Replica (Replica #1)(117)

“Lie down,” Gemma said. Their best bet was to pretend to be asleep and pray they would be passed over—that in the darkness they wouldn’t be recognized. Pete had covered her with a blanket and she drew this up over their faces, so the sound of their breathing was amplified beneath it. She was too scared to process even how close they were lying, his knees pressed to her knees, his chest rising and falling with his breath and their noses practically touching.

But no sooner had they lain down than she heard a voice.

“Gemma? Gemma?”

Instantly, she sat up again, half-delirious, disbelieving. She knew that voice.

“April?” she whispered.

“Oh my God, Gemma. Thank God.” The flashlight thudded to the ground and for a quick second, as April bent to retrieve it, revealed her familiar green Converses. “Shit. Where are you?”

Gemma shook off the blanket and scooted out of the van. She felt clumsy with happiness. “I’m here,” she said, and the flashlight swept over her and held her momentarily in its light. “I’m right here.” She held out both arms and a second later, April was rocketing into them.

“I was so worried about you,” she said, nearly taking Gemma off her feet. “I was so mad, you know—Latin temper and all that—but then a few hours after I left the house I started feeling really, really awful. Like my-stomach-is-trying-to-eat-itself awful. And I came home, and you were gone already, and then your parents called me. . . .”

“How did you find me?” Gemma was half tempted to touch April’s hair and nose and shoulders, to doubly make sure she was real.

“Find My Phone app, duh,” April said. Gemma almost laughed. Of course. “But then you turned your phone off, and then of course as soon as I got here my phone ran out of charge. So I’ve been walking around like a total perv, peeking in people’s windows. . . . Perv?” she squeaked, as Pete climbed out of the van.

Gemma was glad that it was so dark she couldn’t make out April’s expression. “April, you know Pete,” she said, deliberately emphasizing the name and hoping that April would take the hint. “Pete was the one who drove me down to Florida.”

“Uh-huh.” April seemed momentarily speechless, a first for her. Gemma could practically see her making calculations—the size of the van, the fact that both Gemma and Pete had been sleeping inside, together. “Where are the . . . others?” She was deliberately avoiding the word clones, and Gemma remembered what they’d fought about, and what she’d now have to confess to April: that she was one of them. Made. Manufactured. She would have to tell April about her parents’ first child, the lost child she’d been made to replicate. She would have to tell April about Rick Harliss and Jake Witz’s murder. She was hit by a wave of exhaustion again. This was the world she lived in now.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Pete put his arm around her. “They’re sleeping,” he said. “They’re okay.”

Gemma leaned into him, grateful, not even caring what April thought. “We’re all okay,” she said. She reached for April’s hand and gave it a squeeze. There in the darkness, in the middle of nowhere, her boyfriend and her best friend: under the circumstances, she could hardly ask for more.


Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 17 of Lyra’s story.





EIGHTEEN


APRIL SLEPT IN HER CAR. For most of the night, Pete kept his arm around Gemma’s waist, breathing into her hair, and she woke surprisingly refreshed, considering the fact that she was lying with her cheek squashed against the van’s scratchy carpeting and one whole arm was numb.

It was just after six o’clock. She eased out of the van and saw that Lyra and Caelum were still sleeping, their bodies tented under a blanket pulled all the way over their heads. Beneath it they appeared to be one person. She showered and brushed her teeth in the semi-slimy bathroom, next to little kids giddy with the experience of camping and their bleary-eyed moms. Afterward, she woke April, and they went in search of breakfast from the little mini-mart and gas station where Pete had bought all the junk food the night before. They bought hot coffee and muffins the texture of sponges, but were so hungry they didn’t care. They ate at a picnic bench slick with dew and watched the sun beat the mist off the ground. It was going to be another beautiful day.

Gemma told April everything. When she explained what had happened to Jake Witz, she realized she was trying not to cry. But she forced herself to keep talking. She told April about what she’d learned from Rick Harliss, about what her parents had done after their first child had died. About why and how she’d been made. By then she was crying, not even because she felt sorry for herself, but weirdly because she mourned the child, Emma. She even felt sorry for her parents. They must have grieved. They must have been grieving for years. What would it be like to look at your daughter and see a perfect reflection of a child you’d lost?

To her credit, April didn’t freak out. She waited until Gemma was finished, and then she scooted closer on the bench to give Gemma a hug. April gave the best hugs. Even though Gemma was much larger than April was, somehow April made her feel totally enfolded, totally taken care of.

“I’m proud of you, bug,” April said, using an old nickname, which made Gemma laugh and cry harder at the same time.