Twenty-Four
Here I was, in this barren room, fluorescent lights glaring overhead and cold concrete floor beneath me, miles away from Clearwater in every sense of the word. Alone for the very first time with the twin I hadn’t known existed.
Our identical gazes connected. Well, almost identical. Once again, I noted a striking difference between us: the lack of warmth in Three’s green eyes. Instead of the dis-interest from before, now Holland’s other creation watched me like she was performing a visual dissection. Limb by limb.
Once she completed her inspection, Three shrugged.
“What?” I demanded when she didn’t say anything.
“You can’t tell by looking at you that you’re flawed, that’s all,” she said, in that voice that was so disconcertingly similar to mine. No, not similar—the same. And, given her casual tone, she might as well have been discussing a new computer program.
Come to think of it, that was more accurate than I cared to admit. “Not that it matters,” she continued. “I have my orders.” She paused, smiling. “No hard feelings.”
No hard feelings. Like it wasn’t my life on the line here.
Without any discernible cue, Three’s attention shifted to the window above us. My gaze followed, and I felt a jolt. Standing close to the glass was a boy, maybe eighteen or nineteen—he looked way too young to be up there. To be part of . . . this. His dark hair was flat on one side yet bristled up on the other, like he’d slept on it funny and hadn’t taken the time to brush it. Rangy and awkward in his wrinkled white collar and loosened tie, his shoulders slumped as if trying to escape the confines of the tight collar. Yet his gaze was anything but casual as it focused unwaveringly on me.
Two . . . can you hear me?
The raspy voice echoed directly inside my head.
What the hell? I lurched backward, my hands flying to my ears, while my eyes darted toward Three. No reaction there. She stood patiently, staring up at the boy like an obedient dog.
The boy. He had to be the one who’d talked.
I shook my head a few times, as if the repeated motion could expel the nuisance. Of course that didn’t happen.
I take it by your reaction that I’m coming in loud and clear?
I nodded cautiously.
Good. My name is Lucas Webb, and I’m going to be the proctor for your upcoming tests.
Tests again, just like Holland had mentioned. But what tests? And . . . could this guy hear my thoughts the way I could hear his voice?
I watched him, thinking, Can you hear me? in his direction, but there was no change in his expression and no response. At least, not until a slight smile appeared three seconds later.
You have to speak out loud if you want me to hear you. You can only hear me because General Holland activated your wireless receiver.
Okay, so that made Holland wafting his peppermint breath in my face while stuffing a finger down my ear a little less creepy. But only just.
A few feet away, Three finished performing a strange ritual, using her left hand to rotate the joints on her right arm through their complete range of motion.
“What tests?” I said, watching her with growing unease as she switched, now using her right hand to move her left. Each finger was bent and extended, followed by the wrist. If she followed the same pattern as the other side, next would come the elbow, and then the shoulder. Like one of the runners at school, warming up for a competition.
An icy fist squeezed my heart. Just an echo, I reminded myself, in an attempt to shake it off. A phantom sensation. You don’t have a heart.
The reminder didn’t help.
The tests that will decide your . . . ultimate outcome.
There was a slight hesitation to Lucas’s words, though his expression remained neutral.
The tests are designed to showcase your abilities as well as your deficiencies. Once you’ve completed all three, your actions will be evaluated and scored, and that will determine your future with us.
The voice stopped, but Lucas continued his impassive stare through the glass.
My deficiencies, meaning . . . my emotions? Was this strange, disheveled guy telling me that any show of emotion would be counted against me?
I didn’t have long to ponder it, because three seconds later, he uttered his next words:
The first test starts . . . in three minutes.
