Vitro (18 page)

“If you’re trying to impress me, the only thing I’m impressed by is how ridiculously stupid and narcissistic you are.”
His hand rose to slap her, but she blocked him and raised her knee, driving it into his groin. Nicholas gasped and doubled over, and she jumped out of the chair but he tackled her from behind, cursing and hissing threats. He flipped her over and grabbed her hair, yanking her head back and then covering her mouth with his other hand when she started to scream.
“Enough,” he whispered in her ear. “You want to know why I brought you to this island?”
She twisted, trying to throw him off, but he was sitting on her stomach and when she moved he just pulled her hair; her eyes flooded with tears of pain and she could only moan.
“I watched you grow up, Sophie Crue,” he said. “Oh yes. You’ve been watched your entire life. Photos, videos, medical records, even artwork and school reports you sent to your mom. She keeps it all in a little room behind her office and I am the only person who knows about it. I found a way in. I know every corner of this island, down to the forgotten rooms and the spaces inside the walls themselves. I know every secret on Skin Island, and you are the best-kept one of all. I know everything about you.”
He smiled. Her skin crawled; even if he was lying, just the thought of him stalking her from the other side of the planet was enough to chill her to the bone.
“I know you hate your stepmother,” he murmured. “I know you broke your arm when you were ten by trying to run away, and they put you on medication to keep you from trying it again. I know you had a yellow parakeet named Popcorn but your stepbrother strangled it with dental floss when you were twelve and hung the body over your bed, and when you tried to tell his parents about it he said it was you who’d done it, and they put you back on the meds.”
Sophie froze from head to toe, her heart icing over. “Mmph,” she groaned, but he didn’t stop.
“I know that when you were thirteen, your stepsister Emily stole your journal and read it aloud to all her friends and when they laughed at you, you hit Emily so hard you broke her nose. They said there was something wrong with you, didn’t they?” He chuckled. “They said you weren’t normal. They even whispered things like antisocial, didn’t they? Funny.” Nicholas’s grin widened. “That’s just almost like saying you’re a psychopath.”
She stared at him, transfixed with horror. He knew everything, every dark secret she’d buried deep in her memory. Every part of herself she kept most hidden he dragged out and pinned to the wall. She felt as if he were vivisecting her right there in the leaves.
“Mmm,” she groaned, and he finally let go of her mouth. “I’m not a psychopath!” she shouted. “It wasn’t me—none of that was me! Yeah, I hit Em, but she deserved it, and it was Noah who killed Popcorn! You are the psycho, not me. Get off of me!”
“Don’t you think they knew that?” he asked. “According to this, they did.” He rose up and hooked his foot under a drawer in one of the dressing tables, pulling it open. Then, keeping an eye on her all the while, he lifted out a thick binder packed with papers.
“What is that?” she whispered.
He turned it so she could read the label on the folder: Sophie Jane Crue.
Her blood froze over.
“This folder,” he said slowly, crouching beside her and rubbing his hands over it, “contains the story of your life.” He opened it, pulled out a photo, and showed it to her: it was her and her mother, kneeling side by side as they did tea ceremony at a restaurant in Osaka. Sophie had been ten on that trip. It was still one of her favorite memories, but pinched between Nicholas’s fingers, it suddenly sickened in her mind, like a leaf turning brown and ugly before dropping away.
“What—what is this?” she asked. “My mom will kill you for—”
“Oh, come on!” He gave her a disgusted look. “You don’t need her to defend you! Why can’t you stand up for yourself? Is this what you’ve been your entire life—a whiny, needy brat who blames all her problems on her absent mom? Look. There’s just one rule, just one basic law that everyone lives under: Take control or be controlled. That’s what it comes down to, Sophie Crue. You’ve been controlled your entire life, haven’t you? By your mom, by Corpus, by your fake family.” He shook his head and gave her a pitying look. “They tried to control me, too. But not anymore. I’m taking control now. Why won’t you? The first step toward being free is recognizing that you’re not.”
“She loves me.”
“Oh, oh, yes she does, I’m sure. And guess what? She loves me, too, in her own way—because she created me. I’m her project; she doesn’t love me, but the reflection of herself in me.”
He crumpled the photo in his fist and dropped the folder, making it fall open. Photographs, every one of them a memory Sophie held dear, scattered across the floor. Sophie at twelve, smiling from horseback in one of the expensive riding lessons her mother had paid for. Sophie at fourteen, holding up a third-place trophy from some soccer tournament. One photo caught her eye in particular and cut her like a knife: her fifth birthday, a photo of her blowing out the candles on her Little Mermaid cake—and a tiny, freckled Jim Julien behind her, holding up bunny ears over her head and grinning impishly. She stared at it with wide, unblinking eyes, a crescendo of grief roaring in her head, searching for a way out.
“What is this?” she said hoarsely. “Where did you get these?”
“You should be more like me, Sophie,” Nicholas said. “You should be that person they said you were. If you were—if you just stopped following their idiot rules—you’d realize how stupid they all are. How fake, how shallow. You’d be free like me. You’d finally be in control of your own life—isn’t that what you want?”
“I don’t want to be anything like you.” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the photo.
“We’ll see.” He stood up and hauled her to her feet by her hair. She blinked away tears, biting her lip so hard she drew blood. “It’s all about the control, Sophie. You don’t even know what you are.”
“What do you mean? What do you want from me, Nicholas?” Exasperated and bewildered, she could only stand helplessly lest he wrench her hair out by its roots.
“I want you,” he said, his smile dropping, replaced by solemn steadiness. “I want you and I want the world. Is that too much to ask? You fascinate me. I’ve known you my entire life. Since day one I’ve been trapped here on this god-awful island—you said it yourself. You think I don’t know anything about the world, but I know one thing—I know you. And I have dreamed of this day for years.” He pulled her close, his one hand still tangled in her hair but the other pressed against the curve of her lower back, thrusting her against him. When he spoke, his breath was a hot cloud against her forehead and the tips of his long hair brushed against her eyelashes. “You are my window to the world, Sophie. Everything I know about what lies beyond this island, I learned from you. And now we’re going to leave together. We’ll take the world together. You’ll be mine as you’ve always been mine, only now you know it.”
“Creep!” Sophie choked. “You’re insane!”
“Maybe.” He shrugged, unperturbed.
“I’ll never go anywhere with you!”
“What else are you going to do? Go back to your stepfamily? Stay here with your so-called mom, who’s been lying to you your entire life? Run off with your pilot boyfriend—Oh. Wait.” He smirked. “That’s right—I killed him.”
She roared like a wild animal and began beating at him with her fists, managing to knock his jaw and his temple before he caught her wrists and wrestled her into submission again. This time he drew more cord from his pocket and twined it around her wrists, so tightly that it bit into her skin and red welts began to show. She twisted and fought, but he was too strong for her, and she only succeeded in wrenching her hurt shoulder and doubling her pain.
“You don’t even know what you are,” he said again. He almost looked genuinely sorry for her, though she knew it was all an act, every bit of it. He could change emotions as if they were masks he carried in his pocket. “Poor little Sophie. You’re a very special girl, you know.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, though when he said it, she suddenly felt as if she had always known the truth, that it had been hidden inside her from the start.
He reached for the folder, drew out a photograph. Before she showed it to her, he studied it closely, his head tilted to the right. Then he turned it around, a slow smile spreading over his face. It showed a wide-eyed baby with light blond curls that Sophie recognized as herself, held tightly by a much younger Moira Crue—who was standing in the same lab in which Sophie had first seen Lux. Nicholas ran his thumb over the baby’s face and stared intently at her.
“You’re a Vitro, Sophie. Skin Island’s own special, very first Vitro.”

“Oh, come on,” said Nicholas above her. “You seriously never saw it? Never suspected? Never wondered?”
How could she? She hadn’t known the Vitros existed until yesterday.
“You’re pathetic, Sophie. Now get up.”
She heard him, but only distantly. Her brain moved as if she’d left the emergency brake on: haltingly, agonizingly. Where was she, again? What was the stunning revelation that had sent her into this dizzying spiral of insanity? Oh. Yes. I’m a Vitro. Imagine that. How stupid have I been, not to see it?
“Get up.” He hauled her up by her collar and kept a firm grip on her neck to keep her from sinking down again. She slipped on the glossy photographs of her past. “Get control of yourself, will you? There’s still so much to do!”
“You can’t make me!” she spat.
“Oh?” He seemed amused by her vehemence.
“I’ll fight you with every ounce of strength I have, you bastard.”
“Not after you’ve imprinted on me,” he whispered in her ear. “Now let’s move.”

Nicholas led her through the resort and smuggled her up the hill to the Vitro building, where he took her through a side door using a key he carried in his pocket, on a ring stuffed with them.

“You steal all of those?” she asked hollowly.
He rolled his eyes and pushed the door open.
The hallway was deserted, but she heard loud voices from

the atrium—her mother, Strauss, Andreyev, among others. They were arguing intensely, from the sound of it. Nicholas led her in the opposite direction, to a small door that lead to a downward staircase, and into a long hallway. They passed rooms with padded walls, and Sophie recognized the one in which she’d been kept after she’d blurted out her identity to Strauss. For a moment, she thought Nicholas was going to lock her back inside, and she panicked and jerked away, nearly tripping when the cord went taut and caught her ankles.

“Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to lock you up.” “What do you think you’re going to do?” she said. “Make me imprint on you, really? That’s impossible. It’s not like I’m a baby you can start hardwiring, like the rest of them.”
“You’d be surprised at what I can do.” He pulled her further along, past the padded cells. Her borrowed sneakers squeaked on the tile.
She felt raw inside, worked over like a lump of used chewing gum. He knew everything about her, all her darkest memories. Had her mother been whispering the secrets of Sophie’s life into his ear? Was she just a source of gossip for the people on Skin Island to laugh over? The control, it’s all about the control. His laughter echoed in her ear, and she looked up abruptly, but his face was solemn and the laughter was only in her head. Skin Island’s own special, very first Vitro.
She couldn’t process. Couldn’t breathe. A lifetime of lies. A mother who was not her mother. A father who was not her father. A sister she never knew existed. Lux is all I have—my only true family. And I don’t really have her at all. Her sister was an echo of another person, without a will or identity of her own. She felt as if she’d toppled off a high wall and was falling still, wind rushing in her ears, her stomach in her throat and her heart in her mouth.
She felt hollow with the loss of Jim and the baring of her soul to the person she now hated most in the world, more than her stepmother, more than Strauss. She didn’t know how many more blows she could take before she would deserve one of those padded rooms. She felt as if the layers of her life were being stripped away one by one; she was being whittled down, smaller and smaller, until she was nothing but a tiny speck on the face of the planet, a pebble, a scrap, a nothing.
Nicholas opened a door, and the room behind it glowed with faint blue light. It was completely empty.
No, wait . . . There was something odd about the walls. They were lined from floor to ceiling with panels made of filmy glass, and the blue light was shining from behind the panels. Trailing the cord between them, Sophie walked to one wall and pressed her hands to the panel; it was warm. She squinted at the glass, at the shadowy figure behind it.
Horrified, she pulled away, looking at Nicholas in sudden comprehension.
“The rest of the Vitros,” she whispered. “The ones that haven’t been woken yet.”
He nodded, a slight, intent smile on his lips.
She turned back to the panels, her eyes moving from one to another; she had to stare at the glass for a moment before she could make out the sleeping Vitro behind it. There were at least two dozen of them.
In vitro, she thought. In glass. They’re literally raised in glass boxes. She shivered, correcting herself. We, she thought. We are raised in glass boxes.
The place made her feel dirty, creepy, as if she were watching a stranger shower. These sleeping people were intensely vulnerable and she felt as if she’d broken into a private sanctuary.
Nicholas, however, seemed to feel no such compunction. He walked around the room, pressing buttons beside the panels. One by one, they hissed and slid open with a rush of white gas.
“What are you doing?”
“Sh.” Nicholas pressed a finger to his lips as he popped open a smaller panel in the wall that revealed a handheld instrument inside. “I’m creating a diversion. And also getting a little revenge. And also just creating general chaos. I’m very good at it, you know.”
“Very good at which one?”
He paused, then grinned. “All three.” He pulled out what looked like half a hair-straightener; it was a thick baton with a plastic grip on one end and a thin metal plate screwed to the other.
“What’s that?” asked Sophie.
“This is a . . . well, we don’t really have a fancy name for it. We just call it the wand. It activates the Vitros’ chips. Wakes them up.”
He walked back to the first glass panel, which was so low on the wall he had to get on his knees to look inside. The boy lying within—Sophie could see that they were all the same age, around sixteen—was pale, thin, and groggy. Nicholas pressed a button on the wand and held it over the boy’s head. After a moment, it beeped three times, and the boy’s eyes opened.
“Stop!” Sophie cried. “You can’t do this! They’re helpless—leave them alone!”
He looked up at her. “You want to do it instead?”
“You’re evil.”
“Oh, seriously,” he sighed, standing to wake the next Vitro. “You shouldn’t see the world in such black and white terms. It’s very naive of you.”
“I won’t let you!” she yelled, and she charged at him, intending to beat him over the head if she could.
But he still held the other end of the cord, and he pulled it quickly, bringing her crashing down. Her head hit the floor and stars exploded in her eyes; foggily she grappled with the knots around her ankles, but they were too tight, too complicated. Her skull aching, she tried to crawl toward Nicholas to pull his feet out from under him, but he just sneered and dragged her to the door, where he tied the cord to the handle, taking up all the slack in the line so her hands were forced up over her head. Her fingers tingled from the tight knots that hindered her circulation and her shoulder screamed; if she’d been hit directly she was sure she’d have died of sheer pain by now. She felt as if she’d been mauled by a mountain lion— what would a real bullet wound feel like? She couldn’t imagine anything worse than what she was already feeling.
“And it’s no use shouting,” he said. “They’re all outside hunting for you, so they won’t hear. But still. If you do make a sound, I’ll stuff your mouth.”
She could only watch in horror as he woke the Vitros one by one, taking the time to look each in the eyes, giving them a chance to imprint on him.
“I’ve wanted to do this for years,” he said amiably. “But I had to wait for the right time.”
“Why? What part do they play in your delusions?”
“I told you,” he replied, impatiently. “Don’t you listen to a word I say? I’m creating a distraction.”
“So you can imprint me,” Sophie said flatly.
“Now you’re getting it.” He was halfway around the room now, smiling encouragingly as a black-haired Asian girl blinked her eyes open for the first time and locked gazes with him.
“But you still haven’t said how you plan to do that.”
“And I’m not going to. I’d much rather show you.”
She twisted her hands against the cord; she thought the knots might be coming loose but it was hard to tell. A thin trickle of blood ran down her arm from where the cord had cut her, and she bit her lip, holding back whimpers of pain as she worked at the bonds. Whenever he turned her way she froze, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
After he’d woken all the Vitros, he began helping them out, making them stand on wobbly legs. They stumbled and swayed as if they were made of paper; if a kitten rubbed against their legs they would fall over. They clumsily clustered around Nicholas, making no sound but the shuffling of their bare feet. Each one wore a plain white gown that hung loose on their shoulders and fell to their knees. Some still bore white patches that clung to their faces and arms, where tubes had run into their veins until Nicholas pulled them out. Their nails were inches long on their fingers and toes, and their skin had a saggy, sallow look that made Sophie’s stomach turn. They looked almost like cadavers. Had Lux looked that way, before the doctors brought her out of this place and cleaned her up to present her to Andreyev?
When they were all awake and on their feet, Nicholas stood in their midst like a god, reaching out to touch their faces and shoulders as if he were blessing them. They reached out to grab his hair and his clothes, to press their fingers to his lips, their eyes wide with adoration.
Sophie resisted the urge to vomit. Everything about the scene was eerie and perverse; she felt nauseated just from watching.
“Come,” Nicholas murmured to his acolytes. “Follow me.”
He led his stumbling, disoriented crowd of newborn Vitros out the door, slowly and with much awkward shuffling. They could hardly stand, let alone walk, but he helped the ones who fell and led them by the hand. Sophie tried to trip him when he went by, but he just laughed and hopped over her.
“What will you do with them?” she asked when the last Vitro was in the hall.
“Set them free.”
“How?”
“I really don’t see why you should care. Soon, you’ll be one of them.” His Vitros waited in the hall, staring at him vapidly and blinking in the harsh fluorescent lights while he knelt and brushed her hair behind her ears. She jerked away but only succeeded in hitting her head against the door. “Wait here,” he murmured, then chuckled. “As if you had a choice.”
He returned to the Vitros and began leading them away down the hall. She heard the ding of the elevator; he likely didn’t trust them to handle the stairs. By scooting along the floor, Sophie could swing the door shut, which put her outside the room and in the hallway, her hands still tethered to the handle. She caught a glimpse of the last Vitro disappearing into the elevator before the doors slid shut.
Hollow silence fell across the basement hall. Sophie took the chance to wrestle at her bonds, pulling against them with all her weight. She twisted and bucked, then forced herself to stop and think. She couldn’t see the knots very well because her hands were bound behind her back, and though she was pretty limber, she couldn’t get herself turned around without pulling her shoulders out of their sockets. So she began feeling with her fingertips for any loose coils, but found none.
Her wrists were red and raw by the time Nicholas returned, not five minutes later. He glanced at her hands and raised a single eyebrow. “Get anywhere, did you? Maybe if you broke your wrists?”
She snarled at him like a trapped raccoon, but he ignored her and untied the knots himself, loosing her from the door but keeping her wrists bound. Then he dragged her down the hall to the next room and shouldered the door open.
“The Vitro prep room,” he said cheerfully as he pushed her onto a large, padded metal bench. “You’ve been here before, though you wouldn’t recognize it.”
“This is where you hid me after . . . wait. It wasn’t Mary, was it? If was you who knocked me out.”
He shrugged. “You shouldn’t have run off. I really didn’t think they’d find you here, I must admit. But I never planned on your pilot making off with Lux, or I’d have stashed you somewhere better. Ah, well, everything’s worked out in the end.”
The room resembled an exam room in a clinic, with a counter, sink, and cabinets, and assorted mystery equipment hung on the wall. The only thing missing was thin tissue paper to cover the bench. Nicholas flicked on a light that hung directly above Sophie; the bulb’s conical shade directed the glare in a kind of spotlight, illuminating her in yellow pool but leaving the corners of the room in shadows, like the room in which she’d awoken to Moira, Strauss, and Andreyev.
“This is where they usually wake the Vitros,” he said. “I’ve seen it several times. I’m not just the botched experiment they keep like a pet, you know. I help them.” He waited, perhaps to see if she’d be impressed, but she wasn’t. He shrugged and went on. “Granted, mostly they have me cleanings things, sorting their crap, changing sheets, and filling out dull paperwork they don’t want to deal with. But it lets me see everything. Everything. When you’re just standing in the corner wiping off scalpels, no one pays attention to you, especially when they think they know you.” He shut the door and locked it. The click of the lock gave Sophie a chill; the hair on her neck rose on end.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He pulled the wand from his back pocket. “I’m activating your chip, Sophie.”
Her heart clenched. “How?” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’m not a newborn like those others.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you ask too many questions? I mean, God, you never shut up.”
“I swear, Nicholas, if you don’t—”
“Sh!” He pressed a finger to her lips. “Just listen . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . .”
An echoing blast shattered Sophie’s eardrums, but it didn’t come from the wand.