Archetype (21 page)

I
wake with a start to a sharp smell burning my entire nasal cavity. I blink until all the faces come into focus. When they do, it is only one face: Sonya’s. I have never seen her this close and notice the tiny scar marring the right side of her upper lip. Another by her left eye. Other than that, she has perfect dark skin.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You passed out.”

The curtains are pulled around us, hiding Emma and Her child and the screens with their glaring truths. I have no idea if Noah and Foster are still here. Not that I want to see them. I do not want to see anyone. I just want to go home.

To more lies?
I chide myself.

My stomach twists angrily. Why not go back? I may as well go back to my life as Declan’s wife. At least with him, I have some semblance of acceptance. He wants me. I should accept what he offers, because Emma Wade’s life is already spoken for.

But that would not be the case if Declan had not made this happen in the first place.

“I think I am going to be sick,” I say and swing my feet over the side of the hospital bed.

Sonya hands me a small bucket and sits beside me. “You really didn’t know?”

“Know what? That I am a fake? No. I did not know that.” My voice catches on the end and I blink away burning tears. “I do not understand any of this.”

Sonya sighs and takes my wrist. Two fingers hold over my pulse and she counts the beats with the watch on her other wrist. “You shouldn’t exist,” she finally says. “Cloning humans, while successful, proved to be a huge failure a hundred years ago.”

“That does not make sense,” I say.

She leans back into her hands and watches me carefully with her dark espresso eyes. “Cloning the human body is easy. Any scientist worth his salt can do that. But cloning the mind—the personality or soul of the person—
that
is the part that’s impossible. You can’t clone life experience or the learning process, so clones came out with the intelligence level of a newborn. By the time you teach an adult how to be an adult, they’re already well into middle age. So cloning ended before it really began.”

“I had to relearn everything,” I say. “It did not take me long.”

She leans forward and grasps the edge of the bed. Kicks her feet out, watching them absently. “I know you’re probably opposed to the idea, but I’d like to run some tests.”

“No way.” I jump off the bed. “I am done with tests.”

Sonya moves to stand in my path and throws her hands up. “Just listen for a second. We have just as many questions as you. Like how you knew about this place. We only moved into it after the raid failed, and Emma—” She stops and swallows hard. “Don’t you want to know?”

I push past her. “I am not a lab rat.” I reach the curtain and swing at the loose fabric until I find the opening and dart through it.

Right into Noah.

I bounce off his chest and he grabs my arms to keep me upright.

“Let me go,” I say.

“Emma—”

I jerk against his hold and scowl. “I am not Emma, remember? Let me go.”

My eyes burn with unshed tears, and I cannot find a good place to focus. I do not want to look at him or Emma or the screen showing their child. I do not want to look at the familiar scuff marks on the floor or the row of hospital beds or cabinets. I want
out
of this room and away from these people.

“Not until we figure this out,” he says.

I glare up at him. “Say what you mean. You want me to stay until I have been properly studied.”

His grip tightens and he shakes me once, good and hard. His eyes glaze over and narrow. “You aren’t the only one with a right to be pissed here, Emma. Your life isn’t the only one turned upside down.” He points to the tank. “I have a brain-dead wife in there carrying my child and her doppelganger standing in front of me, who for all intents and purposes
is
her.”

A tear falls over his left cheek. “How did you know about this room? About Adrienne?” He hesitates and his voice cracks. “About the day I tried to unplug her?”

Foster appears from somewhere to my right, breaking the silence that hid him from me until now. “Noah—”

Noah’s gaze does not release mine. “Back off, Birmingham. I mean it.”

“This is all just as much a surprise to me as it is to you,” I say venomously. “I did not even know Adrienne was a baby. I thought she was just another patient.”

Noah looks behind me. “You have to have a theory, Sonya. Something.”

I shift out of his hands, this time without any further hindrance. I turn to face Sonya, whose gaze bounces between Noah, me, and Emma. She breathes deep once.

“It’s ridiculous,” she says finally. “But maybe Arthur Travista found a way to hijack the soul.”

Foster scoffs. “You’re right. That is ridiculous.”

She merely shrugs and shakes her head. “The choice of word isn’t technically right, but you get my meaning. The man’s a goddamn genius. It would explain why Emma is brain-dead.”

Noah and I exchange a look; then he says, “That doesn’t explain why this Emma has seen what she’s seen since the raid. Since waking up in Travista’s lab.”

Sonya holds her hands up. “All I know is that Travista knows the human brain better than any scientist I’ve ever come across, and that’s only the beginning of his brilliance. The man has spent his entire career searching for a cure to infertility.”

Her eyes glaze over and she begins speed-talking while repeating data she must have learned from one of his many books. I cannot make sense of anything she says; nor do I share in her obvious enthusiasm for the man himself.

Foster raises his hands to stop her. “Sonya, nobody cares how Travista has single-handedly turned modern medicine on its ear. That doesn’t make him Jesus Christ. Focus.”

She shoots him an annoyed look but gathers herself and says, “He managed to access Emma’s entire archetype, her past,
everything,
then pick and choose which parts to bring to life. It didn’t work—case in point, she’s regaining our Emma’s memory—but it was definitely a brilliant start. In eight months of life, Clone Emma is a fully functional twenty-six-year-old.”

My breath catches and my eyelids fall shut. I am no longer simply Emma but Clone Emma. I have never felt so distant from the human race as at this very moment.

“You’re a fucking piece of work, you know that?” Foster says.

“Seriously, Sonya, don’t do that,” Noah adds.

I shake my head and open my eyes. “What else is she supposed to call me?” Even as I say it, my heart cannot accept it. It feels wrong on so many levels.

Sonya holds up her hands. “Sorry, look, ‘clone’ doesn’t mean she isn’t human. She is, and according to the things we’ve been hearing, perfectly healthy. One of the other clones is already pregnant, and her host wasn’t even fertile. Never was.”

This catches my attention. “You mean Ruby?”

She nods. “Ruby was a receptionist Charles Godfrey took a liking to. Burke agreed to use her as the guinea pig for the new fertility project.”

My throat tightens. “Is that what I am? A project?”

“No,” Noah says quickly. “Not that we can tell. All the conversations about this project of his centered around Ruby Godfrey and now Lydia Farris. Any mention of using you, Burke shoots down.”

My legs weaken and I grab the first thing I can for support: Noah. He helps me into a nearby chair. “They are clones, too,” I say when I catch my breath. I remember the conversation between the Farrises and Declan, how Richard said Lydia knew everything. When I last saw her, she acted as if she had already been cured of her fertility issue. “Lydia has all of her memories,” I say. “She was a willing participant.”

Sonya nods. “She wants more children and thought it worth the risk.”

“If I am not part of this project, then why me?” I look at the tank and the deadened hazel eyes behind the glass. “What makes me so important?”

“We thought,” Noah begins slowly, “Burke was using you to get to me. That he knew what I was up to.”

“That is why you planned to kill me,” I say.

He averts his eyes and nods. “It didn’t take long to see that wasn’t the case. He still has no idea about our operation or me.”

“Then why else would he need me?” I ask.

“I think it has something to do with the marriage certificate you—I mean, Emma—wanted destroyed years ago. She had me hack into a computer and delete the record of her arranged marriage.”

Foster eyes us curiously. “Who was she married to?”

“Declan,” I say. “His father bought me as a birthday present.”

Foster looks as if a lightbulb went off. “That’s it, then. He wanted his wife back.”

Noah tilts his head and folds his arms. “Come on. It can’t be that simple.”

I shake my head, recalling the fight with Declan on the way to “fix” my memory problems.
It means that I never would have let my father force me into this marriage if I didn’t want you the moment I saw you. It
means
I never would have spent the last eight years keeping one ear to the ground for some sign that you were still out there.

“No, Foster is right,” I say. “Declan all but said as much the other day.”

I stand and pace toward the tank that has filled my dreams for eight months. I lay a hand over the glass, the gentle vibration of the attached machinery coursing through my arm. “Is She really dead?”

Sonya seems to be the only one capable of answering, and it still takes her a while. “All brain function is gone. We would have let her go a long time ago if it weren’t for the girl she carries.”

“Why the tank?” I have to know the reason behind my source of fear for so much of my short life.

“I didn’t want to risk any kind of infection. Bedsores were a concern. The floating also relieves the pressure on Adrienne. Just trying to make things as simple as possible until it’s time for the birth.”

“How long?”

“Any day now.”

I spin around. “Really? Then . . . what? You will just let Emma die?”

Sonya looks at Noah, then drops her head.

Noah, on the other hand, stands straighter. “She’s already gone.” With that, he turns his back on me and leaves the room.

I want to scream at him because I am here and I never left him, but I cannot claim what is not mine. And Her life is not mine. It never was. Never will be.

F
oster breaks the silence. “Let’s say you’re right. Say this brilliant doctor hijacked Emma’s soul—which I still say is ridiculous—from her body. Then, technically, she’s standing right there.”

I turn to find him pointing absently in my direction. “
That
is ridiculous,” I say, shaking my head.

He shrugs. “I’m just going off what I know. Think about it. You’ve been body jumping.”

Sonya folds her arms. “Body jumping? Is that the medical term?”

“You use ‘soul’ on a daily basis as a medical diagnosis, do you?” he says, mirroring her stance.

She raises a hand. “This is all very good in theory, but let’s be serious. What you’re saying isn’t possible.”

I am tired of listening to theories. I want the truth, and I want it now. I turn to look up at Emma one last time. She is more human than I will ever be, yet She resembles a wax figure. There is nothing more eerie than looking at your own likeness, especially when my likeness looks like clay.

Foster and Sonya are still tossing around “ideas” when I head for the exit.

“Where are you going?” Foster asks.

“Home. Or the labs, I guess. I need to find out the truth.”

I am well into the boxlike concrete hallway when he reaches me, takes me by the elbow, and swings me around. “What’s the master plan? To walk in and demand answers?” He shakes his head. “Do everyone a favor and think about this first. You see, nobody knows how to save your ass ’cause you’re always saving ours.”

He says this with that unbelievably cute tilted grin of his, and his eyes glint with humor, but I do not find this amusing in the least. I look back at the closed hospital ward with a sigh. “You have to stop acting like I have anything to do with that woman in there.”

He folds his arms and shifts the weight off his left leg. “Is it that easy for you?”

My throat tightens and I comb my fingers through my hair. “What choice do I have?”

The approaching shuffle of footsteps draws our attention to Noah. His eyes are bloodshot. He nods his head at a closed door. “Let’s talk,” he says to me with a strained voice.

I already feel the threat of tears, too close for my liking by the time I follow him into the small room that looks like someone’s office. Stacks of paper clutter the metal desk. Folding chairs are propped against one wall, but otherwise, the room is very minimalistic. No pictures, no awards, no sign of life.

I face a corner with folded arms, Noah behind me, and cling to my elbows. Every muscle in my body is locked and threatens to vibrate out of my control. If I do not get out of here soon, I will have a breakdown, and I do not want to do that in front of him.

“What do you want to do?” he asks after a moment. “You could be a great asset if you decide to stay where you’re at, but you don’t owe us anything. Or you can come . . . here.”

The way he phrased his last sentence, I swear he almost said “home.” My heart feels as if it is being flogged, each retracted word a searing lash of pain. Everything I know, everything I have come to believe in such a short amount of time, says my home is with Noah. How am I supposed to ignore that? Ignore the memories of his touch? Our lives together?

My pain rolls out of me like an unyielding tide. I bury my face in my hands to muffle my sobs. Noah turns me into him, and his arms are tight. So tight I can barely breathe, yet it will never be tight enough. I circle my arms around him and clutch at his shirt. His cheek rests on the crown of my head.

“How am I supposed to let you go?” I ask. The words are thick and mingled with tears, but his arms tightening tell me he understood every word. “I do not have anything left except these cruel memories of a life that is not mine.”

His hand covers the back of my head and presses me closer. His heart beats heavy against my cheek, and his chest shudders with unsteady breaths. His lips press to my head; the heat of his breath washes against my scalp. Fingers fist and clutch my hair.

I push away from him and spin around to wipe my face. “I am sorry. I should not have said that.”

One heartbeat.

Two.

“I know all about cruel,” he says. “If anyone understands what you’re going through, it’s me.”

I drop my head. “Right. Of course you do.” I am nothing but a ghost of the woman he loves. Not real. This solidity of body I took for granted was the biggest lie of them all.

I wipe my face and turn to face him. His fingers are clasped behind his neck and he is looking up at a corner. His skin is flushed and he is blinking rapidly, each breath a tremble in his chest. I want nothing more than to take the two steps forward, brush fingers through his thick waves, and force him to look at me. Kiss him. Take away what pains him. The same thing that pains me.

I clear my throat. “I am going back.”

His head falls forward and his hands drop heavily to his sides. “You know you don’t have to do that.”

“I understand my options. Declan ruined our lives. I cannot let him get away with that.”

He finally looks at me, the amber of his eyes aflame with emotion. “So you go back to playing the dutiful wife? Can you do it?”

I do not intend to do any such thing, but I do not have to tell him that. “I will do whatever it takes.”

“And if he finds out?”

I laugh, but there is little mirth in it. “What is the worst thing he will do to me? Wipe my memory again? I am tempted to turn myself in at this point. Maybe it will stick this time.”

“This isn’t a joke, Emma. He could torture you for information. He could kill you.”

“He will never get information from me. You know me better than that.”

The second the words slip out, I clench my jaw shut and avert my eyes.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I guess I do.”

I glance over and he has turned his eyes away, too.

“We never saw this coming, did we?” I ask. “So much for retiring in Mexico with a truckload of little Tuckers.”

His eyes close momentarily and he shakes his head. “Guess the joke’s on us.”

“At least you get one out of the deal, right?” I picture the live monitor in the other room. Adrienne. A daughter who is biologically half mine but will never belong to me. Only to Her. “What was it you said? ‘The men in this world won’t stand a chance with one of our daughters—’”

Noah’s eyes widen. “You really do remember everything, don’t you?”

I shake my head and tuck my hair back. “No. Not everything.”

“Did—” He stops and averts his eyes, blinking rapidly again. “Did she know about the baby?”

I did not expect this question, which must have been burning him alive for months. Never knowing if She risked the life of their child for one last raid—the raid that took Her life. “I really do not know, but I do not believe so. I remember pieces of the raid. She never thought about it. Only of you.”

His chin trembles and he nods. “Okay, thanks. That’s good.” He takes a deep breath. “Means I won’t have to kick her ass.”

I chuckle. “Good. Then you will not end up hitting me by default.”

He laughs and there is a moment of easy bliss between us. Why do things have to be so effortless for us? My soul is in agony without its other half—his. This uncrossable chasm between us makes these single moments that much more painful.

“I should go,” I say and begin to step around him.

He reaches out and takes my arm. “You don’t have to do this. Every second you spend as his wife—” He stops and takes a shaky breath. “It’s dangerous.”

“I know what I am doing.” I look up into his piercing eyes. “Trust me.”

“You’ll signal if you need anything?”

I nod and move away, ignoring the pull of his touch. His eyes. “See you around,” I whisper and turn into the hallway, out of his line of sight.

Somehow, I find my way into the control center. I wipe my face until it is as dry as I can get it and wish it were not so obvious that I have been crying. No doubt everyone in this room knows why. The pitying looks only verify my suspicion.

Foster catches up to me when I am halfway to the teleporter. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you are not,” I say.

He passes me a small gun. “You’ll need this and you’ll need me.”

I stop and face him. “I do not need anyone.”

He lifts his chin. “I owe you my life many times over.”

“You owe Emma your life.”

He shakes his head. “I’m coming.”

I consider the options. He knows what I plan to do, or at least knows I do not plan to return as Declan’s wife, so if he stays, he will tell Noah. I cannot let Noah follow me back there. I need him where he is safe because he has a daughter to raise. But this is most likely a suicide mission. I do not want Foster getting hurt.

Foster nods at a man behind a computer screen. “Where’s she supposed to be right now?”

“We set the trail to put her in the studio.”

It takes me a second, but I figure out that they faked my leaving the house and going to paint. I would have spent hours in the studio. And unless Declan showed up unexpectedly as he did the other day, he will never suspect a thing.

“Okay, let’s keep her there for a while longer. How close can you get us to the nonmonitored area?” he asks.

I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you talking about? What nonmonitored area?”

“There’s an entire section in the labs where Burke never had security installed. He would only do that if there were things he didn’t want to risk anyone seeing.”

“You think it is where they do the cloning?”

He nods.

This thought burns me from the core out. Screw talking this out with Declan. I want to end this with a bang. “We will need explosives.”