United: An Alienated Novel (25 page)

She was heartbroken. Cara saw it written all over the face they shared.

And because they were identical right down to the taste buds, Cara also knew the only thing that had the power to distract Rune from her grief—the culinary wonder of pizza. Luckily, there was one in the freezer, along with a pint of cookies ’n’ cream. So she preheated the oven and prepared a dinner filled with the breakup food of champions.

She didn’t say anything when she carried the tray into the basement. She set the meal at the foot of Rune’s cot and stepped back to let the rich, spicy aroma of pepperoni do the talking.

It worked.

Rune peeked over her shoulder at the food. Her stomach growled. Though she turned away and rested her head on the pillow, her resistance only lasted another minute or two. Then she pushed into a sitting position and inspected the tray while Cara sat down on a stool and surveyed the dingy basement. Empty concrete floors stretched into the darkness, illuminated by a single hanging bulb. The only finished portion of the area was a half bathroom located within walking distance of Rune’s ankle tether.

“What’s this?” Rune poked the mozzarella with an index finger.

Cara flapped a hand. “Just pizza.” She faked a yawn, pretending she couldn’t care less whether Rune ate it or not. “It’s common dinner food. The dessert in the bowl is called ice cream, and the brown liquid is Coke.” She shrugged. “In case you’re thirsty, or whatever.”

Cara stared into the corner and used her periphery to watch Rune lift the pizza slice from the plate and hold it to her lips. She hesitated twice before nibbling the very tip, testing it, and then her eyes flew wide and she sank her teeth in for a massive bite.

Success
.

It turned out that Rune’s love of pizza was rivaled only by her passion for Coke, which she slurped with a childish gusto that contrasted oddly with her motherly features. By the time she drained the glass and finished the last bite of crust, her chin was smeared with marinara sauce and soda. Then she tried the ice cream and
really
lost her mind.

“Ouch,” Rune said after she’d devoured the entire bowl. She gripped her forehead and sucked a breath through her teeth.

Cara grinned. She knew that pain. “Brain freeze. You ate it too fast.”

Groaning, Rune rubbed her belly and lay back against the pillow.

“I’m surprised you never tried it before. What have you been eating all this time?”

“Basic foods,” Rune told her. “Lean proteins, whole grains, vegetables. Jaxen taught me we should eat for nourishment, never for pleasure.”

“See? A terrible person.”

Rune’s lips twitched in a smile. She shut it down at once, but instead of facing the wall she shifted onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

“Can I ask you something?”

Rune answered with a grunt.

“Jaxen told me he used his mental abilities to transfer concepts to your mind, and that’s how you learned to walk and talk and fight so quickly. Does that mean you can use Silent Speech, too?”

Rune cast her a sideways glance. “What’s Silent Speech?”

“It’s a L’eihr way of communicating without talking. You lock eyes with someone and relax your mind. A connection forms, and then you can share thoughts and feelings. Some human brains are capable of it, too.”

“Like yours?”

Cara nodded. “It took a long time for me to learn.”

“No. I didn’t communicate with Jaxen that way.”

“The reason I ask,” Cara said tentatively, “is because it’s impossible to lie when you share your consciousness. You can block your thoughts, but you can’t project something that isn’t true.”

“So what?”

“So I could use Silent Speech to prove I’m telling the truth about Jaxen.”

Rune didn’t respond, but the prospect of facing the truth must’ve scared her, because she turned toward the wall. Just like that, the lighthearted banter was over.

“Jaxen was created in a lab, too,” Cara went on, “with ancient DNA that’s causing him to go mad. He’s a hybrid—part L’eihr, part Aribol. He can manipulate minds, but there’s a girl here who’s an emotional healer. She can remove his influence and allow you to think clearly.”

“He didn’t manipulate my mind. I love him.”

“I know you do, and I know how strong that feeling is. That’s why I’m asking you to be even stronger. Maybe he didn’t tell you, but the Aribol are coming. We don’t have much time.”

“I know that and I still won’t help you.”

“But billions of people will die.
Your
people.”

“They’re not my people, and I’ll die soon anyway.”

“That’s true,” Cara admitted, “but only because Jaxen altered your development.”

Rune snatched the pillow and pulled it over her head. “Go away! My stomach hurts. He was right about your food, and he was right about you. I won’t tell you anything, so leave me alone.”

Cara slouched on the stool. She should’ve remembered who she was dealing with—a stubborn, passionate girl with the legendary temper of the Sweeneys and the loyal heart of the O’Sheas. But unlike Midtown High’s two-time state debate champion, Cara 2.0 was dying, confused, shackled to a cot, and in love with the enemy.

Cara collected the dinner tray and gave her clone some privacy. As she climbed the stairs toward the kitchen, she thought she heard the light sniffle of crying behind her. Moisture welled in her eyes, but she blinked it away and clenched her jaw.

There wasn’t time for tears.

The next thing Cara knew, it was full daylight. She gasped and sat up at the kitchen table, where she must’ve fallen asleep making a list of things to do before the power grid went out. That list was now stuck to her cheek. She ripped it free while glancing at the stove’s digital clock, and what she saw made her stomach hit the floor.

She’d slept until noon!

She stood so quickly black spots danced in her vision, and she gripped the table ledge for balance. Someone had tucked a blanket around her shoulders, which she let fall to the floor as she stumbled into the living room to find her parents tidying the scattered mugs and discarded food wrappers from the night before.

The three of them were alone, the house silent. Mom bent over the sofa to fluff the seat cushions, and in true form, Dad moved in behind her, admiring her caboose while a devious grin broke out on his face. Cara rolled her eyes. Nothing short of Armageddon could stop those two. She cleared her throat before the cleaning session turned raunchy.

Both her parents’ gazes snapped up. Mom flashed an ordinary smile, as if a legion of ships weren’t on their way to annihilate the human race. “Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.” She pursed her lips and chided, “Someone didn’t go to bed when I told her to.”

Cara laughed dryly. After the countless all-nighters she’d pulled in high school, Mom chose
now
to put her foot down? “Where is everyone? What’s going on?”

“You didn’t miss anything.” Dad lifted an empty mug toward the backyard. “They’re taking inventory of the shuttle supplies.”

Cara spun toward the back door and stopped, then swiveled toward the basement door and stopped again. There was so little time. What should she do first: visit the clone, check in with Aelyx, contact the Earth Council, or brush her teeth?

Hygiene won. While she ran up the stairs two at a time, her stomach rumbled and she added
eat brunch
to the list. On her way back through the living room, she snagged an apple from the fruit bowl and jogged to the shuttles in the backyard.

Shielding her eyes from the high sun, she bit a chunk out of the apple and cringed as its sweetness clashed with the leftover toothpaste in her mouth. She noticed her brother and Elle kneeling on the lawn, where dozens of gadgets were arranged in tidy rows. They held a clipboard between them and inspected each item to catalog it. Syrine sat cross-legged nearby, taking stock of David’s things, and Aelyx and Larish were scouring the rear hatches, probably searching for hidden compartments.

When Cara reached them, Aelyx poked his head out of the hatch and greeted her with a genuine smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes. At once, the tension unwound from her jaw, and all was right in her world.

“Before you yell at me for not waking you up,” he said, and paused to kiss her cheek, “let me mention how breathtaking you are when you’re asleep.”

Cara laughed, remembering the drool that’d glued a sheet of paper to her face. “Stunning, I’m sure.”

“Any progress with the clone?”

“Well, I progressed in making her hate me more. Does that count?”

He didn’t say
I told you so,
which was one of the reasons she loved him. “Want to help us identify some foreign objects from Aisly’s shuttle?”

“Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”

But when she knelt on the lawn and studied the gadgets, she couldn’t make heads or tails of them. There were six items, presumably of Aribol origin, all cast from the same strange material that felt like plastic, but with the patina of aged metal. They ranged in shape from spheres to cubes and even one thin baton the size of a riding crop. Each was lightweight and cool to the touch with no visible buttons or hinges.

Cara tapped the rod against her palm and then gave it a gentle shake. Nothing rattled inside. “Add this to the list of things the clone could explain … if she didn’t want all of us to die in a fire.”

“Have you seen her today?” Elle asked.

“Not since the sun came up. I didn’t want to start my day with failure.” Cara tossed the baton into the grass. “So much for that.”

Syrine placed the lid on her box, having repacked her mementos. “Want me to come with you?”

“No. She’ll think we’re ganging up on her.” Cara recalled the items she needed to accomplish before the power grid failed. “Will you call the Earth Council for an update? I’m going back inside to have another crack at her shell.”

Ten minutes later, she descended the basement steps with a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal in one hand and a bottled water in the other. Her stomach dipped when she spotted Rune’s empty cot, but then a toilet flushed, and she noticed the thin chain leading from the cot to the bathroom door. Cara placed her offerings on the floor as Rune shuffled out from the bathroom, dragging her chain behind her.

Their gazes met, and Cara stopped breathing.

Rune had aged again, but that wasn’t what paralyzed Cara’s lungs. It was
how
she’d aged. The hard press of her mouth had softened, and her upper eyelids rested sleepily atop vivid, blue irises, giving her a peaceful expression that Cara recognized from her most treasured childhood memories. Emotion thickened her airway, and she could almost smell the perfume of gingersnaps and arthritis ointment.

“What?” Rune demanded.

Cara cleared her throat. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”

But it was more than that. While the logical side of her brain understood Rune was an individual, unique, with a spirit all her own, they shared the same DNA, and that connected them in a way that transcended science. Warmth swelled inside Cara’s ribs, and in that moment, she knew what she had to do.

“I’ll be right back. There’s something I want you to see.”

She ran upstairs and returned with Mom and Dad. Both of them had confessed to sneaking a peek at the clone, but neither had spoken to her, or more important, given her an opportunity to know them. Rune tensed when she noticed them approaching, so Cara encouraged her parents to hang back while she sat beside Rune on the cot.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” Holding Mom’s phone between them, Cara swiped through the photo album and tapped a picture of her grandmother in front of a Christmas tree, toasting the camera with a cup of eggnog. The image was grainy, but the gleam in Gram’s eyes shone loud and clear. “You have her eyes.”

Rune leaned in only far enough to glimpse the screen. “Who is she?”

“Your grandmother on the O’Shea side. But there’s a lot of Sweeney in you, too.” She scrolled through the album and enlarged a picture of her dad’s mother when she was a twenty-year-old fiery redhead with a siren’s smile. “I don’t remember her. She died when I was a baby. But I can tell she had a fierce spirit.”

“She was a force of nature, all right,” Dad said.

“Just like both of you.” Mom pointed at him and Cara.

As Cara translated, Rune scooted an inch closer. Her gaze moved over the screen for a long while, until she caught herself and her walls went up again. “Why are you showing me this? It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” Cara selected another photo, a three-generational shot of herself as a little girl, wrapped in the arms of her mother and her grandma. “I don’t care how you were created or what Jaxen put inside your head. We have the same DNA. That might sound clinical, but it’s not when you put a face with the genetics.” She pointed at Dad. “Your temper comes from him, and he inherited it from his mom.”

“My granny was a fireball, too,” Dad said.

“And the loyalty you feel for Jaxen, even though he abandoned you,” Cara went on, “that comes from our mother’s side of the family. The O’Sheas have always loved blindly. One of them left her country behind and moved halfway across the world to be with the man who stole her heart. That’s how we ended up here instead of Ireland.”

Rune chewed the inside of her cheek and stared into her bowl of oats.

“That thing you’re doing right now,” Cara said, pointing at Rune’s cheek. “I’ve done that ever since I can remember. By the way, you have two baby molars on the left side of your mouth with no adult teeth under them. You inherited that from Mom, too.”

When Rune flicked a confused glance at Mom and Dad, Cara reached into her pocket and pulled out the key she’d liberated from the guard station. She knelt on the floor and unlocked the shackle around Rune’s ankle. “You’re not an animal on a leash, or a nut that needs to be cracked. You’re one of us, and it’s time to start acting like it.”

Cara stood and extended her hand. “Want to meet our brother? Sometimes his brain gives him the silent treatment, but he’s got a good heart.”

Rune tipped her head at Cara as if trying to decipher a line of hieroglyphics. In the end, she didn’t take the hand offered to her, but she stood up from the cot and let Mom and Dad lead her to the stairs. Together their bizarre, dysfunctional family moved out of the dark basement and into the light.