Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(38)

“Twelve thousand horsepower!” he cries. “The best they’ve ever built in the labs. Doctor Silas showed me the new modifications they made to the targeting array last week—it can hit a five-centimeter bull’s-eye at six kilometers!”

Marie is holding my other hand, and she laughs at Alex’s excitement. My sister looks at me and squeezes my fingers. Gives me a secret, knowing smile.

I told her about Ezekiel and me. Of course I did. I had to tell someone or else I’d have burst. And though the thought of Raph still turns our days from blue to gray, Marie couldn’t help but squeal her delight, dragging me down to the floor and insisting I give her every detail. She closed her eyes and smiled as she listened, sighing from her heart. Hopeless romantic that she is, she told me the best loves are forbidden ones.

She seems more in love with the idea of it than I am.

The other lifelikes are still being tested by Doctor Silas, Faith among them. But Gabriel and Ezekiel are part of Father’s security detail, and despite what happened to Raphael, Father refuses to travel without them. Grace is at Father’s side, as always, tapping away at her palmglass. She’s like his shadow now, his majordomo, his right hand.

I wonder what he’ll do if the board votes to cut it off.

I steal glances at Ezekiel as we walk. He’s dressed in a Gnosis security force suit of armored black and charcoal blue. It fits him like a glove, tight in all the right places, and I try my best not to stare. He prowls like a wolf, scanning technicians and deckhands and flight crews, but every so often, I catch him looking at me and I have to hold back my smile.

Gabriel is dressed the same as his brother. But if Ezekiel is a wolf, then Gabe is a lion—I’ve seen footage of big cats in the archives, and Gabe moves just like them. Proud. Majestic. His eyes are like knives. His every movement precise. But he seems just the tiniest bit off today. Perhaps thoughts of Raphael are preying on his mind. Perhaps it’s being so close to Grace that’s distracting him. The way I’m distracting Zeke.

Perhaps that’s why neither of them spots the bomb.

The shuttle is waiting, with its smooth lines and soundless rotor blades. Alex pulls free of my grip and runs toward the real Quixote, keen for a closer look. Marie and Mother hurry off to wrangle him, and Tania and Olivia are laughing. Father puts one arm around me as he walks and talks to Grace.

Ezekiel is beside us. Stealing glances. Gabriel is behind us, hanging close to Mother as she gets Alex under control. Our security detail includes a dozen more men, all heavily armed and armored. Four of them march up onto the shuttle’s ramp and into its belly. I hear a dull clunk under the rhythmic tread of their heavy boots.

A tiny electronic ping.

Ezekiel’s eyes widen. Father and I step up onto the ramp. Grace cries a warning. They move then, the pair of them, and it seems like all the world is in slow motion. I hear a dull whump. Feel a tremor. And then Zeke has my shoulders, crying my name and wrenching me from Father’s arms as the explosion blooms.

He’s so impossibly strong—nothing so gentle as our night in my room. I feel my shoulder pop as he slings me backward, as if I were the toy logika in Alex’s hands. I see Grace stepping in front of my father and shoving him away as the blast erupts behind her. I see her rendered in silhouette against the flames, see that long blond hair catch fire as the shuttle blows itself apart, shattering her like glass.

Pain rips through my legs, my chest. Fire. Shrapnel. All the world is cinders and I’m utterly weightless, landing with a crunch and tumble-skidding across the bay. Blood in my mouth. Stars in my eyes. And as the darkness swells up on black wings, I can hear my mother screaming. My brother screaming. My sisters screaming.

My name.

They’re screaming my name.

“ANA!”



My lashes flutter against my cheeks and my eyes crack slowly open. The world feels too bright and everything is too loud. Ezekiel is on one knee beside my bed, fingers entwined with mine. A gentle ping sings from the machines beside me, chiming with every beat of my heart.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.

He tenses, cocking his head. And quicker than silver, he stands, strides to the corner of the room and places his hands behind his back as if standing guard. I hear distant footsteps, and the door slams open and a man is there, wide-eyed and euphoric.

“She’s awake?”

“Just now, sir,” Ezekiel replies.

The man rushes to my bedside and takes my hand. “Can you see me, Princess?”

I blink hard. Confusion and pain. “… Father?”

“My beautiful girl.” His eyes fill with tears, and he’s on his knees beside the bed, pressing my knuckles to his lips as he echoes Ezekiel. “I thought I lost you.”

I’m in a white room, in a soft white bed. There are no windows, and the air is metallic in the back of my throat, filled with the chatter of machines. Every part of me hurts. All the room is spinning and I can barely move my tongue to speak.

“… Where am I?”

“Shhh,” Father whispers, squeezing my hand. “It’s all right, Princess. Everything is going to be all right. You’re back. You’re back with us again.”

Father’s head is wrapped in bandages, his eyes shadowed and sunken. The skin on his face is red, as if singed by flame, and suddenly I remember. The shuttle. The explosion.