Roy filled the room with sound.

She drew in deep and blew out a breath. “Tell me what you really want from me.”

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “It’s not me, Lily. It’s them. The truth of the matter is … if we give them what they want, they’ll probably let us go and shut the entire operation down. I won’t have to play this dual-loyalty role anymore.”

“What do
they
want, then?”

Roy bobbled his head. “I told you. They want our DNA. They have this project …” He pursed his lips and closed his eyes.

“What?” Lily said it on a whisper.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, Lily, but I think I must.” He shook his head. “You may not trust me, and I understand that. You’ll keep this just between the two of us?”

“Of course.” She leaned toward him.

“Even from …
Cael
?” A glossy sheen coated Roy’s eyes as if tears formed.

Charley’s words formed in Lily’s mind.
Always one step ahead.

“This research, Lily … they … well … they want an actual clone of you and me.
Specifically
you and me. And after seeing the damage my own ‘team’ is willing to inflict upon me, I’m ready to give them what they want, just to be done with the entire charade.” He swiped a hand through the air.

Lily’s lower jaw dropped. Maggie had guessed it from the start. “You—you want to give in to them? After all this? You said we had to stop them!
Stop them
, Roy. Not give in. How could you change your mind? I’ve only been down here part of two days. There’s more time.”

His head drooped. “There’s not. They’re moving up their plans. Tomorrow at the latest. Maybe tonight. And … sometimes fighting fire with fire is a better method of attack. If we proactively take this step, we’ll be able to manage the outcome.”

“The outcome?” Lily didn’t know if he had told her the truth or not, but giving in seemed counterintuitive, even to her.

“Come with me.” He stood and held out his hand. “I’ll show you everything.”

27

Fifteen minutes had passed since Cael figured out Lily left. Without knowledge of the building’s layout, or how to get around any of the people within it, his best recourse remained staying behind and waiting for Maggie and James to return.

Cael made his hundredth pass through the room as Maggie raced through Lily’s door. His yell of, “Finally!” received wide-eyed blinks in return.

“Where’s Lily?” Maggie asked.

Cael shook his head and shrugged. “She left. Where’s James?”

“Shit!” Maggie waved papers in the air. “What’d you say to her?”

“She went to pee and poof. Where’s James?”

Maggie stormed up to Cael’s toes. “What did you say to her? Exactly. The words, Cael.”

He thought back. He’d told her he loved her. She’d snuggled in. He’d told her he’d take care of her. Nothing abnormal.

Maggie followed the same path Cael had. “She’s totally hung up on the failure-flaw thing.”

“You would be too if you weren’t Miss Perfect.” Cael huffed a breath. “Where the hell is James, Maggie?” Cael ratcheted up his tone.

Maggie held up one finger as if to quiet Cael. “James is with the totally outspoken Kevin. He’s just a ball of fun, that one.” She paced to Cael and back, returned and spun again. “Why would she just leave?”

“I don’t know, dammit. We were having a conversation, and she just left.”

“You’re smothering her,” Maggie’s flat voice said.

At that, Cael looked right at her. “What the hell? How can I be smothering her? She just told me …” …
about stuff I won’t repeat.
“She was snuggling up to me.”

“But you do everything for her. Or you say you will. You’re always there for her. She needs some room to grow some balls, Cael.”

“You’re full of shit, Maggie. Take me to James, and then I’m going to find Lily and get off this fucking island.”

“Am I? Are you?” She positioned her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Am I really going to do that for you?”

“Yes.”

“See? once again. Big, strong guy who knows how to be a Mimic. One of the best, I might add. You don’t think she feels puny next to you? You’re not giving her enough credit.”

Fury took hold of his insides while he tried to hide his seething expression.

“If she’s figured something out and
left
you to get answers, then
you
have to let her find them. If she went because she wanted to, you have to let her go through the motions. She wasn’t taken by anyone—I know that for sure.”

“How can you say that? You weren’t even here.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Because James has Kevin and his yappity-yap-ness. That man is all talk and no bite. Then there’s Matthew and Marlie, who’ve been locked in his suite having at it for the last hour. Roy’s on his own. It’s just him and Lily.”

“She can’t—”

“There you go again, assuming she’s some wimpy girl. Give her a chance, Cael.” Maggie walked to the door. “The only issue, and it’s not really a problem, necessarily, is that she doesn’t know what we just found out. And what we know now … well, Roy’s known all along.”

Cael’s head snapped up. “What?”

“His real motive.” Maggie waved the papers in a come with me gesture.

Cael held out a hand, palm up as if to say ‘spill it already’, but didn’t budge from his spot.

Maggie sighed. “He’s about to lose his status as a Mimic. Thirty-six hours from now, he’s done. He’s reached his quota. Two hundred and thirty-four years are almost over. If he wants to keep on living as the Roy he knows—”

“He’s got to find a match and blend. And that’s Lily. Shit.” Cael rubbed at the creases in his forehead. “He told Lily he was her age. He told her he was there in the institution.” Cael slapped his head. “Shit, shit, shit! He was there, but not as a testee … he was a tester! Fuck!”

“That’s what I think, and Lily is his saving grace.” Maggie slunk into the hallway. “Come with me, Cael. It’s time for the fun to start. Not only has Roy recorded his findings on Lily, he’s recorded his own. He’s spent two years making sure Lily was the right one to take. For
himself
.”

“Which he did. By finding Leigh and backtracking.”

“Right. But Cael, he can’t force her,” Maggie said.

He won’t have to if he convinces her it’s for the good of someone else.

• • •

Lily shivered as she took a seat next to Roy. Where her room had a pre-made space for a baby, his had a full-sized office. On the monitor he swiveled toward her, a column of dots, lines, colors and numbers gave Lily an instant headache.

Roy rapped the end of a pen against the screen. “This is the DNA of a human.” He tapped a key. “This is your human strand of DNA from when we were younger at the …” He circled his hand as if to say ‘you know where’ without saying it outright.

The lines and dots, even the colors, altered to another dizzying array that meant nothing to Lily.

“And this is yours now.” He clicked and a slide came down on top of the first, matching every line, shape and color. “Here is your Mimic strand.” His fingers tapped against the keys yet again, and the image on the screen split in half. “Now, if we put your Mimic strand against Leigh’s Mimic strand—left is you, right is Leigh—you can see it’s exactly the same.”

Lily studied the detail as much as she could with his fast changes, but none of it meant anything to her. “What … does one of these look like that’s … not … like mine.”

Roy clicked again and brought up yet another panel. He shifted so the one marked LC and one marked LG showed in parallel. With the butt of the pen, he tapped on the screen. “Yours on the left. Luke—that little boy who was in the lab—on the right.”

Lily closed her eyes and imagined the little boy with the doctor she’d seen earlier that day.
Has his mother left him, too? Or is she still searching? Did Angela sign Leigh’s papers?

“His line isn’t strong, see? Almost non-existent. I’m guessing he has next to no abilities looking at this.” Roy indicated missing spots and faded areas.

“What’s this supposed to prove, Roy?”

He drew in a deep breath and blew it out as he pursed his lips. His fingers went back to the keyboard until another set of lines and dots popped on screen. “Here is my genetic puzzle.” A few clicks put his and Lily’s together. “Like yours, I’m in the original line for males.”

The two structures looked reversed, if Lily had to guess.

“This is scientific confirmation of who we are, Lily. You. Leigh. Same genetic markers. You, me, opposite by gender.” More keyboard clicks and yet another image appeared. “This is the only other set of DNA we—they had that was thought to be in your line.”

To Lily, hers, Leigh’s and the latest looked exactly the same. “Who is this last one?”

“Your grandmother.”

Her heart squeezed in on itself. Lily drew in a sharp breath and coughed into her hand.

Roy moved to the fridge in his office and pulled out a water bottle. He handed it to her still capped. “Are you okay?”

She took a drink, letting the cool liquid coat her throat. “My … grandmother?”

“Yes.”

Her entire body shook.

“Do you … want to know more?”

No.
“Yes.”

“She brought a young baby—you—and a young teenager to the institution. Samples were taken from all three—but only you stayed behind and transferred to the Romanian system first. I didn’t know what happened to the other two until I started looking again.”

Her own Grandmother had been a Mimic and had given her up. Lily forced herself not to cry, not even to tear up despite the tingling numbness creeping through her body. “How do you know this? I thought we met when I was thirteen. You said—”

“I did the
research
, remember?”

The hesitation in his commentary had her tilting her head.
Does that mean something? Here’s where Cael would be able to guess. No, no. I can do this.

“I’ve spent the last four decades trying to fight back by digging into every bit of detail I could find,” Roy continued. “I went through every record, linked as many people as I could. It took a really long time to put it all together. And a little bit of luck. With the latest DNA technology, I was able to play a matching game. I made it as far back and forward as I could until I found Angela searching for Leigh.” Roy’s tone softened. “Your mother wouldn’t have known what to do with a Mimic child at thirteen because she wasn’t one, and your Grandmother, well, she had been. She probably only did what she thought was in your best interest.”

“My best interest? Are you insane? You were there! How can you say ‘best interest’ when you know—” Fury took over the previous pain and wonder. “Didn’t they do this stuff to you, too? Didn’t you go through all the pain and torture, too?”

Roy held up his palms. “Of course, of course, Lily. I was there with you. Girl original line. Boy original line. That’s why they tested us.”

Girl. Boy. Girl. Boy. All from the original people. Why does that sound so much more important than it probably is?
Lily shook her head.

A sigh escaped Roy. “That time in our lives was traumatic. But listen, we can fix this. Maybe not for ourselves, but for the future.”

“How, Roy? Seriously? DNA? You have that already. You don’t need me anymore. You could run off and get it done already. Why haven’t you, in fact?”

His lips pursed. “Because it’s really more than DNA. I wasn’t fully honest with you because I thought that might scare you off from helping me—helping
us
stop what’s going on.”

“What are you talking about?” Though she could guess, thanks to Maggie
.

“They want a child of mixed DNA.”

Finally got something right before the announcement.

“Yours and mine. If we were to make that happen … if we were to create the child. You and I.” Roy held up his hands. “We could control everything that’s going on. All of it. And keep all these government factions out. That’ll get them off Leigh’s back. That’ll keep you and me off their radar, because with a child in the mix, they can’t mess with our parental rights. They’ll be stuck with no recourse. No more testing. Nothing we can’t control.”