Your One & Only(75)

Jack pushed past Sam. “Open the door!” he said, unsure who he was talking to.

“Jack!” Althea’s voice was muted by the Ark’s glass wall. “He disabled the door panel. It won’t open.”

Jack pressed his palm against the glass panel. The door didn’t move. He slammed his hand into the wall.

Althea placed her own hand next to Jack’s, against the thin barrier separating them. Her eyes met his, trying to tell him something. She was wearing what looked like the belts the male clones wore during a Pairing Ceremony. They crisscrossed her shoulders and wrapped her middle in inelegant twists. Looped through the belt, from her shoulder to her waist, was a string of white boxes connected by wires. In the center of each, a red blinking light. Explosives. Jack saw then the device she held in one hand. It was shiny and black, a sort of tube. Her thumb, white with pressure, was on a black button at the end, holding it down.

“Is that a trigger?” Jack said, feeling cold.

“If I let go of the button . . .” she said, her voice fading. “Jonah wants to destroy the Ark.”

“But,” Jack said, “you’re in the Ark.” Her eyes were clear, her gaze steady. Her lips, serious and flat, cut a thin, determined line on her face. Jack shook his head. “No,” he said. “We’ll get you out, we’ll figure it out. It’s a trick. He won’t let you die.”

“He will, Jack.”

Hot rage smoldered in Jack’s stomach.

“It’ll be okay.” Her mouth tilted up in a pallid smile. “There are other Altheas.”

His breath caught in his throat. “No,” he said.

He turned from her to where Jonah sat watching them, his eyes narrow, contemplating Jack as if he were piecing together a puzzle.

“You won’t,” Jack said. “You’re just trying to prove something to me. This isn’t the way to do it.”

“The clones are going to kill her anyway, in one of their ceremonies. You’ve seen the Bonding, seen what they’re capable of. It made you sick. They caused all this, not me.”

“I won’t go anywhere with you if you kill her.”

“That button’s already pressed. It’ll go off when she lets go, and she has to let go sometime. She’s already dead. Just like the clones are already dead. You know they are. They can’t change, and they can’t survive. It’s too late for them.”

“If that’s true, then just leave! What you’re doing is crazy.”

“Can you stand by and watch them make more humans like us, humans they’ll kill after they’ve stolen what they want from their genes? If the Ark is what they need to survive, I’m taking it from them.”

“I’ve been protecting you, Jonah, but if she dies, I swear I’ll kill you myself.”

“Maybe.” Jonah uncurled and leaned his arms on the balustrade. “But I don’t think you have it in you.”

“You don’t know what’s in me.”

“You’re just like me . . . if I’d been made weak by the clones.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. That’s weakness to you?”

Sounding almost casual, Jonah said, “I’m sorry about this, Jack, but you’ll see I’m right. You want to say goodbye or anything?”

Jack’s mind felt frozen.

“Jack,” Sam said. He spoke quietly. “I can fix the door.”

Jonah cocked his head, listening. “And what happens when you get inside, Sam? The bomb’s going off no matter what you do. Better one Althea than all of us. She said it herself—there are always more Altheas.”

Jack began to think Jonah would talk until Althea’s fingers gave out if he let him. He was controlling the situation, and as much as Jack didn’t want to believe it, Jonah was his enemy now. Even if he did have a reason to hate the clones, Jack had to stop him. He turned to Sam.

“Hurry,” he said.

Sam pried open the panel that controlled the lock and examined the wires inside. Althea’s brown eyes watched from behind the glass. He scrambled to connect wires, then cried out triumphantly as the door to the Ark swung open. Jack slammed it wider and held out his hand to Althea.

“Come on,” he said. “Sam will disconnect the trigger.”

“Jack, I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“It could go off, and then we all die.”

Jack desperately wanted to grab her, do whatever it took to make her safe, but as long as she held the trigger, it was too dangerous.

“Give the trigger and belt to me. I’ll hold it until you get outside.”

“And then you’d die instead of me. No, Jack.”

Jack raked a hand through his hair. A stubborn line had appeared between her eyes, and he knew he wouldn’t convince her. Jonah slid down the ladder.

“I never saw a clone do anything for a human before,” Jonah said.

“You think they’re all the same, but they’re not. Some of them are different.”

“You know what the Altheas in Copan did while we were being tortured and tested on?”

Jack shook his head, unprepared for the question.

“They took notes.” Jonah strode forward, and Jack’s stomach sank when he slammed the door to the Ark shut again. “So you see, I don’t really care if they can change. You think you need her, Jack, but you don’t. We’ll destroy the Ark, and then we can leave, together.”