Your One & Only(27)

“Nyla-313,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. As if his chest weren’t squeezing down into a tiny suffocating pinpoint.

He turned on her, this Nyla. He took her arm, gripping it hard. He couldn’t stop himself. “Why aren’t you Nyla-314?” Nyla-313 stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Jack tried again. “Where’s Nyla-314?”

Nyla-313 shrugged. “She’s home, in our dorm.”

He squeezed harder and the Nyla winced. “Why didn’t she come?”

“You’re hurting me.” She wrenched her arm from him and rubbed it where he’d held her. “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t Paired with Nyla-314 since that first night, weeks ago.”

He felt sick. He was going to be sick.

Jack sat down heavily on the cot. He stared at the Nyla, feeling like he knew her intimately—her eyes, her lips, every length of her violet-smooth skin—but he didn’t know her at all.

“Nyla-314, I thought—She was—” He ran a hand through his hair, struggling with his words. “We talked. I told her things, things nobody else—”

Nyla-313 watched him, bewildered. “There’s nothing special about Nyla-314. We’re all sisters. You know that.”

Jack looked up at Nyla-313. She blurred in front of him. He blinked, trying to see her clearly. “You were a different one every time,” he said, fighting not to believe it. Moments ago she’d been in bed with him. He’d spent only a few hours with her, only a few hours with any single Nyla, and he didn’t even know which ones had been in his bed and which hadn’t.

Nyla-313 smiled gently at Jack. “The Pairing has gotten better each time, hasn’t it?” She knelt in front of him, placed her palms on his knees. “My sisters, we all learned what you like from each other.”

“You talked about me? You took notes and then came here and made me think . . . ?” His voice sounded thin from lack of air. He pressed his hand to his mouth, feeling more ill by the second.

“It wasn’t like that, Jack. We weren’t out to make you think anything. We wanted you to enjoy the Pairing as much as possible. This wasn’t some kind of trick. We’re sisters; we share experiences. We share everything.”

We share everything.

Jack suddenly felt very much like a thing.

Like a human.

Nyla-313 put on her shoes and went to the door. “I’m sorry, Jack. But you should see why it doesn’t matter. I mean, we’re all Nylas.”

The familiar anger bubbled up again. We’re all Nylas. Of course they were all the same; they were clones. It had certainly taken him long enough to figure it out. Althea-310 was right, he really was an idiot.

She stood halfway out the door. “Jack, don’t be upset. Samuel-299 said—” She stopped herself.

“What about Sam?” Jack asked, and it came to him, what he should have figured out weeks ago. “He sent Nyla-314 that first time, didn’t he? He sent you all here.”

“Don’t be mad at him. He wanted to help. He told us it would help you be . . .” She considered a moment, thinking back to the words Sam had used. Jack closed his eyes, already knowing what she was going to say. “Help you be more socialized.”

In his mind’s eye, Jack saw a succession of Nylas slipping in and out of his room, with Sam standing by, smiling at his experiment. He couldn’t deal with it, not all in one night. He had to leave. He grabbed a bag and started gathering the things he would need from his room.

“What are you doing?” Nyla said.

“Leaving. Leaving Vispera.”

“But . . . are you allowed to leave?”

“Nobody owns me. I can do what I want.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“The jungle. They won’t find me there.”

“You’ll die in the jungle. No one could survive out there, not by themselves.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Nyla’s hand tightened on the door.

“You’re going to tell them, aren’t you?” When Nyla didn’t answer, Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry, Nyla, but you’re staying here.” He moved toward her, and she edged farther into the hallway. “You can’t leave. I don’t want to hurt you, but you can’t leave.”

Nyla-313 stared at him, hugging her arms, and then backed away from the door.

“Someone will be by in the morning,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

She would be fine, too. He’d been locked inside this room more than once. He’d survived.

Jack passed her quickly, his bag in hand, and once outside the door, he turned the lock, trapping her inside. Without looking back, he left the lab building.

Outside, staring up at a half-moon barely visible in the tempestuous sky, he breathed in the humid air.

He wanted to run, to find the paths he knew at the edge of the jungle, past the wall and through the mango trees and ferns. He’d run until his legs gave out and he fell in the yielding dirt, blanketed by stars. Then he thought of the cottage far up on the hill, shielded by trees and outlined against the night sky. That was where he had to go. He would stop there for anything else he might need. If his mother thought she could do it, he could too.

He took a breath from his inhaler, waited for the cotton in his lungs to break apart, and then ran.