Your One & Only(72)

“Here,” Jonah said. “Drink.” He tipped a cup of water to her lips, and she drank. He pulled it away. “You okay?” he asked.

“Do you care?”

His mouth turned down. “No. You were screaming.”

“You gave me Somnium.”

“I guess you didn’t like it. Some do.” He stood, and Althea saw behind him a table covered in wires, plastic, and metal bits. She also saw the book, Althea Lane’s journal. She wondered if he’d read it. He went to a chair and picked up one of the devices, twisting wires together. “That’s the thing about dreams,” he said. “They can also be nightmares.”

“Like for the people in Copan?”

“It’s not hard to scare someone on Somnium, to put thoughts in their heads. But the clones in Copan, they made their own nightmares. There was something rotten in them, worse than here, even. The Somnium just brought it to the surface.”

“They’re no different from us.”

His hands continued to fiddle with the wires, but his eyes, veiled by pale lashes, glanced up at her. “You don’t think so?”

“You think there’s something wrong with us, but you’re the one hurting people.”

“I’m paying them back for what they did to me.”

The materials Jonah had on the table were troubling. He was putting together a series of metal boxes linked with wires.

“Is that what you used to start the fire in North Lab? And to blow up the boats?”

Jonah’s closed mouth curled. “You have more useful material here than they do in Copan. Is it because this is the first colony, where they grow all the new clones?” He didn’t wait for an answer to his questions. “It’s easy—I find what I need, I take it. Is Jack good at building things?”

“Not things like that,” Althea said. “He doesn’t want to kill people.”

Jonah nodded, ignoring her tone. “I was taught to kill.” He held up his arm scarred by burns. “I wasn’t very good in the beginning. I learned.”

“Who taught you?” Althea couldn’t imagine who would have taught this boy to be so destructive.

“Oh, it wasn’t a clone,” Jonah said, seeing her thoughts reflected in her face. “No one built me a cottage on a hill, or brought me books and toys.” He lifted a piece of glass and peered through it, magnifying one eye. “I never had a Sam.”

“So who?”

“Has it always just been Jack?” Jonah asked, talking past her again.

“As far as I know.”

Jonah moved to sit cross-legged in front of Althea. “There were ten of us in Copan.”

“Ten Jacks?”

Jonah laughed. “Ten people. Humans. All different.” His gaze clouded. “I guess that’s why Jack cares what happens to you. The clones are all he’s had. But we didn’t need a Samuel or an Althea. We had each other.”

Althea’s chest tightened and she twisted against the ties at her wrists. “What happened to them?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“I’m the only one left.” He sat up on his heels and leaned his face close to hers. His eyes glittered. “I watched them spend their lives hungry, in pain, in a filthy box that barely let in sunlight—a box that was freezing at night and an oven in the day. I watched them die, one by one. All because you people, you clones, were experimenting.”

“The . . . clones in Copan killed them?”

“What do you think? I got away. I went back for them, of course, to get them out. I failed. They were counting on me, and I failed.”

She searched his face; the tightness around his mouth, the broad forehead screened by colorless hair, the gray eyes bright and vivid. She exhaled slowly when understanding came over her. She watched his face as he became aware, and then he was halfway across the room, as quick as if he’d been bitten by a snake. As suddenly as it appeared, the fire in his eyes reverted to the cool indifference of before, and his face settled into not quite a smile. It was too late, however. In spite of all his cold control, he’d inadvertently shown Althea a part of himself he’d meant to hide. He hadn’t expected her to be able to see beyond what he wanted her to. Perhaps, because she knew Jack so well, she herself had changed. On some level, even without communing, she was able to know more of Jonah as well.

“You loved someone,” she said finally.

He stood in the center of the room, a fixed smile on his face. “I loved them all,” he said evenly. “They were my family.”

“But one of them was special to you, right?”

“Uh-uh,” he said. “You don’t get to ask me that.”

He sat back at the table, picking up a screwdriver and the box device. She watched him work for a few moments. The heels of his palms rested on the tabletop as he worked, and still the screws weren’t fitting together.

“Your hands,” she said.

He put down his tools and pressed his palms to his eyes. “I’m done talking.”

“They’re shaking.”

The chair legs screeched on the floor. He faced the wall of the Sample Room, his back to her. She watched his shoulders rise and fall.

“What do you want?” he said.

“Let me go. You don’t need me.”