The Similars (The Similars #1)(74)

“We have to tell Levi,” I say. “He needs to know that your guardian is his father, that he shares DNA with that man.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” I’m sure I’ve misheard her.

“It’s a bad idea,” she says. “One that will only hurt him.”

“It’s the truth,” I sputter. “Doesn’t he deserve to know where his DNA came from?”

“That’s arguable. Isn’t it enough he knows that Underwood was his father?”

“So you’re planning to keep this massive secret from him forever? Let him live his life never realizing that Gravelle is his flesh and blood?”

“You don’t know what our childhood was like for us,” she responds. “You can’t. I helped you, Emma. Please trust me when I say this is not what Levi needs right now. I will tell him when the time is right.”





Experiment


I spend the next week replaying the hologram message over and over in my head. Underwood didn’t die. He reinvented himself as Gravelle—the secretive, self-made billionaire who only made the headlines when the Similars arrived at Darkwood. I think of Oliver’s note. Especially about him. He meant Underwood; he meant Gravelle. I see that now. Beyond that—what it meant for Oliver, how it’s tied to his death—is still a mystery, one I’m compelled to solve.

I think of the keys, and what the administration—Ransom himself?—has been hiding from Darkwood’s students. They’ve tracked students’ whereabouts for decades. They have our medical records, our current vital signs. It’s a gross invasion of privacy. And they don’t stop taking our data when we graduate.

Classes pass by in a haze, and I’m eager for spring break. It’s not like my dad will be around, so I’m staying on campus for the week. I figure it will be the perfect opportunity to get back in the research lab, to figure out the building’s security and break in to study the holograms of the past Ten members who knew Seymour and Underwood. My father, Pru’s dad, Ezekiel Choate…all of them. I corner Maude in the dining hall after the last day of midterm exams.

“We have to go back to the hologram room,” I say under my breath as I catch up to her in the line to bus our trays.

“We can’t—the security guard,” Maude reminds me.

“We can get around him.”

“How?” she asks as we walk outside. It may be spring, but it’s still freezing at Darkwood. I stuff my hands into my coat pockets.

“The guard has seen Madison go into that building dozens of times…”

“We still don’t know why,” Maude interjects.

“No. But if you can convince him that you’re her, and that you’ve forgotten your key…then you could let me in a back door.” I shrug. “It could work.”

Maude sighs. “And when do you want to do this?”

“You’re staying here for break, right? You and your friends? How about Wednesday?”

Maude nods. “But why Wednesday?”

“Everyone should be gone—or bored. Maybe the guard won’t even be on duty.”

“I doubt that,” Maude says wryly.

“Meet me behind Cypress. Wednesday. Midnight.” I make Maude promise she won’t bail on me and then head back to my dorm room.

The Darkwood campus is eerily quiet this holiday. At meals, only a smattering of students trickle through the dining hall. That Wednesday night, a few hours after dinner, I can’t sleep, but I’m so used to my own brand of insomnia that I hardly even notice it anymore. I stare at Pru’s side of the room, missing her so much, it hurts. I haven’t pulled the sheets off her bed or moved any of her things—that would feel like sacrilege. I still wonder why she hasn’t buzzed me. It feels wrong that all I have to go on is Jaeger’s word. And yet, I want, and need, to believe that she’s okay.

Pru and Ollie aren’t the only ones I miss. If I’m honest with myself, I miss Levi’s company too. It’s strange to miss someone who isn’t dead or gone, but is simply across the room. It’s a new sensation, one I categorically dislike. Like there’s a hole inside me, an empty space I can’t fill.

I glance at the clock. It’s 11:45. Time to meet Maude.

I slip on boots and a coat and head out to the patio behind Cypress. Tonight, I gaze out at the grounds. It is a beautiful campus.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting to find,” says a voice. I turn to see Maude, her eyes bright even in the darkness.

“I want to call up my father’s hologram. Jaeger Stanwick’s. All of them—”

“It’ll be useless data. No hologram. You heard what Oliver said in his message. Underwood’s hologram wasn’t a hologram at all, simply random stats about his life. Is knowing someone’s resting blood pressure really going to help you?”

“No, but—”

“But what?”

“I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. I just need to see if we’ve missed anything. I’ve got to study all the parents’ holograms. Then, once I’ve looked at every Ten member’s stats from my father’s year, I want to look at Underwood’s.”

“What for?” Maude asks, frustration rising in her voice. “We already know he’s my guardian. We already know he faked his death and took on a new identity and played a role in cloning us from our originals…”