Page 80 of Lovely Darkness

“I already have a house. The house I grew up in. It’s a little cabin in Kentucky.”

“Then why don’t you live there?”

“Because Nick lives in Nebraska.”

I scoff a little. Because her reasoning is sorta ridiculous. “So why don’t you just live with him?”

“Because we can’t be together, Indie.” She looks me in the eye. No trace of a smile, now. “I’m dangerous.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“Wendy, we’re both dangerous. Hell, even Maggie is dangerous. She’s the one who took the kill shot against Donovan when I simply couldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be with the ones you love. That you can’t have a proper home. I worry about you. I don’t like you on the road. If I had known that’s how you were livin’—”

“You’d have what?” She smirks. “Rescued me?”

“Yes! I would’ve. I would’ve hunted you down, tied you up, and brought you home. You can stay here. You can have the third floor. Nick can stay too.”

Wendy sighs as she shakes her head. “You just don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get? Tell me what I’m missing. You’re livin’ in your truck, Wendy. You own a house and you live in your truck. And I know you have money. Lots of it, probably. And even if you didn’t, I’d give you some of mine. I mean, for the love of Christ, why don’t you at least buy a fuckin’ motor home?”

She and I are face to face now. Her eyes are not storms the way mine are. They are speckled eggs. They are nature. They are woods. They are so much better than storms.

She says, “I can’t quite decide if you’re lying, or you’re delusional, or you’re just plain stupid, Indie Anna.”

“What?” I’m honestly aghast. “What the hell, Wendy?”

She deflates a little. I don’t think her outburst was meant as an insult. I truly think she’s frustrated with me. “You don’t get it. You’re living here, like this is normal, and you just don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“We’re not meant to have homes. We’re not meant to have stability, or friends, or God fucking forbid, children.”

“Well, why the hell not? We’re people, aren’t we? No different than anyone else in many respects.”

“See, this is where you’re wrong, Indie. We’re not actually people. We’re…” She gets frustrated again and scoffs. “We’re… I don’t even know what we are. Clones, or something.”

I am amused. I even laugh a little. “No. We’re not clones, Wendy. We’re the originals. The clones are those other girls. The two-point-oh or whatever. Where is this coming from?”

“How do you not understand what you are?” She points at me. “I think it’s delusional.”

“Don’t say that,” I snap. I don’t like that word because I am delusional. I conjured up an entire childhood over the past four years. A childhood that may or may not have anything to do with the one I really experienced. And not only that, I wrote it down. Like it really happened. Like I wanted to cement it into my brain and the act of writing did just that. I am literally unable to decipher fact from fiction when it comes to my past.

So I don’t like the word ‘delusional.’ But I don’t want her—or anyone, actually—to figure out how much it bothers me that my childhood is missing even though I’m standing in the very place it happened. So I calm myself, and with a better, more controlled voice, I say, “Explain.”

“You have to be delusional. You’re smart. Super smart. They made us this way. I don’t know what your IQ is, but mine is one sixty-seven. And Chek was pretty straight with me as a kid. But Adam and McKay, I dunno.” She shakes her head. “Maybe they were just trying to protect you, but they didn’t do you any favors by hiding the truth.”

Now I’m startin’ to get pissed. Because she’s acting like she’s better than me, and she’s not. I’m the one who bounces back. I’ve got a family, I’ve got a home, and I’ve got a child. She’s the one who can’t fit in, not me. So I say, “What truth is that? Hm?” And yes, it comes out a little bit snotty.

She places her hand on my bare shoulder. It’s cold, even though it’s still in the high eighties tonight. Then she leans in to me, like she’s gonna whisper a secret in my ear, and she says, “We’re not supposed to be here, Indie. Nick Tate was supposed to kill us, and he didn’t. We were supposed to die a long, long time ago but Santos went soft at the last minute and a bunch of us got lucky. That’s all this is.” She waves her hand at the gardens and the house again. “It’s just luck. Santos got soft, and Nick got soft, and you, and me, and Angelica got lucky. But we weren’t supposed to live. Nick’s still killing them. Don’t you get it? He never stopped hunting them. But he walks among us like we’re invisible. Like we’re safe, Indie. And we’re not.”

I pull away from her. Because the name Nick Tate always came with a warning. Stay away from him. Keep out of his way. Don’t let him get you. And now he’s staying in my house. So her little rant sends a chill up my back. All the way up to my neck, until the little hairs back there are stickin’ straight up.

“What am I supposed to do with this information, Wendy? Hmm? What are you even saying? That Nick is the bad guy? That we need to take him out?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”