Replica (Replica #1)(77)

“I’m in Barrel Key, not far away,” Gemma said, avoiding April’s last question, tracing one of the fish patterned on her coverlet with a finger. All the fish were identical, and all of them had the same anatomical error, an extra fin on the back that gave them a vaguely prehistoric look.

“But what are you doing there? I thought you were coming to stay with me.”

“I am. Tomorrow. And then I’ll tell you everything. I promise,” Gemma said, before April could protest. She’d already lied so much in the past twenty-four hours. She couldn’t stand lying to April, too. But what could she say to explain? Oh, no big deal, someone threw a Frankenstein mask through our window and then a random psycho tried to nab me from a gas station and I think it’s because my dad’s old company is kidnapping children and testing chemicals on them and he might have known about it all this time. “Just trust me, okay?”

April sighed. “Swear you’re not holed up in some seedy motel meeting a stranger named Danger66 who claims to be a French exchange student looking for an English tutor.”

Gemma looked around the room, and decided it definitely counted as a seedy motel. “I promise I’m not meeting a stranger named Danger66,” she said. “I promise I’m not meeting any stranger.” Jake Witz blinked momentarily in her mind. But he didn’t count. She’d sought him out, not the other way around. Besides, she couldn’t believe that someone who looked like Jake Witz could be dangerous. She’d been fed a steady diet of Disney growing up. The evil ones were always ugly. By the same logic, she knew that she was destined to be the charming dumpy sidekick for life: only skinny girls got to be leads.

Her next phone call went far less smoothly. April was right. Her mom was in full-on panic mode. Gemma had never heard her mother so upset, except for one time when she was a little kid and decided to smash up her mom’s favorite necklace with a hammer to see whether diamonds were really the hardest substance on earth.

“I don’t believe you. I really don’t believe you. I would never have expected it, never in a million years—after we specifically told you—”

“Mom, calm down.” Gemma was annoyed not by the injustice of her parents’ rules but by the fact that her mom had automatically assumed she would always obey. Just like she’d obeyed as a kid, shivering in those hospital beds, swallowing pills when she was told to swallow them, waking up with new scars, new evidence of damage. “It’s not a big deal, okay?”

“Not a big deal? Not a big deal?” Kristina seemed to be gasping the words. “How can you even say that? Do you know how worried I’ve been? How worried your father’s been?”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’s been crying into his PowerPoint.” The words were out of Gemma’s mouth as soon as she thought them.

Kristina drew in a sharp breath. Then she said, in a quiet voice, “For your information, your father is on his way back from Shanghai right now. As soon as he lands, we’re getting on a plane and coming straight down to get you—”

“Mom, no.” Gemma was surprised that in an instant, all her anger was gone, and instead she was suddenly on the verge of tears. She took a deep breath. “Please,” she said, because she knew that fighting or yelling wouldn’t help. “I’m not in trouble. I’m safe. I’m with April.” She no longer felt guilty about lying. If Jake was right about what they were doing at Haven, her father must have known about it, and had spent his whole life lying—her mother, too. It was like she’d heard him say: he’d done nothing. “Please let me have this, just this once. Let me be normal.”

Kristina sighed, and Gemma knew she’d said the right thing. She imagined her mother cradling the phone against one shoulder, unscrewing the cap of one of her pill bottles and shaking one into her palm, starting to calm down.

“I’ll talk to your dad,” she said. “But you know how he is. He’s furious. You lied to us, Gemma.”

How many times have you lied to me? Gemma nearly said. But she swallowed the words back. She said instead, “You didn’t give me much choice.”

To her surprise, her mother laughed. But it was the saddest laugh ever, like she really wanted to cry. “We’re just trying to keep you safe, Gem,” she said. “That’s all we ever wanted.”

“I’m safe,” she said. “I’m fine.”

When Kristina spoke again, her voice was softer. Probably just the thought of a pill working its way through her bloodstream had calmed her. “I expect you to call me first thing in the morning.”

“I will,” Gem said. “Just tell Dad not to worry.”

Kristina hesitated. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Gemma hung up. She was briefly euphoric, almost dizzy, but the feeling was short-lived. She’d gotten her mom only temporarily off her back. If her dad insisted on driving straight to April’s house . . . if he discovered she wasn’t there . . .

But if everything went as planned, she could make it to April’s by morning, when her dad was still thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic. If everything went as planned, she might have all the answers she needed tonight.

And then what? What did it matter, really?

She wasn’t sure. But she sensed—no, she knew—that there was in Haven a reason for her dad’s constant, simmering anger; for the pills her mom measured out day by day; for the vast silence that filled her house and the way she caught her parents looking at her sometimes, as if she were a stranger.