Falls the Shadow (32 page)

Seth.

“Cate? What the hell are you doing here?” He grabs my arm and pulls me away from the crowd. It's so quick, and I'm so overcome with emotion at seeing him alive,
and without so much as a scratch on his tan skin, that the only thing I can think to do is throw my arms around him. Because yes, it's Seth—but maybe he's grown on me more than I'd cared to admit. Plus, if he's here, then Jaxon has to be close, as inseparable as the two of them are.

“Cut it out,” he says, shoving me away.

He seems considerably less excited to see me than I am to see him.

“Sorry,” I stammer, confused. “I was just . . . I'm just glad you're okay.”

“As okay as I was twenty minutes ago—it's a miracle, isn't it?” There's definitely something wrong with that tone he's using. I've never heard him so angry. “Now answer my question—why the hell are you still here? And where is Jaxon?”

“Jaxon . . . ?”

“You two were in such a damn hurry to leave.”

“I—”

The realization of what's happened hits me all at once, so hard and so fast that it's a miracle I manage to stay standing.

“Where did we say we were going?” I ask. My voice is shaking. I can't help it; all of my strength is being channeled into my effort to not pass out, leaving nothing to steady my words.

“Are you serious?” Seth snaps. “Your house? Your parents? Your hysterical insistence that you had to go make sure they were okay, right this second? That I was a terrible, terrible person who didn't care about anyone but himself?
None of that ringing any bells?” His voice gets quieter toward the end, the edge of it softening as his gaze fully meets mine. The realization hits him more slowly, but when it does, the horror that spreads across his face is quick and merciless.

“I probably should have tried a little harder to stop him.” His words aren't much steadier than mine. I nod, even though I know he isn't asking a question.

Because now we both uncerstand.

Jaxon didn't leave with me. He left with my clone.

Jaxon's car is parked at
the end of our driveway.

We're the first ones to make it here. Partly because Jaxon is the one who taught Seth how to drive, and partly because the rest of the CCA members were too busy arguing among themselves about who should go and who should stay, and who should investigate what was happening in room B13. It was easy enough to talk one of them into lending us his car, because so many seemed more eager to keep fighting at the lab, more interested in running back to that room and dealing with whatever pandemonium my sister created this time.

I'd worry about them dealing with her, too, but there's no need. Because she's waiting on the front porch steps for us.

“I told you I'd catch up.”

“What did you do back there?” Seth demands. “What was going on in that room?”

Instead of answering him, Violet lifts her gaze and stares dreamily off toward the city's center. I follow it automatically, and just as quickly wish I hadn't. Because there's a plume of smoke rising in the distance, tendrils of it reaching like long, dark fingers out across the skyline.

“Is that coming from over the lab?” Seth asks.

“You know, I think it might be,” Violet says. Then she smiles at him.

And it turns out that it actually
is
possible to render Seth Lancaster speechless.

“We're here for Jaxon,” I remind them both. I jog up the steps and into the house before they have a chance to start arguing, and before my brain can get too caught up in thoughts of what's happening at Huxley.

Inside, the familiar scent of cleaning supplies and a busy top layer of lilac potpourri hits me harder than I expected. It's only been, what, three days? But somehow it feels like it's been years since the last time I stepped through these doors. Maybe because the Cate I left behind is years away from who I am now.

At least half a dozen people originally followed Jaxon and my clone, Seth told me; President Cross insisted on it the second she found out he'd left with who she thought was the actual me. We find the first of those people lying in a pool of blood at the foot of the stairs. There's a long, thin burn across his neck.

“Well that's not encouraging,” Seth says, stepping between me and the body, shielding me from the sight in a way that's almost protective.

He's right. And it's not any more encouraging than the silence, or the burn marks along the walls, or the broken vases and picture frames littering the floor. Where is Jaxon? Where are my parents?

Maybe I should be used to destruction, since it's all
I've seen these past few days. I should be immune to it. But I don't think anything could have made me numb to what I see now: the huge family photo—the one that used to hang proudly over our fireplace—lying facedown on the living room floor. I crouch down beside it and flip it back over. It's heavier than I expected, especially since I'm lifting it one-handed. I don't manage to do it gracefully; it lands hard against the floor, and the spider-web cracks across its glass front spread even farther.

I'm still staring at it when Seth reaches my side.

“It's not a very good picture of you anyway,” he says softly. “Your hair looks awful.”

“That's true,” I agree, trying to find the heart to smile, because I know that's what he's hoping for. I remember when my mother made me get that haircut. I remember how much I hated her for telling them to cut it so short, because I thought it made me look like a boy. So of course she just had to blow it up as big as she could and put it over the fireplace. Five years ago that picture was taken, and so it's the old Violet staring back at me.

And the new Violet is staring at me now too, watching me with one shoulder leaning against the door frame.

I don't know why I never thought about it before now, but I wonder if it was hard for her to look at that every day? I wonder if it was hard for my clone to look at that picture of me, too? Maybe that's why she knocked it down and did her best to shatter it.

“I'm going to go check the other rooms. For more bodies or something,” Violet announces.

She's gone before I can say anything, before I can suggest that we stick together. I glance one last time at the family portrait before rising again. My parents' smiles are familiar, of course, because by that point they were practiced and so they were always the same. Staring at them, I almost want to shatter them further, stomp my foot across their faces until the glass breaks into enough tiny little pieces that it's impossible to make out what's underneath. Because I want someone to blame for all of this. And right now, all of the reasons I know they had for the choices they made don't really matter. Not when there's a dead body by the stairs and who knows how many more still left to find.

“Come on.” Seth grabs my arm and pulls me back toward the hall. “Not important right now,” he says. And he's right. Because the people in that picture might share my blood, but family isn't just about blood; it's about who comes to your side and who stays there without flinching even when everything goes to hell.

Jaxon isn't in that picture, but he still feels like family to me.

He has to be here somewhere, and I have to find him.

Outside the living room, Seth heads straight for the steps at the end of the hall. I'm not far behind him, until the door to the basement catches my eye. It's halfway open. I slow to a stop, staring at it. That door is never open. For most of the past two years it's been locked, even, ever since the basement flooded during a nasty summer storm; my mother keeps saying that she's going to go
through everything down there, sort through the waterlogged boxes of keepsakes, of damaged photos, of mine and Violet's old school projects and honor roll and perfect attendance certificates. But she hasn't yet. Maybe because she's afraid of how much is ruined, and how much she'd have to throw away. And I guess she was afraid of anyone else throwing any of it away too, because she even had a new door installed—a metal one with an electric control panel and everything.

That computer panel now has a gaping, jagged hole in the center of its screen, as if some blunt object was thrown against it.

“Hey, Seth?” I call. He's already disappeared upstairs, though, and he doesn't answer. I should follow him. We should stay together. But there's a bad feeling surrounding the basement door, a feeling that's pulling me toward it in a way I can't explain.

“Seth?” I call again. Still no answer. I'm already moving again, my body in a sort of trance; I squeeze through the half-open door, and on the other side I stop, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

Even before my mother declared it off limits, I never spent much time down here, so my brain's layout of the place is a bit fuzzy. I know there's one high-set window on the far side. I see the pale wave of sunlight washing through it and stretching toward the foot of the stairs, and it soothes some of the uneasiness in my chest. I take the steps one by one, moving in the direction of that light, listening closely and trying to anticipate all of the different angles my clone
could possibly attack me from. I see all of the places she could hide, and I pause and stare long and hard at each one, silently watching for any sort of movement.

But when I reach the bottom, I still haven't seen anything. I sweep another glance over my surroundings, and a sudden memory strikes me: a clear picture of one of the few times I actually was down here. It was early summer, the first week we had off from school, and me and Old-Violet were running from Mother because we'd accidently knocked over and broken one of her favorite vases while we were jumping around on the living room furniture. Back then, cowering underneath the steps with my sister holding my shaking hand while Mother shouted from upstairs, was the most scared I'd ever been.

It's nothing compared with the fear driving my heart now. But the memory of it, bidden by the earthy metallic scent of this room, leaves behind the same hollow terror in my chest. It makes it hard to tell where my past and my present converge and separate. There's at least one thing that sets them apart, though: This present moment belongs to me and me alone. Because the moment they took my clone from her cell, our link—my link to Huxley and everything they've done—was severed. And something about that gives me the courage to keep moving.

The last step creaks as I lift my foot from it. The noise bounces around the room, settling and ringing in my ears so loudly that I can't focus on anything else. So I don't hear Jaxon come up beside me. I only hear his ever-calm voice say, “Don't move.”

But how can I not move? How can I not turn to look at him? I have to see him.

Even in the dim light, I see the blood shadowing the entire right side of his face. He steps directly into the weary path of sunlight, and I see that his eyes are hard and unyielding, his mouth drawn in a harsh, even line.

He has a gun raised and pointed at me. I can tell he's trying desperately to keep the arm holding it straight. The muscles in it twitch and jump beneath his skin, and every few seconds a terrible shudder rips through it, all the way up into his shoulder.

“I said don't move,” he says. A weak but somehow still violent-sounding cough follows the words. He closes his eyes for a split second, trying to focus. How much blood has he lost?

“Jaxon,” I say slowly, carefully, “it's me.”

“Don't—,” he begins. He coughs, wipes away the blood that trickles out of his mouth, and tries again. “Don't make me kill you,” he says. “Please.”

“You don't want to kill me.” My breath hitches in my throat at the thought. I reach for the gun without taking my eyes off his, but he stumbles back, trying to get away from me, and falls against the stair railing. “I'm the real one. The real Cate,” I say, even though my words feel thin and pointless. Because he's not hearing me. He's not seeing me—not for the person I really am. He's too far gone. As far as he's concerned now, I am my clone, and who knows what I've done to him.

And who knows what else my clone did. What if she
went after my parents, too? What if I never see them again? What if I never get the chance to ask them
why
, to try to understand how things came to this? To try to fix things, somehow?

Jaxon closes his eyes again, and I know I can't waste any more time thinking. I throw myself on his arm and jerk the gun from his grip. He lets it go easily; it takes only my one good hand to work it free. And like that gun was the last thing anchoring him to reality, as soon as I step away his eyes roll back and his body convulses in a terrible sort of way; his hand slips from the stair railing and he starts to fall. I drop the gun and catch him as best I can, collapsing back to the stone floor underneath his weight.

His skin is flushed and hot to the touch, his breath just an occasional shudder in his chest. I see where all of the blood is coming from now—from the gash across the side of his face, and another one in the hollow of his throat. My fingers shake as they trace around the edges, trying to feel how deep the wounds are, trying to figure out what might have caused them. It could have been anything, though. When you're talking about the strength of a clone, any random object can potentially become a weapon.

Most of the blood, at least, is cold and dried. Not fresh. The bruises all over his skin concern me more, anyway. Because I know they might be signs of worse damage below the surface.

“What are you doing?” he asks suddenly. His eyes flash open and, after a few seconds of trying, he manages to get them to focus on me. “Why are you here?”

My mouth is too dry for me to speak at first. When I finally manage to, the words that come out of my mouth aren't just mine. They're mostly his. “Because there's something about you,” I say softly. “Something that's never let me go, ever since the first day we met.”