Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(69)

“Even if I’m a freak now?”

Ezekiel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She sighed. “I’m an abnorm, Zeke. Don’t you get what that means? Did you forget the Brotherhood? You think that bounty hunter is chasing me because he doesn’t like my fashion sense? You stay with me, you’re never going to be safe.”

A perfect frown marred that perfect brow.

“You remember what I told you that night in your room?” he asked.

“… That my imperfections make me perfect.”

“We lifelikes, you cut us, you hurt us, we go back to the way we were before. But you humans … the world hurts you, and you scar.” He touched the metal coin slot riveted into his chest. “That’s why I kept this. To remind me. Your scars tell who you are. Your skin is the page, and your scars are the ink, telling the story of your life. And your scars make you beautiful, Ana. ‘Deviation’ or whatever you want to call it? That’s just another ex pression of it. You call it freakish. I call it incredible. I can’t do it. And so I can’t help but love it. Or you.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with a kiss she felt all the way to her fingertips. And when she opened her eyes, he was looking at her the way she wanted to be looked at forever.

“Of all the mistakes I made, I think you were my favorite,” she whispered.

He smoothed back her hair, clouds forming in his eyes. She could see the worry in him. Remembering his patterns. The tilt of his head and the tightness in his jaw.

“We can’t stay here,” he finally said. “You know that, right? I’m not sure why that preacher is after you, but there aren’t many who could afford a hunter that dangerous.”

“I know.” She sighed, feeling the spell of the moment shatter. The floor was cold on her bare skin. The smell of rust hanging in the air. “And he’s going to repair his blitzhund eventually. Those kids out there … we can’t be here when he tracks us down.”

“I’ll take you anywhere. Far as you like.”

Ana’s brow creased in thought. She wondered where it would be safe to run. If she should run at all. Silas had tried to hide her from her past, and look how far it had gotten him. And even though the old man had built Eve a life of lies, a part of her still knew he’d done it with the best of intentions. Now, for whatever reason, he was in Faith’s clutches.

Even after everything he’d done, was she really going to leave him to rot?

“When Faith attacked us, she said she was taking me and Silas to see Gabriel. He’s still holed up in Babel with the others, right?”

Ezekiel shrugged. “I presume so.”

“Why would they want Silas and me back there?”

“… I don’t know. If you want to understand what’s going on in Gabriel’s head, you should talk to someone who saw him more recently than two years ago.”

“And who …”

Ana’s voice trailed off as she realized who Ezekiel meant. Her mouth soured at the thought. But Zeke was right—if she wanted to know the truth of why the lifelikes wanted her back in Babel, if she wanted to know the score between Gabriel and Silas and her, she should talk to someone who stood with him the day her world came crashing down.

The day her family died.

“All right,” she nodded. “Let’s go see Hope.”



She was teaching.

A gaggle of twenty children was seated around Hope as she gave a lesson on the last great war. The missiles that set fire to the sky, that turned Kalifornya into a shattered island called Dregs and scorched the deserts of Zona and NeoMex into glass. Ana hung back, Ezekiel at her side, watching the lifelike speak. Again, she was reminded of the morning they first met. The afternoon they last saw each other two years ago. Blood and smoke in the air.

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

Hope seemed different now. Like Ezekiel. She moved differently. Less carefree, maybe. The Hope that Ana had known moved as if she were dancing. This Hope walked as if the entire world rested on her shoulders. Haunted eyes. A tremor in her voice that never quite faded. But as much as she saw the change, Ana couldn’t forget what Hope had done. Couldn’t bring herself to trust the lifelike. The thought of having to ask her for help left a sickness in Ana’s gut, her jaw aching.

The lifelike looked up, saw Ana watching her with folded arms. She called to the old woman, Daniella, asking her to take over the lesson. Walking over to Ana, she was barely able to maintain eye contact. Hands clasped together like a penitent.

“Do you need something?” the lifelike asked.

“To talk,” Ana replied, her voice like iron. “About Babel. About Gabriel.”

Hope sighed. Slowly nodded.

“Follow me.”

Lemon looked at Ana from a table in the corner. She was surrounded by scruffy kids, none of them older than twelve, playing what looked like five-card draw. She raised her eyebrow in question; Ana simply shook her head, motioned her bestest to stay put. She didn’t know where Cricket was. Sulking, probably. She needed to find him. Make it right …

Hope led Ana and Ezekiel up a tight spiral staircase, through a tangle of tunnels and out onto the tanker’s foredeck. The sun was blazing in the sky, near blinding after the hours they’d spent in the gloom. Ana engaged the flare compensation in her optic, closed her good eye and squinted out at the city of Armada.