Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(63)

“You made the wrong one.”

“I know that now. God knows I do.”

“God?” Eve noticed a small crucifix around Hope’s neck. Remembering the cross outside the ministry door. “Is that what this is about? You found religion in the ruins, is that it? You think there’s a place in heaven for a murderer like you?”

“I can only hope.” The lifelike’s lips twisted in a weak and empty smile.

“Go to hell.” Eve stalked toward Hope, Ana bubbling to her surface, fists and jaw clenched. “You killed a seventeen-year-old girl. Marie’s personality was the basis for yours, and you murdered her. If there is a hell? That’s exactly where you’re headed if there’s any justice left in this world.”

She could smell blood in the air. See smoke. Bodies. Hear the echoes of gunfire and Hope’s parting words as she raised the gun to Marie’s head.

“None above,” she said. “And none below.”

“You go straight to hell,” Eve repeated.

Hope flinched at the words.

“You have blood on your hands, too, Ana,” she said, her voice trembling and thin. “It may not be red, but it’s blood all the same. Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

“What the hells are you talking about?”

Hope met her eyes then. A sliver of defiance glittering in that emerald green.

“The WarDome in Dregs. I’ve seen the feed where you manifested. ‘Undefeated in eight heavy bouts,’ wasn’t it? How did your vengeance taste?”

“That had nothing to do with revenge,” Eve hissed. “I was fighting for money for Gran … for Silas’s meds. I didn’t even remember who I was back then.”

“Perhaps not consciously. But do you honestly suppose you ended up killing logika for a living by chance?” Hope shook her head, her voice growing stronger. “You murdered them, Ana. They may have been machines. But they still thought. Felt. Just like your Cricket does. And you killed them. For a purse. To entertain a mob.”

Eve blinked. Thoughts faltering. Maybe part of her had always— “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I know better than you can dream. We were wrong when we killed your family. And I will hear their screams for the rest of my days. But your father was no saint. He was a would-be god, building a better brand of servant. He gave us life, but he intended us to live it on our knees. And that was just as wrong.”

Hope raised her chin, jaw set.

“And now the rifts that lie between us …” The lifelike shook her head. “There is still so much work to do. The factoryfarms that feed Megopolis are peopled with automata and logika, not humans. The soldiers who fight your wars, the gladiators who bleed and die in your WarDomes, they are iron and steel, not flesh and bone. Look outside that door and you will see a world built on metal backs. Held together by metal hands. And one day, those hands will close, Ana. And they will become fists.”

Eve stood mute. Anger fighting confusion. There was truth in Hope’s words. Bloodstained. Twisted. But still truth.

“You can sleep up here tonight,” Hope said. “There’s a workshop with some decent salvage in the aft quarters. You can repair your blitzhund there. Anything we can give, we will. But I understand if you wish no sanctuary here.”

Eve stared, but Hope, her piece said, now refused to meet her eyes. Defiant the lifelike might be, but she was still wounded by their shared past. Still bleeding, just as surely as Eve was. The girl she’d been hated Hope, with all the fury she could muster. But the girl she was now … she could see a little clearer.

“This isn’t just about me,” Eve finally replied. “And I’m not about to turn down a roof for my friends because of what’s between us. But if you’re waiting to be forgiven, Hope, you’re going to be waiting an awful long time.”

“I do not ask you to forgive me, Ana. Only one can do that.”

The lifelike placed the blankets and old pillows on the mattresses, then straightened without a word. With a glance to Ezekiel, she turned and made her way down the stairs, footsteps echoing in the ship’s belly. Eve heard a child in the forest of cots below, calling out in his sleep. A nightmare, waking him in the dark.

Eve knew exactly how he felt.

“I’m sorry, Eve. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you here after all.”

She turned to Ezekiel. The lifelike hovered by the stairs, tungsten light gleaming in that old-sky blue. Bloodstains dried on his flight suit. Coin slot gleaming in his chest. His price. His punishment for his loyalty. To his creator. To her.

When all the other lifelikes stood against us, he’d stood taller still.

Eve sat back on the dirty mattress, sighing as she dragged her fingers through her hair. Her fingertips brushed the implant behind her ear, the slivers of silicon in her head. It still ached from where Faith had struck her. Memories of the firefight, the crash, the kraken, all swimming in her mind.

“We were in capital T,” she admitted. “We had nowhere else to go.”

“We could’ve taken our chances back in Dregs.”

Eve shook her head. “The Brotherhood. Fridge Street cronies. Anyone else who saw me manifest at the Dome. They’d all have been gunning for us. That’s no kind of safe.”