Replica (37 page)
Authors: Lauren Oliver
Gemma shook off the blanket and scooted out of the van. She felt clumsy with happiness. “I'm here,” she said, and the flashlight swept over her and held her momentarily in its light. “I'm right here.” She held out both arms and a second later, April was rocketing into them.
“I was so worried about you,” she said, nearly taking Gemma off her feet. “I was so mad, you knowâLatin temper and all thatâbut then a few hours after I left the house I started feeling really, really awful. Like my-stomach-is-trying-to-eat-itself awful. And I came home, and you were gone already, and then your parents called me. . . .”
“How did you find me?” Gemma was half tempted to touch April's hair and nose and shoulders, to doubly make sure she was real.
“Find My Phone app, duh,” April said. Gemma almost laughed. Of course. “But then you turned your phone off, and then of course as soon as I got here
my
phone ran out of charge. So I've been walking around like a total perv, peeking in people's windows. . . .
Perv?
” she squeaked, as Pete climbed out of the van.
Gemma was glad that it was so dark she couldn't make out April's expression. “April, you know
Pete
,” she said, deliberately emphasizing the name and hoping that April would take the hint. “Pete was the one who drove me down to Florida.”
“Uh-huh.” April seemed momentarily speechless, a first for her. Gemma could practically see her making calculationsâthe size of the van, the fact that both Gemma and Pete had been sleeping inside,
together
. “Where are the . . . others?” She was deliberately avoiding the word
clones
, and Gemma remembered what they'd fought about, and what she'd now have to confess to April: that she was one of them. Made. Manufactured. She would have to tell April about her parents' first child, the lost child she'd been made to replicate. She would have to tell April about Rick Harliss and Jake Witz's murder. She was hit by a wave of exhaustion again. This was the world she lived in now.
As if he knew what she was thinking, Pete put his arm around her. “They're sleeping,” he said. “They're okay.”
Gemma leaned into him, grateful, not even caring what April thought. “We're all okay,” she said. She reached for April's hand and gave it a squeeze. There in the darkness, in the middle of nowhere, her boyfriend and her best friend: under the circumstances, she could hardly ask for more.
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma's story.
Click here
to read Chapter 17 of Lyra's story.
APRIL SLEPT IN HER CAR. For most of the night, Pete kept his arm around Gemma's waist, breathing into her hair, and she woke surprisingly refreshed, considering the fact that she was lying with her cheek squashed against the van's scratchy carpeting and one whole arm was numb.
It was just after six o'clock. She eased out of the van and saw that Lyra and Caelum were still sleeping, their bodies tented under a blanket pulled all the way over their heads. Beneath it they appeared to be one person. She showered and brushed her teeth in the semi-slimy bathroom, next to little kids giddy with the experience of camping and their bleary-eyed moms. Afterward, she woke April, and they went in search of breakfast from the little mini-mart and gas station where Pete had bought all the junk food the night before. They bought hot coffee and muffins the texture of sponges, but were so hungry they didn't care.
They ate at a picnic bench slick with dew and watched the sun beat the mist off the ground. It was going to be another beautiful day.
Gemma told April everything. When she explained what had happened to Jake Witz, she realized she was trying not to cry. But she forced herself to keep talking. She told April about what she'd learned from Rick Harliss, about what her parents had done after their first child had died. About why and how she'd been made. By then she
was
crying, not even because she felt sorry for herself, but weirdly because she mourned the child, Emma. She even felt sorry for her parents. They must have grieved. They must have been grieving for years. What would it be like to look at your daughter and see a perfect reflection of a child you'd lost?
To her credit, April didn't freak out. She waited until Gemma was finished, and then she scooted closer on the bench to give Gemma a hug. April gave the best hugs. Even though Gemma was much larger than April was, somehow April made her feel totally enfolded, totally taken care of.
“I'm proud of you, bug,” April said, using an old nickname, which made Gemma laugh and cry harder at the same time.
Gemma pulled away. “Jeez. I'm like a snot factory,” she said.
“I hear there's big money in snot nowadays.”
Gemma laughed again, choking a bit, wiping her face with a sleeve. “Do you think I'll ever feel normal again?”
April snorted. “Come on, Gemma. When did we ever feel normal?” She nudged Gemma's shoulder. “We're aliens, remember?”
“You're an alien,” Gemma said. “I'm a clone.”
“
The Adventures of Alien and Clone.
Sounds like a Marvel movie. I'm in,” April said. And then, in a different voice, “Besides, normal is overrated. Normal is a word invented by boring people to make them feel better about being boring.”
“Maybe you're right.” Gemma did, in fact, feel a little better. A little lighter. She was still dreading going home to confront her parents, but she knew she couldn't delay it forever. The sun had risen. The sky was the color of a Creamsicle, and full of whipped-cream clouds. She stood up. “We should probably wake the others.”
“No way. Uh-uh. You skipped over the most important part of the story.” April grabbed Gemma's wrist and hauled her down onto the bench again. She was grinning, shark-wide, the way she did. “So,” she said, leaning forward on an elbow. “'Fess up. What's the deal with you and Perv?”
They were on the road by ten. April followed the van in her car, occasionally tooting her horn or pulling up
alongside the van to wave or give a thumbs-up. Pete kept up a constant stream of conversation, as usual, but this time he spoke mostly to Lyra and Caelum, trying to explain all about the world they hardly knew.
“Strip malls are like the arteries of America. They keep the whole country alive. Pizzerias, nail salons, shitty hardware stores . . . this is it, you know? The pinnacle of human achievement. If we ever get to Mars, I bet we'll build a nail salon first thing.”
Mostly, Gemma listened. Mostly, she turned her face to the window and saw her double reflected there, ghostly over the passing landscape: a different Gemma from the one who'd left home less than a week agoâstronger, both more and less sure of herself. She didn't know what was coming for her, but she knew that she'd be ready. They were safe for now. They were together. She had April and Pete. Lyra had her. Caelum had a name.
And despite what she'd said to April, she felt a little less alien than she had before. A little smarter. A little more amazed, too, by all the mysteries she'd seen, by the complexity of the universe and the people inside of it.
A little more human, even.
REPLICA
“Electric, heartbreaking, pulse-pounding, and timely,
Replica
is a riveting two-for-one. Two complex heroines, two puzzling mysteries, two weaving adventures, all in one astounding novel.”
âVICTORIA AVEYARD,
#1
New York Times
bestselling author of
Red Queen
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LAUREN OLIVER
is the author of the teen novels
Before I Fall
,
Panic
,
Vanishing Girls
, and the Delirium trilogy:
Delirium
,
Pandemonium
, and
Requiem
, which have been translated into more than thirty languages and are
New York Times
and international bestselling novels. She is also the author of two standalone novels for middle grade readers,
The Spindlers
and
Liesl & Po
, which was an E. B. White Read-Aloud Award nominee, as well as the Curiosity House series and a novel for adults,
Rooms
. A graduate of the University of Chicago and NYU's MFA program, Lauren Oliver is also the cofounder of the boutique literary development company Paper Lantern Lit. You can visit her online at
www.laurenoliverbooks.com
.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.
Curiosity House Series
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For Adults
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Although many of the larger geographical areas indicated in this book do, in fact, exist, most (if not all) of the streets, landmarks, and other place names are of the author's invention.
REPLICA.
Copyright © 2016 by Laura Schechter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931028
EPub Edition © August 2016 ISBN 9780062394187
ISBN 978-0-06-239416-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-256193-0 (international edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-256730-7 (special edition)
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FIRST EDITION