The Similars (The Similars #1)(96)

“Your dad? What did Jaeger have to do with—?” That’s when it hits me. He wrote that exposé about Damian, made his fraud national news. “The news story. About his crimes.”

“Yes,” Pru answers. “That, and the fact that my father is unabashedly pro-clone. Tessa’s on a mission to destroy each clone personally, if she can. But she started with me.”

“That’s crazy,” I sputter. “Your father’s a journalist. He was doing his job. And it isn’t your fault he wrote that exposé. Shouldn’t her dad take responsibility for what he did?”

“I hate to interrupt this happy reunion,” Gravelle says, “but this is quite the interesting tidbit. Damian Leroy’s daughter has a bone to pick with your father, Prudence?”

“Apparently,” she says, wrestling to get out of her shackles, but to no avail.

“Well, well. She’s in good company, then,” Gravelle muses.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“It means that Jaeger Stanwick hasn’t changed much in the two decades since we were classmates. It means that he likely isn’t sorry about how he treated me back then…”

“You’re talking about the foxes, letting those animals loose from the lab, aren’t you? Your expulsion.”

“She nails it, folks,” Gravelle says, his face deadpan.

“You’re still angry about that? It was more than twenty years ago! You were kids. You became a freaking billionaire. You married Jane Porter—”

“Don’t pretend to understand what it’s been like to be me,” Gravelle says, all humor gone from his voice. “As a child, I was denied my legacy and true parentage. It took everything I had to fit in at Darkwood. The day Jaeger Stanwick refused to come forward and acknowledge his role in that fiasco set my life on a devastating trajectory, one I could never course correct.”

“Did you know all this, Pru? That Gravelle hates your father so much?”

Pru shakes her head. “Of course not. I came here to talk with him, to try to work with him to protect the Similars from people like Ransom. The Quarry believes—”

“The Quarry, the Quarry. Such noble motives you all have. Let’s be honest, Prudence. You sought me out because you were curious about the Similars. About why they exist. About why you have a twin in Pippa.”

“Of course,” Pru says softly. “Of course I was curious…”

“It was all for revenge,” Levi says quietly. “That’s why we exist. To be pawns in Gravelle’s sick scheme…”

Gravelle guffaws at that. “You underestimate me, Levi! My plans are far more complex than simple restitution. You and your friends have only begun to help me accomplish my goals. The legacy I will leave on this planet before I die—”

“You’ve made your point,” Levi interjects. “Now let Emma and Prudence go. Oliver and I will stay. You can continue your research—or whatever it is you’re doing—on us. You’ve been studying Pru’s mental control, yes? Let me guess: you want to compare her brain to Pippa’s. Study me and Oliver, instead. We can handle it,” he says stubbornly.

“You and Oliver are too important to be prodded and poked,” Gravelle says, staring me down like prey. “You will all stay here for the foreseeable future.” Gravelle nods to the guards. “And if you’re thinking of contacting your father, Emmaline, I think you’ll find your plum doesn’t work. He may love to come rescue you, but he doesn’t know where you are or where this place is, does he?”

“The other Similars,” Levi says. “They’ll come for us.”

“They’ll do what I tell them,” Gravelle says. “In the meantime, guards? Prepare three more beds.”

Two guards grab me and Oliver.

“Sorry, old man,” says Levi under his breath. “But everything I know, I learned here. From you.”

Levi flies through the air, kicking and twisting as he knees the gun out of one guard’s holster and kicks the weapon out of the other’s. As the guards fumble, Levi flips his body in the opposite direction, taking out the third guard, knocking him unconscious. He can’t get to the fourth guard in time. That man fires a shot at Levi, narrowly missing him, hitting a table full of glass beakers that shatter into a million pieces. Levi rolls on the ground, grabbing one of the guns from the floor and shooting it at the guards. The bullet strikes one guard in the foot. He crumples in agony. Levi steps over him, dodging another bullet. Adrenaline courses through my veins. I reach for the cuffs binding Pru’s arms and pound frantically at the latch with a piece of equipment. It’s a struggle, but I finally get it bent enough for Pru to slide out. Once unbound, Pru’s arms slip to her side like noodles, and she collapses on me, in agony. Were her arms dislocated from her shoulders?

“The girls!” a guard shouts, noticing that I’ve freed Pru. I hear a shot ring out as two of the guards beeline for a glass case on a counter in the lab. I hadn’t noticed it until now. It’s full of rows of injectives.

“Inject the subject!” Gravelle shouts. “We can’t lose all that data!” he bellows.

A guard lunges toward us, injective prepped and at the ready. I push Pru to the side, thrusting my own body in the way.