Your One & Only(51)

Some of the Carsons held back, stunned at the bloodshed. They didn’t want to fight either. Jack turned from them to concentrate on the others. One of them grabbed Jack around the neck, and Jack elbowed his ribs. Two more attacked, but Jack rolled clear. He lost the prod, but used his leverage to topple one brother onto the other before Carson-312 lurched to his feet.

Jack still felt the electric shock from before zinging through his nerves, and his muscles were tiring as the Carsons continued their attack. Still, if he conserved his energy, he’d hold them off for a while yet. Half of them were on the ground groaning, and more were inching away. The remaining three were poised, but tentative and afraid, holding their heads as they felt the pain of their brothers.

Carson-312, up and fighting again, stumbled. He was still bleeding from his arm, and he favored the shoulder that had taken the arrow. Jack would outlast him. It wouldn’t even be hard if his brothers would only give up.

He braced for Carson-312’s approach. Anticipating the punch telegraphed by the other boy, Jack poised to grab Carson-312’s arm midswing. At the last second, Carson-312’s bloody teeth appeared as his lip curled into the same grin Jack had seen on Carson-292 in the barn. Jack didn’t have time to register the smile before an intense pain hit him from behind. It radiated out with a white heat that arched his back as if it could break his bones.

Even as the first shards of pain jerked through his body, too late he realized he should never have dismissed the Carsons who’d backed away from the fight. They had taken up the cattle prod. The sickle fell from Jack’s fingers as the prongs on the end of the white stick dug into him and didn’t let up. A scream he didn’t recognize as his own ripped from his throat. He writhed on the ground, and still it didn’t end. Finally the stabbing fire ceased, but by then his lungs were closing. He struggled to take in a breath. An inhaler was in his pocket, but he had no way to reach for it; his hands were useless as bags of sand. The familiar panic settled over him like a suffocating blanket. Then all ten bodies of the Carsons blocked the sun.

Jack twisted in on himself, shielding his face with his arms, and they descended from all directions. Heavy shoes rained down on his back, his arms, his legs and head, until there were so many they were meaningless, an endless haze of pain.

Jack heard their yells, their grunts of loosed energy as they kicked, the high drone of the prod striking blistering flesh, but it all grew faint, replaced by the high-pitched whistle of rasping breath. He fell slowly into a black void, and was grateful at least for the privacy given him by that dark place.

He knew, of course. He’d made a mistake, and it was a bad one. He’d misjudged the force of their bond. Jack may have been stronger than them, and quicker, but they had each other.

Dimly aware that he would lose consciousness and still the blows wouldn’t stop, Jack realized how fitting it was. He’d always failed to grasp the essential nature of the clones; he’d never be one of them, he’d never understand them, and now he’d die because of it.





Chapter Fifteen


ALTHEA


Althea arrived late for breakfast at the dining hall. Her sisters were already seated and passing platters of eggs, sausage, and pineapple. She had ruined the night of the Pairing, again, and given the way she felt at the moment, she wasn’t at all sure slipping away before the ceremony to see Jack had been worth it. None of her sisters said anything as she took her usual chair, and they regarded her with carefully placid expressions.

She’d spent her entire life with her sisters, every waking moment, so it was as natural for her to scan the mosaic of their emotions as it was to braid her hair and brush her teeth. There was no doubt about the aching questions she perceived from them. Why do you want to be different from us? Why have you stopped trying? Why don’t you love us anymore?

Althea ate silently, barely tasting the food. She touched the bracelet Jack had given her. It was no longer around her wrist, but tucked into the pocket of her dress. She’d taken it off, knowing her sisters would see it right away and ask why she was wearing such a strange trinket.

She was still bewildered by what had happened in the barn. What Jack had done with the guitar had left her dazed. She’d been dancing as if at the Pairing Ceremony, and he’d made the noise with the strings she’d heard before, only this time she hadn’t experienced it as a jangling clamor that scoured her nerves. The music coming from the guitar freed something within her, like the sun burning away a heavy mist. The sounds he made reverberated in her chest and stomach, as if coming from somewhere deep inside her, not from Jack.

At first she’d felt weak from it, ready to collapse. It was too much, crushing and heady. Then all of a sudden, the dance felt . . . easy, almost obvious in a way it never had before. She’d never felt anything like it, and she’d wanted to give something back to him.

Which had made it that much more confusing when he’d rejected her ribbon. It didn’t seem possible that she could have read him so poorly. While she danced, he had followed her every movement, his eyes clear as water. He desired her, and she wanted him like she’d never wanted a Viktor, Carson, Hassan, or Samuel. But something had gone wrong, and she had no idea what it was.

Carson-312 had accused her of being jealous, saying she wanted Jack to touch her the way he’d touched Nyla. She didn’t want to be jealous, certainly not of her friend, but she had no other word for the jagged teeth gnawing at her insides. Breakfast was finally winding up when a murmur rippled through the hall. The sound moved like a living thing, growing steadily louder, until everyone stood, asking what was happening.