“Axel,” his name slipped past my lips before I could prevent it.
The singer stopped and turned to face me. I thought her my mother, until I looked into her eyes. I’d never spoken to her before. My parents had always kept her at a distance. It could have been because she looked so much like my mother, or maybe it had been for my safety. I could only guess.
Today, nobody stopped her, and she didn’t say anything, but watched me, as though she waited for something. It was the absence of warmth that gave her away, told me who she really was, and why my parents were not there as the hospital took me out of the cryo-healing chamber.
My heart thumped against my ribs. Reaching up, I slid my hand over my breastbone to steady the beat. Stronger than it had ever been. No! I eyed the door where a digital board hung. My medical history—everything I’d been through. Panic hit, and I flailed in my bed, ripping the monitors off, kicking the blankets to a tangle at my feet. I rolled off the side and fell to the floor, the sheet still wrapped around my legs. Sharp pains shot up my tailbone. Fire in my chest. Crying out, I clutched my breasts and curled into a ball.
“You should stay in bed.”
I lifted my chin and looked her in the eyes. Fear. Pain. Fury. I whimpered, flipped to my belly, and crawled. What did the chart on the door say? I needed to see the digital board hanging there. I pulled myself along like an infant, pain rocking my body with each movement. When I reached my target, I collapsed, and cried so hard I hiccupped.
Inches sat between me and what I sought, but I hadn’t the energy or the courage to grab it and look. The coward’s way out looked easiest. Several minutes passed before I could spit the words past parched lips. Cracked flesh burned, and my throat was raw. The effort chafed. I didn’t care. “You killed my mother.”
“Did I? Or did she give her life to save you?”
No. My fingers curled along the fleshy seam under my hospital gown, feeling the ridge that could mean only one thing. Tears rolled down my cheeks. All my life, my mother did everything she could to save me, up to and including taking the life of another. She’d aborted the clone’s babies and had planned to take her heart. In her desperation to hold on to me, she’d done horrible things, vile things, all in the name of love.
And then she did the most selfless act imaginable. It hurt worse than any of the others. Turning my face away, I dry-heaved onto the floor. I did my best to force my thoughts from the cruel reality, but could not ignore it any more than the beat of my new heart. The truth was—the clone didn’t lie. My mother would do anything to save me, including self-sacrifice.
“She told me to tell you she was sorry.”
“Sorry?” I did not want to live, not at the price she’d paid, never at any price she’d been willing to pay, at the cost of another’s life—especially hers. “Kill me. Please.” I wept. I’d lost them both, the only two people I’d ever cared for, because they’d wanted to save me. What made me so special that I should live and they should die?
Eva lifted her chin and turned toward me. “She loved you.”
“Yes. Everything she did, she did for me, and that is the guilt I live with every day and will until I die. So, kill me. I don’t want to go on like this.”
Eva jerked her face away from me. “Soon enough, but not yet.”
“Do it, you bitch.”
“You think I’m the bitch?” She leapt from her chair and threw her body onto me, until we were face to face, leaving inches between us. Her weight pushed down on my healing ribs. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the knowledge of where my heart came from. “No, Olivia. I’m not going to make it easy. You don’t get to stop breathing yet.” She backed up, pulling me off the floor and swinging around to shove me back on my bed. “I need to tell you a story.”
“I don’t want to hear your story.”
“You have no choice.”
And so her tale began. I sat there for hours, listening to her talk, silently mourning my losses, and hers. Hating her. Feeling pity for her. Wanting more than anything to die, but she would not grant that wish. For days I endured.
And now I sat here—alone.
15
The night of my birthday, two days prior to Dante’s death.
Eva watched the medical transport lift off the lawn on our enclosed estate. She entered the gatehouse, swiped a card, punched the codes, and leaned in to let the sensor scan her eye. Punching another set of codes, she re-encrypted the device with her retinal image, replacing Ana’s information.
After enabling the system from the security station, she only needed to reset the data from within the palace grounds to complete the switch. This would be a matter of a simple scan from another device within the boundaries. As good as done. She looked up in time to see security making their way back to their post.
Eva stepped into the shadows and let them pass. Seconds later, she headed for the house, where the party that had been going most the night broke up early. The med-ship banked and swooped away at high speed, most likely for the capital city’s hospital. As she watched it depart, Eva hoped my father had dropped dead and saved her the work.
Every detail, from her dress to her hair, had needed to be exact. The red ball gown was a duplicate of the one Ana wore, and no one would look twice. Up ahead, her target threw his arm around his mistress and went back inside.
“Madam Braun,” a voice said behind her. Eva turned around and spotted the tall silhouette of General Axis, who leaned against a tree and watched her intently. “I thought you were going to the hospital with your daughter.”
Eva grasped the top of one of her gloves and peeled it off her arm. She repeated the other side. “Olivia—she’s on her way to the hospital?” So much for pulling the switch inside the residence and assassinating the president. It would have been so perfect. The clone got into the house, killed the president, the daughter, his mistress and, when she tried to kill her, Eva would have called for the guards, claiming Ana was the clone.
She shoved the device into her clutch, which held the chip they’d removed from her cheek, the one she’d intended to implant in Ana to complete the swap. Now, she’d have to adapt her plans.
He nodded. “Did you reprogram the data as instructed?”
“I did.”
“Good girl. Now get on with it. We have a country to take.”
“How? She’s going to the hospital and won’t leave until Olivia is released.”
He pulled a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and took a puff. Eva’s stomach roiled. Every time she caught a whiff of that smell, it reminded her of the vile acts he’d committed against her. She’d bide her time until she was in control, and then, when she had the power, she’d take him down and enjoy every moment of it.
“Improvise. Yell out she’s taken your daughter. They’ll detain Ana at the hospital, and when the retinal scan doesn’t match, they’ll hold her until we decide what we want to do with her. As for our other obstacle, we’ll figure out another way to take out the president. Maybe pay his mistress a visit tonight.” He jerked his chin toward where the air evac had been moments before. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the remote, showing it to her. “Do it now.”
Eva stepped into the open and shrieked at the top of her lungs. She collapsed on the manicured lawn and screamed again. Everyone who hadn’t left charged outside. “The clone’s on that ship with Olivia! Please stop them.” She pointed at where the vessel had gone.
General Axis rushed over, wearing his poker face. He looked up into the night sky and to the president, who now stood beside him.
“Have security meet them on the pad. I want her detained until we sort this out,” my father said as he grabbed Eva’s arm and wrenched her off the ground. “Stop making a scene.” He nodded to one of his security officers, who stepped up with a portable scanner. “Just look into the scanner, dear. We need to confirm one thing first.”
Eva gave him a nasty look. “What, you don’t trust it’s me? First you accuse me of—”
<
br /> “Look into the fucking scanner.” He grabbed the hair on her nape and shoved her face toward the device, unknowingly reprogramming everything in the process.
She looked down, focusing on the spot in the middle until it beeped.
“Madam Braun,” the bodyguard said, gave a slight bow, and walked away.
The crowd stared at her; no one dared to draw a breath. It could mean only one thing. Even clones didn’t have duplicate retinal patterns. Every one was unique, even if they were a clone.
He let her hair slip from his grasp. “I want that clone!”
“If my daughter dies, you will follow her,” she whispered, turning to look up at him. She’d practiced for so many hours in front of the mirror, all for this moment, and her performance had been perfect. All the hate she felt for him, she’d poured into her voice like venom. Some of the crowd took a step back, even though they couldn’t hear a word she’d said.
“If she dies, Ana? How can you expect me to claim her as mine?” He didn’t bother to lower his voice. He didn’t care if the general population thought I wasn’t his daughter. “If she dies? My daughter is already dead.”
“No,” Eva said. “How could you look at her and deny it?”
“I’ve looked at a lot of things I can’t deny lately, but that’s not one of them. She’s nothing but a whore, like her mother. She was in the pantry, fucking one of the clones. I warned you this would happen, but you didn’t listen. You never listen.”
Eva slapped him.
The crowd gasped, but didn’t move from where they stood, fixed to the ground.
“How can you talk about your own flesh and blood like that?”
He rubbed his cheek and gave her a cold smile. “Go help your daughter. She’s not mine, and I’m not about to claim her. I’ve put up with this long enough.”
“Somebody better get a transport here right now!” Eva looked around for Dante, aka Stephen, but she didn’t see him. He was supposed to be there, keeping Hector occupied. She wondered if he’d accompanied Ana to the hospital in the guise of Stephen. The thought that he’d gone with her nearly sent her into a rage. She did not want him, but neither did she want Ana to have him.
Or had the president killed him for the betrayal?
It didn’t matter. She had one goal. The institution had searched the station and hadn’t found the codes. They hoped by getting inside the residence and mingling with the family, she would uncover their location. They had to be in the presidential palace, but first, she needed to take care of one little thing.
“Come with me.” My father latched onto his mistress’ hand and pulled her back inside the palace, most likely to fornicate and drown his guilt in booze. No matter how badly he didn’t want to believe it, I was his child, and that would never change. My legacy. How I wished it weren’t so.
“You may think being the daughter to the president is easy. It isn’t. I’m always sick. Nobody allows me to do anything. They’ve always treated me like I’m broken, all of them, except Axel.”
“How did Axel treat you?”
“He was there when no one else was. He was my reason for getting up in the morning.”
“Dante used to be mine.”
I furrowed my brow. “What happened to change that?”
“I killed him.”
My new heart pounded, and though I didn’t want to ask, I found myself helpless to resist. I needed to hear how the tale of these two lovers came to an end. “Why?”
“He lied to me.”
“About the thing in your head?” Dante could never have done what she claimed he’d done. I’d seen that same devotion Dante paid to Eva, in Axel. A sadness filled me for a man I’d never met, and inside I wept for the one I had loved as deeply as she’d loved Dante.
Both of us had killed the men we cared for. Eva, by her own hand. Axel, with my selfishness. I did not think I could stand to hear her tale. My heart hurt too much to bear anymore.
“Yes,” she whispered as she stared off into space. “Two months after we visited the satellite station, I killed him. But, first, I eliminated Stephan. The affair, I’d discovered, was very real. Our intelligence intercepted the message he sent to her. She never got it. Instead, I met Stephan in a pub on the outskirts of the city, seduced him to a room, and killed him.”
“My mother loved another?”
“For a long time. I could tell by the way he touched her—me.”
A single tear rolled down Eva’s cheek, and then I no longer existed. So I lay back and waited. The blank look on her face told me she’d gone somewhere else. Her voice had no pitches or drops and became as void as her expression, as dark and lonely as I felt.
“They couldn’t find the codes,” she whispered. “Not at the station. Not in Herod’s possession.” No, they were too dangerous to entrust to anyone. He hadn’t given them to General Axis, Carmen, or Ana, nor had he given them to Dante or Stephan. But they were somewhere close by.
Dante shoved his fingers in his hair and stared out the window of the presidential office, where they’d been summoned minutes before. “Where the hell are they?” He turned around. “You don’t suppose Ana had them? Is that why he called us here?”
Eva shrugged. She, above all others, knew why they were waiting in the office.
* * *
The morning after the Ascension party…
Carmen slept on the bed, worn out from her long night. Eva clamped a hand over her mouth, while Dante shoved a long, skinny rod up her nose.
Her eyes grew wide and watered, and her screams were muffled by Eva’s palm as she struggled. Inside the core of the insertion tool was the nanite explosive.
Once Dante shoved the tube as far as he could without penetrating her brain, he pushed the plunger on the end, extending a needle and embedding the microscopic bomb in the whore’s gray matter. He slowly withdrew the instrument and slipped it in his pocket.
Her eyes rolled back, and Eva slapped her, bringing her back to consciousness. “Listen to me. Your life will depend on it.” She held Carmen’s chin and waited until she focused on her. “Inside your head is a small bomb. I hold the detonator. I’m going to let you go now. If you scream or try to fight, I will push a button, and your brains will be boiling mush. Do you understand?”
Carmen nodded.
“Good.” Eva removed her hand, and Dante released her, stepping back. She now controlled Herod’s slut, and things were about to get interesting.
Dante handed a loaded weapon to the mistress. “When he comes into this room, put a bolt between his eyes. If you do as told, I will let you go. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
It didn’t play out for Carmen the way she wanted. She’d killed my father, and then they’d killed her. With my father and the mistress dead, the Council gathered all present in the palace to search the ranks for collaborators. Michael presented them with video footage, of both the implantation in the mistress and an interview with the clone.
Eva glanced at Dante. He fidgeted. He always fidgeted when he was nervous, the only tell he gave her of his disposition. This meeting had not been part of the plan, or any he’d been privy to.
The door behind them opened, and Eva stiffened.
“General Axis.” Dante said.
“Unfortunately, I have to be the bearer of bad news.”
“What’s going on?” Dante asked, eyeing the clone soldiers and Aeropite council members who’d come with him.
A council member in black handed a paper to Michael, who took it. His other hand remained in his pocket with the detonator for Eva’s implant, a warning he watched.
Eva turned away, keeping her back to General Axis. If she could have believed Dante, she would have spared his life. The power was hers—it had always been.
“The president has ordered your death, Stephan.”
“What? How could he? He was assassinated.”
Eva turned around. “I am the president now, and you, Stephan, are g
uilty of treason. The weapon found in the mistress’ room belonged to you.”
“What?”
“Your fingerprints are on it. We interrogated the clone before the doctors transplanted her heart to my daughter. She told us all about the plot to overthrow my family—how you killed my husband.”
“The truth, Ana.” Dante’s eyes widened. “You have to tell them the truth.” He stepped forward, and the guards seized his arms. “Tell them I had nothing to do with it—that I was with you when all this happened.”
“I’m sorry, Stephan. I have a holo-recording of the clone’s interrogation. She points her finger at you. I also have footage of you helping my clone to implant an explosive device in my husband’s mistress, after which you handed her the weapon to kill him. We know you were intimate with the clone. We also have footage of that. So don’t try to deny it. Treason can only be treated one way. You understand.”
“How could you do this to me?”
“You lied.” How could he have betrayed—used her? Of course, she’d made the holo-recording of an interrogation with General Axis asking the questions. The footage in Herod’s room was them, as it happened the morning following the party, after they’d taken Ana into custody and Eva switched places with her. It was a reasonable assumption.
“Stop.” Dante lurched forward but was yanked back. “They’ll kill me, Eva. Please.”
“My name is, Ana. Goodbye, Stephan.”
Dante locked gazes with her. “I love you. I never lied. I say this as a condemned man. You’re executing an innocent person who will love you to his last breath. Trust me, for once. Please. He has no power over you and never will again.”
Eva looked from General Axis to Dante and back again. Michael pulled the device from his pocket and caressed the button with his thumb. The threat hovered between them. Dante had only one reason to lie now. To prevent his death. A pretty good one.
The Book of Eva: Clone, Book One Page 15
