Prototype (12 page)

I roll my eyes and smile toward my painting. Looking at him makes me forget my place. “I hate how you see right through me.”

“It took years to discover your tell.”

I gape at him. “I do not have a tell.” All those months of lying to Declan and Dr. Travista are proof enough for me.

“You do. Your right eyelid twitches like you want to wink. It’s cute.”

His smile turns into a laugh, which makes me laugh. And just like that, we slip into that place of ease, where nothing outside our bubble matters. The tension dissipates like water on a hot day.

Then the laughter fades and is replaced with the blinding realization of proximity. Body heat. His soft musk, which I have always been fond of, even when I thought I loved Declan.

Noah’s gaze lowers to where I have bitten my lip in an effort to stifle the sudden longing to kiss him. He wets his lips and I hold my breath.

He is going to kiss me.

He is not
free
to kiss me. Get off this desk. Try a chair. One far, far away.

But I do not move. Not even when the space between us begins to close. Whether this is my doing or his is unknown, and I cannot bring myself to care.

He tears out of the thrall first, and I release a long, silent breath. Stand upright. He follows suit and we walk to opposite sides of the desk, where we face each other.

There is no sense in denying what just occurred. What
has been
occurring. “We cannot keep doing this,” I say.

His intentions are confusing. If he wants to be with me, why stay with Sonya? Unless he expects to make me the other woman, which I refuse wholeheartedly. No matter his reasons, I need for him to make up his mind. Maybe then I can move past this.

He casts his gaze down and braces himself with straight arms on the desk. “You’re right. We can’t. This thing with Burke could end soon. You’ll have your freedom.”

He does not say . . .
and you’ll leave again.
The words lie there in the way he looks at me. Already hurt by the act I have yet to perform. Except I do not believe for a second the doubt is born of his own mind, but rather Sonya’s. And he believes her.

I have made a huge mistake. “Maybe it would be best for everyone if we stayed away from each other for a while.” My voice sounds tight. Renegade tears brim my eyelids.

Noah meets my eyes and very slowly begins to nod. “Agreed.”

The acknowledgment stings, proving that no matter what he or Sonya believes, I am the one who will end up hurt by all of this. In fact, I already am.

A
note from Miles on my door invites me back to the command center. I wanted to be alone, but maybe a distraction would be the healthier option. Too much has happened today, and I will only end up wallowing in self-pity if I stay in my room. I have to move past this as quickly as possible or I will drown.

Miles lounges behind a desk in the command center. He is also deep in the cooler-than-necessary room, so I have to wade through the bodies standing around, suffering their unwanted attention. A few men do not move, forcing me to push against them. By the time I reach Miles, I am irritated on top of everything else.

He sits with his booted feet up on the desk, a tablet computer resting against his lap. While he looks at ease, I am keenly aware of the hum of male voices and how they surround me on all sides. My nerves jump, prepared for any of them to attack, verbally or otherwise.

Miles does not look up when I stop beside him, so I swipe at his feet and they drop like rocks. The blond woman sitting on his other side turns toward us. His partner, Farrah Styles.

Startled, Miles rocks forward and reaches into his right ear, where he removes a wireless earbud. “Jesus, Wade.”

“Is there a reason why we had to meet in here?” My tone snaps unnecessarily, drawing the attention of the analyst at a nearby desk, but I am too wound up to care.

He reaches around me and pulls forward a chair on wheels. “Have a seat.”

“I do not want—”

“
Have
”—he hands me a spare set of earbuds—“a seat. Have you met Farrah?”

I palm the blue-and-silver buds and sit. Farrah gives me a tight-lipped smile and I mirror the action precisely. “Not exactly. Nice to meet you.”

“Hey,” she says, and starts winding her long braid up into a low-hanging bun.

I lean toward Miles. “What am I doing here?”

He sends a thumb over his shoulder at Farrah. “We saw something earlier I thought you’d like to see.”

“Did Declan do something?” He has yet to speak to the press about Ruby’s death, so it is still likely he will find a way to spin this in a way to aid in his search for me.

“No. This is something else. Some
one
else.” He rolls up to the keyboard inlaid in the wood of his desk. All four of his monitors blink on to a bright-blue screen.

Farrah glances furtively between me and Miles. “Major Reid doesn’t want her—”

“Do I need to put you in a corner?” Miles asks without looking up.

Farrah seethes in silence and I bite back a grin. This is exactly the sort of distraction I need.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Our friend Daxton made a rare visit to his father’s office this morning.”

The four screens flick on to a paused scene, shown from different angles. Daxton is frozen in midstep as he walks into an office nearly the size of Declan’s. The room is visually cold. Minimalistic. A floor-to-ceiling window wraps around one side and behind the desk. Early morning light glares in and reflects off glossed wood furniture. An older man whom I recognize as Evan Thomas sits behind the desk staring at a flat computer monitor. His silver hair lies in combed-back, natural waves.

I have just inserted the earbuds when Miles starts the footage. Daxton stops two steps inside the office, and the automatic door slides shut behind him. Evan does not look up, and Daxton tucks his hands in his pockets. The cold wall between them is palpable from here.

“Good morning, son,”
Daxton mimics in a deep voice.
“You’re looking well.”

Evan glances at his son from the corner of his eye.
“What is it, Daxton? I’m busy. Someone told the media the resistance killed Mrs. Godfrey. But
someone
didn’t give any details. Now
someone
has to produce proof.”

A chill races over my spine, and only a small part is due to the derision in Evan’s tone. This happened this morning, which means Evan is the one who spun the poison story.

A corner of Daxton’s lips lifts.
“
Someone
had to do it.”

Evan pushes away from his desk and faces his son. His fingers fold over a crossed knee. The pointed arches of thick eyebrows, the set of his lips, the arctic freeze in his eyes . . . Everything about him speaks of dangerous calculation. This man is practiced in the art of not reacting, and of course he is. He never failed as a double agent for Andrew Burke, and he has the position and power to prove it.

“You never think,”
Evan finally says in a tone that could just as easily have said
I like your suit.

Daxton raises a hand while strolling closer to the desk.
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong.”

Evan motions for Daxton to sit.
“Pray tell, son. Let’s hear your master plan. We both know you have one.”

Daxton unbuttons his jacket before folding into a chair.
“Let’s just say that by the time I’m done, the board will hold a vote of no confidence in Declan Burke. Burke Enterprises will be yours for the taking. Ours.”

Evan lets a smile slide across his face that fails to meet his eyes. He steeples his fingers against his lips.
“Is that so? You have it all planned out, do you?”

Daxton leans forward, his expression alight and hungry.
“Once the board learns Burke’s own wife, the woman he’s been dumping millions of dollars to find, is the Original Clone—”

“No.”
Evan cuts him off with this single, cold word. He has not moved, but the minute narrowing of his eyes speaks volumes.
“Drawing negative attention to the clone project could be fatal to everything we’ve done.”

“What are you talking about? Arthur Travista is murdering human beings to complete the clone process and nobody cares. In fact, the government is begging him to do it. Hell, they’re funding part of it.”

“Any further attention could lead to the WTC project, and none of us wants that.”

I straighten in my chair and dig the earbuds out of my ears. “What WTC project?”

Miles pauses the video, sits up, and exchanges a look with Farrah. According to the tight look on her face, she is against answering any of my questions. An eternity seems to pass before he answers in a hushed voice. “They’re talking about clones. Put two and two together.”

Farrah groans and spins to face her own quad set of screens.

I am too shocked to care what she thinks. “Clone” is not a word that should
ever
be synonymous with WTC. Ever. Unless . . . “Are they cloning the girls? Are you certain?”

Miles shrugs. “This is the first I’m hearing of anything remotely close to it, but this is Burke we’re talking about. The man has no ceiling.”

Before I left Declan I had discovered he had organized the kidnapping of young girls in the west to fill his training centers. He truly believes he will single-handedly save our race by not allowing those women to go to waste in a world that needs them so badly. It would not surprise me in the least if he were to go this far with his cloning project.

Then again, he cares enough about the girls in his centers to change their harsh treatment—or so he led me to believe. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions. There has to be another explanation.

I tuck the earbuds back in, sure the rest of the conversation will reveal more. Miles takes the cue and resumes the video. He rolls his chair close. His shoulder rests against mine and I feel the rise and fall of each breath.

In the video, Daxton leans back and drapes an elbow over the back of his chair.
“Not if we’re proactive. We control the flow of information.”

“Like you controlled the leaked information about Ruby Godfrey? You left too many questions unanswered. Now here I am, cleaning up your mess. You lack the control needed to follow this plan through to fruition.”

“Then help me. You want this company. I know you do. Let’s take it together.”

Evan’s hands ease back into his lap.
“Your entire plan hinges on proving Emma Burke is the Original Clone.”
This is not a question.

“That’s part of it, yes. I want to show her connection to Ruby Godfrey, which will eventually reveal she’s a clone. For the coup de grâce, I’ll reveal her connection to the resistance. Burke won’t have a single rock to hide under.”

“I can’t support this action.”

Daxton grunts a humorless chuckle.
“Which part, exactly?”

Evan purses his lips.
“I have work to do.”

The two stare, unflinching, until Daxton finally rises from the chair and buttons his suit jacket.
“Give my best to Mother.”

When Daxton reaches to activate the door, Evan says,
“I suggest you reconsider. The moment you bring the girl into it, Declan Burke will come down on you before you even utter the words pertaining to the next stage of your plan.”

Daxton smiles.
“I’m not worried.”

I remove the earbuds, disappointed I did not learn more about the plan using the WTCs. But I have come to a huge realization. This is bigger than any of us imagined. Bigger than what is happening with Noah. Bigger than building a relationship with my daughter. Bigger than my search for Stephen and Lily Wade.

Declan has to be stopped. Especially if he and Dr. Travista are involving the girls living in the WTCs.

I stand. “We need to tell Noah about this.” I start for the aisle and stop because I was actually headed back up to Noah’s office. The exact place I need to avoid. I turn and face Miles. “I mean you. You need to tell him.”

Farrah looks up from her screens. “Major Reid has already been informed. He will handle it from there.” She shoots a narrow look at Miles. “And I want it stated for the record that I had nothing to do with involving a civilian.”

Miles’s typical easygoing personality changes to irate so fast it is as if someone flipped a switch. “What the fuck is your pr—”

“You were never here,” I cut in. I cannot have any more problems arise because of me today. “In fact, I was never here either. I do not know anything.”

She leans back in her chair and seems to consider whether I can be trusted. Swiveling back to her screens, she says, “Good.”

Miles stands with an eye roll and takes me by the elbow. “Come on, Wade. Let’s go get a drink. You look like you need it.” He glares at Farrah. “I know I do.” He waves an arm in the air, his attention focused across the room. “Bennett. Birmingham. Happy hour. Let’s do this.”

 • • • 

Leigh and I are the only two in the cafeteria. Dinner has long since been served, and it is so late that my eyelids droop. We sit across from each other at a long table, our backs to a cold, hard wall. Our drinks and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey sit between us. A line of dimmed lights over a clean, stainless food line is our only illumination. If not for the occasional lift and sip across from me, I would have thought Leigh had fallen asleep. I wonder if, like me, she is avoiding her dreams.

“I volunteered to be cloned.” Leigh says this softly, yet in the quiet room, the sound could have been a grenade. The subject matter itself is atomic.

I sit up and stare for a protracted moment, unable to find the right words. What exactly do you say to someone about to throw her life away? “Why would you do that?”

She takes a slow sip of her whiskey. “The lie I would tell you is that I’m doing it for the good of women everywhere. Because someone has to and this is a surefire way of finding the cloning facility.”

“And the truth?”

She fingers the rim of her glass. “The truth is I want what you have. I want a family.”

A rising sense of panic claws up my chest. She cannot really mean to do this. I spin to face her and my boots slap against the floor. “You have no idea what you are giving up for a family you can get another way. The girls we rescue in the WTCs need homes. You could adopt.”

“And a husband? Can I adopt him?” She laughs, but there is no humor in it. “Men, even our men, still only want a woman who can give them a child that is legitimately theirs.”

“I do not believe that. Look at Noah. He is building a life with Sonya, yes?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “You can’t be that blind. With you around, that relationship is on a fast track to Failsville.”

A knot forms in my stomach. “You are changing the subject.”

One of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows lifts. “I didn’t bring up Tucker. You did.”

Oh God. I did. I have to find a way to cleanse myself of him. “He is the only example I have.”

Leigh turns to face me and cups her glass between her palms. She nibbles her lower lip for a moment, then says, “I was going to ask your opinion earlier, thinking I had more time, but then the timetable moved up. I had to make a decision, so I made it. I think it’s the right one.”

“It is
not
the right one. You do not want this.”

“Give me one good reason why being a clone is such a hardship for you.”

“Well, for one—”

“Your clock has been reset,” she goes on as if I had said nothing. “You don’t have to worry about losing your chance to have a family for at least another twenty to thirty years, and by then you’ll be done.”

“I also deal with a double standard nobody seems to think exists. What is the first thing you think about when you look at me? Do you see Emma Wade, the woman you hated once upon a time, or do you see a clone, the experiment with Emma Wade’s face?”

She cannot look at me now because she knows I speak the truth.

“You are not the only one,” I say. “Everyone looks at me as if I am some kind of freak. The only peace I get is when I am out in the world, where nobody knows me as anything other than a human woman. You do not want this; believe me.”

“You think I don’t know about double standards? At least after the cloning I can offer someone the family I can’t now. Being able to do that, I can suffer the rest. I
will
suffer the rest.” She stands and looks down at me. “I’m not looking for your permission. Just your acceptance. Tell me that when this is all over, I have a friend in my corner.”

My heart breaks for her. How can she think otherwise? “Without question.”