Chimera (The Korsak Brothers #1)(65)

I remembered how he said they numbered the children, identified them as the experiments they were considered to be. Wendy had been Wendy Three, and Michael had said he was the first with no number necessary. “The first John then.”

“The first one,” he affirmed. “And the only one. There were no Johns after him. Jericho retired the name, I guess you’d say.”

“He retired John too, didn’t he?” I asked quietly when he fell silent, lost in the golden haze drifting through the glass.

He didn’t answer and that in itself was answer enough. “He was like Jericho in a lot of ways, same features, same hair and skin. The eyes were a different color, of course, but the same shape. They looked as if they could’ve been”—he struggled for a moment and then settled on a word—“related.” The concept of family, of father and son, brother to brother, was almost a myth to him. It was something to be read about in books and watched in the endless stream of movies, but not something that he’d seen close up in the walled-off microcosm that had been his world. No wonder he was having such a difficult time with it, and me, now.

“A miniature Jericho? Now there’s a scary thought,” I commented with utter sincerity.

“No. On the outside they were similar, but on the inside John was nothing like Jericho. Nothing like me either.” There was self-recrimination there, a thin brittle layer under a glittering frost of calm. “John wanted to be free. He always wanted to be free. I can’t remember how many times he tried to escape. He wanted me to go with him, but I never would. Not the first time. Not the last time.” The blinds were closed with a savage snap. “He kept asking me why. Time after time. When the lights were out for the night, he would whisper it so they wouldn’t hear. Why? Why won’t you come?”

“And what did you say?”

“Where would we go?” he responded evenly.

It was the question of a prisoner serving a life sentence. Only this prisoner had been a child, one with no memory of anything but the cage he lived in and the monster that ruled it. Where could we go that Jericho wouldn’t find us? Where would we ever fit in? How could we survive in an outside world as inexplicably alien as a distant star? I wasn’t sure that I would’ve been any different if the situation had been reversed. John must have been unique in that respect, with a will that was as superhuman as the rest of him. Poor damn kid.

“How old was John?” I let the rest of the question hang in the air, implied. How old was he when he made the last futile attempt?

“About twelve.”

Only twelve. Jesus Christ.

Michael gave up on the window. What he wanted to see wasn’t there; wouldn’t ever be there. “He slipped out of bed one night and just . . . never came back. I didn’t think he had made it, though. I never thought that. And when I saw Jericho two days later with his hand missing, I knew for sure. We can heal fast, but we can destroy even faster. John didn’t make it.” He swallowed, but his voice remained calm. “But at least he took part of that son of a bitch with him. It was afterward that Jericho wouldn’t let any of us get close enough to touch him or the teachers anymore. They carried stun guns in case any of us tried.”

“What about Wendy?”

“Wendy’s the first of her kind.” Weariness peeled his face like an apple, leaving pale vulnerability in plain sight. “She’s the only one of us who doesn’t need to touch. For her they keep tranquilizer darts, and even that might not work. But Wendy likes it there, and she likes what she’s being groomed to do. She doesn’t kill because they make her. She kills because she wants to.”

It was a grim end to an even grimmer conversation. I had more questions, but they could wait. Michael had had enough for the night whether he realized it or not. “Yeah? Well, I like what I can do too. And that’s boss your scrawny butt around.” Standing, I picked up the pair of sweatpants he liked to sleep in. He had laid them out with anal-retentive neatness on the bed in preparation for bed. I wadded them in hand and tossed them in his direction. “Bedtime.”

He caught them as he wavered between dignity and indignation. “I’m not a child.”

But he was, and one so wounded that I was amazed he managed to be the bright, inquisitive, and fundamentally good person he was.

“Would my hanging you by your ankles until you begged for mercy prove any different?” I grinned wickedly.

“You wouldn’t dare.” He meant it too. He still harbored the suspicion that at some level I feared what he could do to me if he chose. As if he would do to me what he refused to do to those who tried to attack him. In so many ways he was damned brilliant, but in other ways he had serious catching up to do. Trusting me and trusting himself—he’d get there. I’d make sure of it.

I didn’t actually have to follow through on the threat. Once I was close enough to swipe at his ankles, he gave in and went to get ready for bed. His heavy step was enough to let me know the push had been necessary. He wouldn’t admit it, but talking about his friend—perhaps the only friend he had ever known—had taken a lot out of him. It had drained me, and I’d only been doing the listening. One childhood mistake had led to years of pain that couldn’t be forgotten or erased.

It was my mistake and Michael’s pain.

The sound of brushing teeth brought me out of my self-pitying funk. “Be sure to floss,” I called out as I moved to set up the first aid kit on the table by the window.