False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(58)

Mana-ma found a way to spin it. God had simply called him home. I saw it for what it was: a failed experiment. Would she try to change us again in Meditation, and if so, who would she choose next? Would it go wrong?

I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

My parents were from San Francisco. They’d joined as idealistic teens and I think, somewhere over the next twenty-odd years, they realized they had made a mistake.

Our mom helped run the accounts and our dad was in some ways Mana-ma’s muscle, along with Uncle Tau (not our uncle by blood). They didn’t often have to be muscle, thankfully, but if people weren’t pulling their weight they’d have a quiet word with them. But they weren’t Mana-ma’s right-hand men; her most trusted advisors were Kieran, Niran and Daniel.

When we were sixteen, Kieran, Niran and Daniel were aged about twenty-seven to thirty. They’re probably still her main muscle. She’d groomed them for the role since they were little. Loyal as watchdogs, and just as scary.

After our heart attack, everyone in the Hearth was very nice to us. We didn’t have to do our chores (we couldn’t really, anyway, we were so weak). Our friends came by the house a lot and we played cards. Taema and I played on the same team because otherwise it’d be too easy to cheat. Our friends were shy around us, not wanting to meet our eyes. They knew we were probably dying, and it embarrassed them. Made me want to force them to look at us, right in the eyes; but if I’d done that, they probably wouldn’t have come back and played cards again.

We’d ask Mom and Dad how much time we had left, but they didn’t want to answer. We heard them murmuring at night in the other room, but even though we pressed our ears to the doorjamb, we couldn’t hear anything. We knew they were talking about us, though, from the tone. Hushed, worried. Nervous.

We were in bed late one night when I finally asked the question I’d been wondering ever since we had the attack: “They could fix our heart out there, couldn’t they?”

Taema was silent for a moment, and then ran her fingers through my hair. I loved it when she did that. I found the faint tickling so comforting. I ran my hand through hers, offering comfort back.

“They could,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. Mana-ma won’t let us go.” Getting past the swamp was difficult, even with a boat. And Mana-ma had eyes everywhere. My sister didn’t say it, but I knew what she was thinking: if we got out, we’d be Impure. Despite everything, she still believed a hell of a lot more than I did. It was so frustrating. Couldn’t she see how messed up this place was? It made me angry at her.

“Some have made it out,” I whispered. “Remember Mia? She left, even though Mana-ma didn’t want her to.”

“Nobody knows how, or what happened to her.”

I was quiet for a bit, feeling the coarse, curly threads of Taema’s hair. She could annoy me so much sometimes, but obviously I didn’t want to lose her. Death did scare me something fierce. Because it’d be the first time I’d be alone.

I also knew that we had to leave the Hearth, or we didn’t have a shot. Taema hadn’t wanted to research conjoined twins on the tablet. She was afraid of what we might find—though I didn’t understand what exactly she thought that might be. So when she fell asleep and the tablet was still on, I’d researched on my own.

I knew that everyone out there could change how they looked, and that most did. There was very little obesity, few eating disorders, unsightly scars or pockmarks or missing limbs. Everyone was whole. Perfect. And I knew that out there, there were no conjoined twins. I couldn’t find any, not anywhere. Maybe they were all aborted, never even had a chance to live, or “fixed” as soon as they were born.

So even if we did get out, how would people react? It explained the way the people in the supply ships acted around us. Even those grunt monkeys supervising the drones were all beautiful. But getting out still seemed better than sitting here, waiting to die. I knew we only had one chance of getting out, although neither of us wanted to put them in such a tight spot:

“Mom and Dad will know.”





SIXTEEN

TAEMA

The next day, I’m alone.

Nazarin’s gone to the other safe house to check in with his SFPD superiors. He’s going to dig into plastic surgery records at a bunch of flesh parlors, to see if Vuk has any official history there. It’s useless—if Vuk was actually Adam, then he won’t have an official record of even existing, much less getting plastic surgery.

Tomorrow Nazarin has a busy day with the Ratel, as it’s not long until Saturday, the night of the party, and there’s lots to do. Saturday is the night when he might finally meet Ensi, face to face.

I can’t reconcile the image of Adam, that sweet boy, grown up into a hardened killer. Maybe I’m wrong about it all, but I don’t think I am. But then, what do I know about people? My sister could be a murderer too, and I can’t forget how I acted in Mia’s Vervescape.

I can’t stand to think about what happened in that twisted nightmare. Ever since we left the Hearth, I’ve worked hard to fit in: get a good job, buy an apartment, pay my taxes. I don’t stand out, except for my scar. I never wanted to be that strange girl who used to live in a cult. In a world obsessed with perfection, I didn’t want to be known only for having spent sixteen years as a conjoined twin. My goal has always been to stay out of trouble.