Replica (Replica #1)(30)

“I’m all done now.”

She hadn’t heard the shower go off or 72 emerge from the bathroom. She turned and froze. His skin, which had been streaked with blood and caked in a layer of sediment and crusted mud, was now as shiny and polished as a beach stone, and the color of new wood. His eyelashes, grayed by the ash, were long and black. A towel was wrapped around his waist. She was struck again by the strangeness of the male’s body, the broadness of his shoulders and the torqued narrowness of his muscled waist.

“Thank you,” she said, snatching up the clothes Gemma had left for her. She was careful not to pass too close to him when she moved into the bathroom. She shut the door firmly, a little confused by the mechanism of the lock. At Haven, all the doors locked with keypads or codes, except for the bathrooms, which had no locks at all.

She stripped down and balled her filthy clothes in a corner. She had never showered alone before and it felt wonderful: the big echoey bathroom, the space, the aloneness of it. Was this how all people lived? It felt luxurious to her. She spent a few minutes adjusting the taps, delighted by how quickly the water responded. In Haven, there was never enough hot water. The soap Gemma had bought was lilac-scented and pale purple, and Lyra found herself thinking of 72, naked, washing with purple soap, and the urge to giggle bubbled up in her chest, followed by a wave of dizziness. She had to sit with her head between her legs and the water driving down on her shoulders until it passed.

She lathered and rinsed her scalp, scrubbed her ears with a pinkie finger, washed the soles of her feet so that they became so slippery it was treacherous to stand. Finally she felt clean. Even the towels here were better than they were at Haven, where they were thin and stiff from hundreds of washings. Her new clothes felt soft and clean. Gemma had bought her cotton underwear in different colors. She’d never had underwear that was anything but a bleached, dingy beige. Looking at herself in the mirror, she almost could have passed for a real person, except for the length of her hair. She fingered the scar above her right eyebrow. She had scars all over her body now, from spinal taps and harvesting operations to test her blood marrow, but when she was dressed, most of them were concealed. Not this one, though.

In the bedroom, she found 72 stretched out on top of the covers, staring up at the ceiling fan. He was wearing new jeans that Gemma had bought for him, and this fact seemed only to emphasize his shirtlessness and the smooth muscled lines of his chest and shoulders. She’d never noticed how beautiful bodies could be. She’d thought of them only as parts, machine components that serviced a whole. She’d been interested in the males, of course—curious about them—but she’d also learned that curiosity led to disappointment, that it was better not to want, not to look, not to wonder. But she was suddenly terrified of lying next to him, although she couldn’t have said exactly why. Maybe because of what had happened to Pepper. But she thought it was more than that.

“What?” 72 sat up on his elbows. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“There’s no reason.” Realizing she’d been staring, she forced herself to move to the bed. She slipped under the sheets—these, too, softer than any she’d ever known—and curled up with her knees to her chest, as far from 72 as possible. But still her heart was beating fast. She felt, or imagined she felt, warmth radiating off him. He smelled now a different kind of sweet, like shampoo and soap and fresh-scrubbed skin. For a long time they lay there together and she couldn’t stop seeing him next to her, couldn’t stop seeing his lashes lying on his cheeks when he closed his eyes and the high planes of his cheekbones and the darkness of his eyes.

He shifted in the bed. He put a hand on her waist. His hand was hot, burning hot.

“Lyra?” he whispered. His breath felt very close to her ear. She was terrified to move, terrified to turn and see how close he was.

“What?” she whispered back.

“I like your name,” he said. “I wanted to say your name.”

Then the bed shifted again, and she knew he’d rolled over to go to sleep. Finally, after a long time, the tension in her body relaxed, and she slept, too.


When she woke up, it was dark, and for a confused second she thought she was back at Haven. She could smell dinner cooking in the Stew Pot and hear the nurses move between the cots, talking to one another. Then she opened her eyes and remembered. Someone had shut the bedroom door, but a wedge of light showed from the living room. Jake and Gemma were talking in low voices, and something was cooking. The smell brought sudden tears to Lyra’s eyes. She was starving, hungrier than she’d been in weeks.

She eased out of bed, careful not to wake 72. She was vaguely disappointed to see they’d been sleeping with several feet of space between them. In her dream they had been entangled again, sweating and shivering in each other’s arms. In her dream he’d said her name again, but into her mouth, whispering it.

In the big room, Jake was bent over a computer laptop that sat next to a soda on the coffee table. He smiled briefly at Lyra. She was startled—it had been a long time since anyone had smiled at her, probably since Dr. O’Donnell—and she tried to smile back, but her cheeks felt sore and wouldn’t work properly. It didn’t matter. She was too late. He’d already turned his attention back to the computer.

Immediately, Gemma was moving away from the stove with a bowl, skirting the table that divided the kitchen from the library—Lyra thought it must be called a library, anyway, since Dr. O’Donnell had told her that libraries were places you could read books for free. “Here,” Gemma said. “Chili. From a can. Sorry,” she added, when Lyra stared, “I can’t cook.”