Replica (Replica #1)(98)

“I know.” April’s voice was sharp as a slap. “I just didn’t know you were one of them.”

She turned away and Gemma saw her bring a hand quickly to her eyes. April never cried. Gemma was suddenly filled with wrenching guilt. She thought her stomach might actually twist itself up and out of her throat. She nearly put a hand on April’s shoulder—she nearly begged for forgiveness—but then April spoke again.

“Maybe you should leave.” She didn’t turn around, but her voice was steady and very flat, and Gemma thought maybe she’d been wrong, maybe April hadn’t been crying at all.

“What?”

“You heard me. Maybe you should leave. You and your new best friends.” She turned just slightly, so Gemma could see the familiar ski-slope jump of her nose, the soft curve of her cheek, a sweep of dark hair, and she knew in that moment that something had changed forever. “I’ll give you until morning,” April said.

She moved soft-footed across the grass and into the house. Gemma wished she’d stomped off instead. She wished an earthquake would come, or rifts would appear in the ground—anything other than this terrible silence, the peacefulness of the crickets in the trees and the low drone of TV, the world humming along while hers was ending. April didn’t once look back. After she closed the door, Gemma heard the lock turn.

Then she was alone.


Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 11 of Lyra’s story.





TWELVE


GEMMA WOKE FROM A NIGHTMARE with her cheek saddled up against a band of old plastic striping and the sun hard in her eyes. Immediately she remembered her fight with April. She had a horrible, sticky feeling all over, as if something wet was clinging to her. She couldn’t remember her nightmare, but she was left with the disturbing idea that something had been hunting her, wouldn’t leave her alone.

She sat up, touching her cheek where the chair had indented it. The windows of the main house threw back the light so she couldn’t see beyond them, but she thought April must still be asleep. She checked her phone: nine thirty. She noticed her notebook wasn’t on the ground where she’d left it. But she must have stuffed it into her backpack.

Even before she figured out what to do about the replicas, she was determined to apologize to April, to explain. April was her best friend—her only good friend, unless you counted Pete, and she wasn’t sure she could. April was freaked out by the replicas, but anyone would be. And Gemma had been horrible. She had deserved to sleep outside, deserved the stiffness in her neck and shoulders and the taste of dead fish in her mouth.

She would make coffee. She would apologize. She would tell April everything, including the truth about the dead girl Gemma had seen out on the marshes.

She went up the stairs and was encouraged to find the back door unlocked. It seemed like a sign that April might be ready to forgive her. The kitchen was empty, but there was coffee in the pot and a dirty plate sitting on the table next to a ketchup bottle. So April was awake. Gemma was about to call out to her when she saw the note, anchored to the counter by a red mug that said San Francisco.

The note was very short.

Going for a run and then to play tennis. Will be back around noon. Please be gone.

—April

Gemma balled it up and threw it in the trash can. She felt like throwing something but she didn’t want to get in trouble with April’s grandparents, so instead she opened the back door again and slammed it three times. She was furious again. Fucking April. Gemma had been out slogging through the marshes, nearly getting shot, hiding from the military, rooting out her family’s deepest, darkest secret. She’d found her own fucking clone. And April had been going for a run and taking tennis lessons and was chucking Gemma out because of one stupid thing she’d said. Meanly, Gemma thought now she was even glad she’d said it.

She took a shower, leaving hair in the drain and not bothering to clean it out, and then brushed her teeth vigorously. At least she looked slightly better after sleeping, less like a zombie from a horror movie brought back to life by its taste for brains.

Downstairs, she poured some coffee into a mug—pleased, again, that she could use the last of the milk—and tried calling Jake. His phone rang but he didn’t pick up. She waited a few minutes and tried again. Then, when he didn’t answer, she sent him a text. You awake? It was only ten, but she couldn’t imagine he was sleeping in, not after yesterday and all they’d discovered about Haven.

She was halfway back to the guesthouse when something crunched beneath her foot: her ChapStick, which had somehow escaped from her backpack and rolled across the pool deck. She saw now that her bag was lying on its side, and when she went to return the ChapStick to it, saw that everything inside was a jumbled mess, as if someone had rifled through it. Instinctively she reached for her wallet. Her credit cards were there, but she’d taken out three hundred dollars from the ATM in Walmart the day before, and all of it was gone.

She felt as she had the single time her mom had caved and taken Gemma to an amusement park, and they’d ridden a roller coaster called the Cobra together. As they’d inched up, up, up toward that first crest and then the first downward hurtle, Gemma had known she’d made a huge mistake, that she didn’t want to see what was on the other side.

The guesthouse was empty. That was obvious as soon as she walked in. It even felt empty, and she was afraid to speak out loud because she didn’t want to hear her voice sucked away by the carpet. Still, she went from room to room, checking the bathroom, even opening the closet doors as if Lyra and 72 might be hiding there. For a brief, delirious moment, she even imagined Lyra, 72, and April out together somewhere near the ocean, dressed in tennis whites, working on their game.