Your One & Only(60)
They stood on the path to Blue River, ignored by the clones, the distance between them growing with each moment.
“Never mind,” he said, releasing her hand. “They’re right, you know. I am capable of hurting them. But it’s no more than what they’ve done to me.”
“Jack . . .” She was listening to him, but she was far away. He imagined a girl who looked just like her, with the same serious mouth, her smell and voice, the fleeting line between her eyes. He imagined her on the ground, bleeding and alone.
“Go,” he said after a moment. “They’re your people. Help them.”
She hesitated, then joined the others and was enveloped by the crowd. Jack watched them go, keeping his eyes on her until he no longer knew which one she was.
Jack wandered through the trees, empty now, and then into the banana grove, where Jonah was waiting. He hadn’t known he’d see Jonah there, but when he did, sitting on a rock with an arm resting on one knee, for some reason Jack wasn’t surprised.
“They’ll be looking for you,” Jack said.
The steady eyes glinted, and the straight nose and smooth brow, brought into relief by the angular shadows of the trees, sharpened darkly.
“They’ll be busy for a while yet.” Jonah stood from the rock, and his feet sank into the loamy soil, lifting from the ground the aroma of crushed heliconia leaves and fallen fruit tangy with rot.
The sweet smell made Jack’s stomach turn. He swallowed stiffly. “What you’re doing, Jonah, it isn’t right. You have to stop.”
“You think I should leave? Is that what you want?”
Of course he should leave, Jack thought. If they caught him, for Jonah there’d be no clean lab room or locked barn. He’d be dead within hours. But Jack said nothing.
Jonah’s lip moved, twitching as if on a thread, like he could read the conflict on Jack’s face. “I’m not going anywhere, brother. I haven’t even begun.”
“And what happens when you’re done? If you destroy Vispera like you did Copan, where will you go then? Crooked Falls? Where’s it end?”
“I have supplies. It’s all there, waiting for me. It’s waiting for us, Jack. We’ll get a boat and go together, as soon as we’re done here.”
Again, Jack didn’t answer. He had no answer to give. Were those really his choices? Help Jonah destroy the clones, or help the clones destroy Jonah?
“You don’t hate them,” Jonah said softly, contemplating him. “After everything they’ve done. Is it because of that Althea?”
“Don’t talk about her. You know nothing about her.”
“I know a lot, Jack. More than any of the clones realize. I’ve been watching, and waiting. I’m good at that.”
Jack ran his fingers through his hair, damp with sweat. A cloud of bats flitted through the trees, rustling the fanning leaves. Jack looked up, his strained attention on Jonah faltering abruptly, allowing him to realize only then how hot he was. He’d spent two days in a hospital bed, and he’d done too much since then. It was catching up with him. He swayed on his feet.
“You going to faint?” Jonah said. Jack shook his head, but Jonah took his arm anyway and clapped him on the back. “It’s a good thing we’re not like them, or we’d both be on the ground.”
“I just have to sit for a minute,” Jack said.
“Sorry, brother. Fall over later. There’s something you need to see first.”
Jack followed Jonah to the other side of town at the West Lab. The ground where North Lab had stood, the building that held Jack’s room, was a charred ruin. They passed the empty space without comment, Jonah leading the way to the second floor of the building next door, with its orderly rows of bright, fluorescent-lit rooms.
“Where are we going?” Jack asked, each step feeling as if he were walking against a current.
Jonah moved easily and silently through the building, crouched low, his body aware of every sound and movement. Observing him, Jack could understand how he’d made his way through town unseen for so long, learning everything about the clones, waiting to make himself known by violence and chaos. Jonah’s hair, disordered and sun-bleached, was at the moment lighter than Jack’s, which was darkened with sweat and falling in his eyes. Jack brushed it away, aware of the heat radiating from his skin.
Jonah stopped at an unmarked door and produced a key. “Not all the clones went to the river.” He unlocked the door and held it open for Jack.
The room was like one of the medical bays in the clinic. It was long and narrow, with cabinets along one wall filled with drug vials, and along the other, hanging from hooks, a row of lab coats like Sam and the other doctors wore. In the center of the room, however, was a ring of chairs connected by wires and electrodes emitting a muted electric buzz. In the chairs, reclined back and held down by buckled straps, were Althea’s nine sisters. Their eyes were closed, their faces tense but asleep—or more likely unconscious. No blankets covered them, and their yellow medical gowns left their legs and feet uncovered. The pale soles of their bare feet contrasted with the tan skin of their legs, and that sight alone made them seem pitifully vulnerable.
Jack crossed the room and placed his hand on an Althea’s shoulder, then jerked it back quickly. Something had shocked him. A current coming from the girl’s skin. He realized then that the chairs weren’t connected by wires, the Altheas were. And the wires were embedded in their skin, pulsing electric currents through their bodies.