Deviation (Clone Chronicles #2)(6)
I am both horrified and hopeless as I stare into the eyes of the man who is both my Creator and my killer. It isn’t dying I fear, but the utter void that comes after. I can’t bear the thought of being nothing in just a few moments and Titus will still be here, being everything to a world that thinks he’s one of the good ones.
It is so unfair that my life would be so pointless.
I try to gasp as the ability to breathe returns to my lungs from the hit I took in the stomach. Without the benefit of oxygen accompanying it, the pain increases and the black dots dance their way to center stage. I don’t have minutes. I have seconds.
I kick out again but it’s a lame attempt and, even though I make contact, Titus doesn’t even seem to notice. He is staring at me with something in his eyes that wasn’t there before. It’s a recognition of sorts, as if he’s really only now seeing me for the first time. I tip my chin up to try and gain passageway through my windpipe, looking down at him over the tip of my nose.
Something in his expression shifts again. “You push me, daughter,” he says softly. “Always pushing. But I’m not ready yet. You have work to do and I won’t be denied.”
Blood trickles from the open cut originating in his eyelid. It flares red and waters every time he blinks. Despite the gentleness in his voice, he is still every inch a monster. My stomach jumps, or maybe it’s the nausea threatening. Before I can decipher any of it, or convince myself I’m not imagining it, Titus releases me and steps back.
I fall in a heap, arms and legs tingling and pricking as blood flow resumes at a normal rate. I don’t care about any of it nearly as much as I relish the air passing through my windpipe and into my lungs. It burns deliciously and fills me with dizzy relief.
“What did she thank you for?” he demands.
“I … I don’t know,” I croak, too miserable to worry about the lie. It’s automatic. It’s the least of my worries.
“I would advise you to make it a priority to figure it out. Or hope I find what I’m looking for at that address. I’m running very thin on patience. Your inconvenience is fast outweighing your purpose, product.”
His words are a bite that sinks into the soft place in my heart. They render me silent, intimidated, cowered. But then I remember Melanie. And why this started in the first place. I raise my head to say something—what, I don’t know, since there isn’t much that won’t get me killed—but I don’t get a chance.
Before my mouth is fully open, Titus snaps a command to the guards and I am lifted clear off my feet and carried away. I squirm and twist but I’m still too distracted by sucking oxygen to really fight. In a few steps, I am set on my feet again. The air is different and I don’t have time to understand before the guard leaves me alone and pulls a door shut behind me. Like the others, it clicks softly as the lock engages, and I am alone.
No, that’s not true, I realize as I scan the room they’ve deposited me into. Just like the last, the cell smells like sweat and blood and pain. The setup is nearly the same except there is a bucket of water on the floor beside the bed and someone is splashing water from it up to their elbows. The lighting is different here too. It’s even dimmer with the bulb set closer to the ceiling. It throws everything into moody shadow, including the figure in the far corner bathing from the edge of the bed. Still, I don’t need facial recognition to know where I am.
Titus and his men have left me in the only place worse than killing me. I am in Daniel’s cell. And he is unbound.
Chapter Two
I suck in air over and over, trying to slow the flow of adrenaline that surges through me. Titus. Melanie. The blood. The guard who carried me here. Faces; arms; legs; a manicured hand around my throat. My mind is a whir of the last few minutes. It is hard to process and focus on any one thing.
Until my eyes adjust to the dim light.
Across the room I see him moving. Then my mind is so singularly focused that everything else drops away. There is only him, methodical movements and quiet confidence, and me, jerking hands and heaving lungs.
I almost died a moment ago. Soon, I might wish I had.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” The careless lilt in Daniel’s voice means he’s either unharmed or he’s even more unhinged than she is—was.
I’m too far away and the lighting is too low for me to tell whether it’s the first. My mind fills with the possibilities of the second. My broken thoughts take me down a million paths that all lead back to Melanie. To her screaming and shaking and coughing and oozing. To my part in it all. To my promise.
Even the memory—and the physical sting—left behind by Titus’s hand on my throat can’t drown out my guilt. I created this. Maybe not for Daniel; his actions led him here on his own. But for Melanie’s death, I am responsible. For my almost-death because I couldn’t keep it together, I am responsible. For whatever happens next to the warehouse across town full of hidden Imitations, I am responsible.
I press my lips together to keep sound from escaping. All I want to do is curl into the back corner of my designer closet and cry until my eyes are dry and my soul is numb.
As I watch, Daniel continues to splash water from the bucket onto his exposed arms. His undershirt must’ve been white once but has now faded to a chalky gray. He doesn’t seem to notice or care that cleaning the dirt from his arms only makes his shirt and pants look even dirtier. My stomach is a churning mess and I still can’t catch my breath. It’s as if my thoughts are still inside Melanie’s cell, struggling to catch up to the moment—to catch up to how I got in here or how I’m still alive.