Deviation (Clone Chronicles #2)(26)

“Taylor.” I step inside the room, wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs. Taylor’s eyes flick down, missing nothing. “How did you get in?”

She looks at me like I’ve asked the stupidest question imaginable. “Your maid let me in. Like always.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask. On a roll.

“Uh, nice to see you too,” she says, rising from where she’s perched on my bed and walking toward me with sure steps. She reminds me of a video I saw once of a puma stalking her prey. The gleam in its eye just before it leaped is the same one Taylor wears now.

“Sorry,” I say, forcing a smile that is condescending and self-absorbed and busy and glamorous and all the things but sorry. “It’s nice to see you. How are you?”

“Busy.” Her eyes narrow in on my dress and I freeze, terrified she’s somehow seen proof of all the things I’m hiding. “Is that dress new? Is that the latest Verrigado?”

I shrug. “Of course.”

“Ugh. Figures.” She flops back down on the bed. “I haven’t been shopping in forever. My dad is making me his charity liaison from now through the election. I don’t give two shits about babies with cleft palates. Why do they keep being born anyway?”

I turn and wander my room, pretending to be bored with all the niceties, as if being here is tedious. My insides slosh furiously against my skin.

“Did you sneak off to be here?” I ask, hoping it will prompt her to remember some reason she needs to hurry out.

“Nah. I have a break between sponsorship appointments. Taking people’s money is way too easy. At least most of them offer me drinks while I wait.” She smiles and it’s all teeth and meanness. “Silver lining, right?”

I don’t answer.

“So, what’s up with you?” she continues. I tense because I know this is why she’s really come. To search out my reasons for being so invisible in the world I was brought here to infiltrate but cannot stand to shoulder-rub with. “I never see you out anymore. I mean, I’m busy and always tied up schmoozing, but still. You’re never around. Did something else happen with those guys who were after you? Are you like, sequestered or whatever?” she asks with a wave of her hand. Diamonds glitter and drip from her delicate wrist. I imagine myself ripping the bracelet off and choking her with it.

“Raven? Are you even listening to me?”

“Hmm?” I shake free of the visual of Taylor’s face paler than it is now, her lips a lifeless shade of blue. It bothers me that I am so stuck on violence when I spent my entire existence pursuing peaceful subordination.

She’s loyal … The words Titus spoke echo in a corner of my mind. I can lie after all.

“Sorry, I’m just …” I grasp for some reason or excuse. It’s been too long since I had to pretend. I’m rusty. “Tired, I guess.” I sigh dramatically. “I swiped a bottle from the maids last night and I am so hung-over. I couldn’t even work out today.”

Another lie.

I can’t tell whether Taylor believes me but she snickers and nods like she empathizes. “I know the feeling. My working lunches have become drinking lunches. But hey, that’s the one part I’m not complaining about. If only Daddy would stop listening to his friends and hire a real organizer.”

I force disgust into my voice as I say, “Let me guess. They think using the daughter is better for publicity?”

“Publicity, position, platform. The three Ps of being President,” she says as if reciting a slogan. “I’m all for cleaning up our city, removing the undesirables, but some of Daddy’s campaign ideas are a little out there, even for me.”

My eyes narrow. “What do you mean? What are his ideas?”

She shrugs and picks up another fashion magazine from the stack provided by automatic mailers. “He wants to require the public to get some kind mark. Okay, well, not the whole public. Just, you know, people like us. The good ones. So we can tell each other apart from, you know, them.”

“A mark?”

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous, right?” She snorts. “So tacky. People will never go for that. Although, Verrigado has this new tribal design for spring and its—”

“What sort of mark? What does it mean?” I cut her off. My entire body is panicking. Rebelling for the fact that I continue to make it stand still. My feet want to run. My heart wants to race. My hands want to …. I don’t know what. Shake answers from Taylor, for one.

Taylor blinks, switching gears from her fashion rant. “I don’t know. Some classification system to be able to tell the wealthy from the …. Well, you know, urchins.” Her lip curls on the last word but I barely notice. “They’re stealing from us. Daddy wants to cut off the city. Separate them.”

When I don’t respond, she launches back into her elaborate description of the spring line of tribal prints. I don’t hear a word of it. My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out any noise.

Marks. For classification.

Sealing off the city. Them and us. Morton and the others separated from me, permanently.

The only solution is to be on their side of things when the curtain falls.

Getting out would be easy enough. Staying gone, slightly harder. My GPS would have to be cut out. Would Obadiah come? Could he?