Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(60)

He shook his head, wincing in pain. “My f-friend …”

Lemon groaned. “She is a crazy ex-girlfriend, isn’t she?”

Ezekiel had Eve fixed in his stare. “Wouldn’t bring you … if we weren’t … in t-trouble.” He coughed again, sucked in a ragged breath. “Going to b-be … hard.”

“Okay.” Eve frowned. “You’re starting to scare me now.”

“Just listen to … h-her.”

“What are you blathering about, Stumpy?” Cricket hissed.

Lemon heard soft footsteps. A sharp intake of breath. Turning, she saw a woman standing between the beds, dressed in old coveralls. Her skin was ghost pale. Long flame-red curls were tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were a bright emerald green, glittering in the flickering tungsten light. And she was drop-dead gorgeous—the kind of beautiful that tells pretty it shouldn’t have even bothered showing up to the party.

Her eyes were locked on Eve. Her hand rising to her breast.

“My God,” she breathed. “… Ana.”

Lemon felt Eve tremble beside her. Saw her fists clench. Her bestest’s eyes narrowed, her optic whirring, spitting a word through clenched teeth.

“Hope …”

Before Lemon could bleat a “What the—” Eve was on her feet, dashing across the deck. The redhead simply stared as Evie raised a fist and smashed it into the woman’s jaw with everything she had. The woman staggered but didn’t drop, and Eve fell on her, punching, cursing, her screams echoing in the tanker’s hollows as she pounded on that beautiful face, over and over again.

The kids in the beds began to stir, lifting sleepy-time heads in bewilderment. Eve finally managed to drag the woman onto the rusted floor, still hollering at the top of her lungs, her bloody knuckles crunching into the woman’s lips, jaw, nose.

“You killed them!” she was screaming. “YOU KILLED THEM!”

A few of the smaller kids started crying. The old woman grabbed Eve’s arm and tried to haul her off. The redhead wasn’t resisting, wasn’t even defending herself, seemingly content to let Eve pound the stuffing out of her. Lemon had no idea what the score was, but she’d never seen Eve so furious in her life. Frightened for her bestest, she scrambled to her feet, dashed to Eve’s side.

Eve was roaring, tears streaming down her face, all snot and spit. Her knuckles were red, eye alight. Lemon grabbed her, pulling her into a hug and lifting her off the bleeding woman. Eve flailed, roared, “Let me go! LET ME GO!” but Lemon held her tight, whispering as soft and gentle as she could, “Evie, it’s okay, take it easy, it’s okay.”

Eve was still struggling, weaker now, the fight bleeding out of her as the tears streamed down her face. Her eyes were locked on the redhead, now sitting up and wiping the blood from her mangled lips, her mashed-up nose. Eve was trying to talk, gasping, stuttering, her whole body shaking.

“She ki …”

“It’s okay, Evie, shhhhh.”

“Lem, she kuh-ki …”

“Shhhh,” Lem murmured. “Hush now.”

Lemon had never seen Eve lose it like this. Wondered what the hells was going on. She heard scuffing over the sound of the wailing children, Eve’s broken sobs. Turning, she saw that the redhead was on her feet. The beating she just took would’ve dropped a Goliath, and there she stood, as if nothing were wrong. Lemon realized that her lips weren’t split anymore. That her nose was straight again.

Lem looked past the sobbing sprogs to the doors, where Ezekiel was leaning against one of the support columns. His flight suit was bloodstained, his face drawn and pale. But the wounds in his chest were little more than pinpricks.

Healed.

Just like the redhead.

She’s a lifelike… .

The redhead spoke. Her voice low and melodic. Filled with such agony that it almost made Lemon cry to hear it.

“I’m sorry, Ana,” she said.

The lifelike shook her head, tears welling in that emerald green.

“God, I’m so sorry… .”



“Ana Monrova,” Lemon said.

“Yeah,” Eve sighed.

They were sitting in a mezzanine above the ministry’s main deck. Speaking in hushed voices, night noise from the city outside echoing off the metal all about them. A few old stained mattresses had been laid on the floor. Cricket was in Eve’s lap, Kaiser dozing at her feet—the organic part of him still needed zees, same as a regular dog.

The kids had been settled back into their cots, staring wide-eyed when Lemon had led Eve up to the loft at the old woman’s mute directions. And there, she’d just sat with her arm about her bestest as Evie had rocked and shook and sobbed.

She didn’t say a word; Lem knew sometimes the best thing in the world was a good cry. The tears washing you clean, letting you start fresh. Hollowing yourself out so you could begin again. But true cert, it hurt to watch.

Eve had stopped weeping after a while, begun speaking instead, her voice as small and lonely as Lemon had ever heard. She’d spilled it all. Babel. The Monrova clan. The lifelike revolt. Silas. All of it. Lemon blinking in bewilderment all the while. The girl had thought she had the monopoly on secrets in this particular friendship. By comparison, the skeletons in Lemon’s closet were looking mighty small right about now… .