“He was thinking he wanted to get his son away from a mate he didn’t approve of.”
“That makes so little sense. I knew him before the end. He was such a good doctor. He worked for us for a while but then he wanted out, didn’t like the direction we were moving and, in retrospect, he was correct to be concerned. His wife used to make brownies.” He shook his head. “That was the first time I saw you and Jason.”
“What?” I took two steps back but Darren prevented me from going any further. “That’s impossible. I wasn’t born then.”
“Yes, you were. So was he. You dated for at least two years before it all went to hell. Andon liked you just fine back then. He used to call you Jason’s sweetie.”
“No!” I screamed because if I didn’t my heart would explode. “That couldn’t be real. It’s not true.”
“Take a deep breath and ask yourself if you can’t feel it somewhere?”
Jason had described a scene that would have been from before Armageddon. A vision of him coming to my house to pick me up for a date. I’d joked with him that it wouldn’t have been possible since he lived pre-Armageddon, and I never did.
“Did Jason know?” I couldn’t even believe I was asking the question. Why was I giving him credence when it would be better to simply discount the whole thing?
“He may have. I don’t know what Andon told him when he woke up. I don’t know. I did send you out into the woods to find him that day. That much was arranged. At what point Andon changed his mind about your appropriateness for his son—of that I’m unsure.”
“None of this could have happened. I was born in Genesis. I have memories of my life there. I didn’t suddenly wake up there suddenly at fourteen.”
“Yes, you did. You just don’t remember it the right way. You, Tia, the Lyons, even that stupid president you’ve all elected, all of you woke up there three years ago. I know this because that is when you woke up from cryogenic stasis with a whole set of memories. A gift from me since your real past wouldn’t have helped you survive in this new world.”
My knees gave out from under me and I hit the floor, Darren’s grip on me loosening enough to allow me to fall. “What have you been doing with all of us for thirty years? With the vampires? I don’t understand.”
“There wasn’t much time to make decisions. More and more people kept catching the virus. I couldn’t allow it to continue. A decision was made. The highest people of government, families of people we knew, a lottery system. None of it was fair, I understand that. I understood it then.”
He rambled, and I had a hard time following him except that somehow his words made sense. Not everyone could be saved, no matter what he’d done. Like a movie in front of my eyes, it played out before me. There had been panic in the streets. Secret meetings and someone had shuttled my father and me to some location. I’d been terrified. Who had brought me? A face swam before my eyes. Jason begging me to go. He seemed altered to me, and I didn’t understand why. He kept trying to explain.
“How have you planted these memories in my mind? These are not real. You’re putting them in there.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I wish I was. We did manage to stop the vampires, to control them for the most part. They do see me as a god because of the serum I’ve put in their blood supply for so many years. They need me, and they know it. But I can only control them to a point. I’ve never been able to do anything about their personal blood supply, except to make sure they are fed foods that don’t counteract what I’m giving them. And the wolves….”
“And the wolves?” I was in for it now; I needed to hear the whole thing. “It’s always been fifty-fifty with them. They didn’t age. The virus worked on them. If I keep them involved, they seem to behave, for the most part.”
“They attack us. The vamps and the werewolves attack us.”
“Yes, they do. They can’t help it. Those poor people. I’m still working on trying to reverse it, to save them.” He shook his head. “That’s why I taught you to defend yourselves. I didn’t make up the stories about the genes. A number of you have it encoded in your DNA to be better fighters.”
I got off the floor. I didn’t know what I was feeling. Numb mostly. Maybe shocked. “Why wake us up if we have to fight? Why not keep us asleep in those things where you stored us?”
“Power started to fail. We lost people. Your mother, for example. I’m sorry about that, Rachel. I really am.”
She hadn’t been killed when I was a baby in a vampire attack? A pain started above my nose in my forehead. It stabbed at me with a suddenness that made me stagger backward. I could remember her. She’d been beautiful, kind, and tough on me when I didn’t study and came home with bad grades because I’d been out with Jason. She hadn’t liked him, hadn’t thought he was good enough for me. Spoiled. Yes, that was the word she’d used a lot to describe him. We’d been having a fight when the cars had shown up to take us to the science center. The last thing we’d ever done together was yell.
“I tried to give you a story that would make you feel fulfilled. Of parental sacrifice and bravery.”
“But she need not stay dead if you don’t want her to.”
“What?”
“Darren, let’s move on.”
Noah snickered and Icahn hit him on the foot with his cane. He yelped and moved away from his dad. We walked in silence. Everything I’d ever believed had disappeared from existence. I wasn’t Rachel Clancy, born after the world ended, I was Rachel Clancy saved by my boyfriend the werewolf to be frozen for thirty years?
“I know you have questions. I’ll answer them all but first we have more to see.”
“No. I don’t want any more.”
“You have to. You’ve always been a brave girl. Don’t stop being now.”
“The vampires killed Chad. Did he somehow contract the virus?”
Icahn nodded. “Oh, yes, Mr. Lyons. Such a remarkable boy. He was before Armageddon, too. Top student. He’d been attending Harvard. You don’t know what that means but it’s my alma mater, and it impressed me. His father was a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Again, you don’t know what that means.”
“But it impresses you.”
He snickered. “Yes. Chad Lyons got bitten by a vampire trying to rescue you from here six months ago.”
“I wasn’t here six months ago. I was in an underground lair working mines for you.”
“That’s the memory Noah put in your mind. Yes. But you were here. I was trying very hard to set things back to normal for you. Genesis was getting too close to discovering everything. One at a time I’d bring you all here. Or at least that was the plan. And then things went awry.” He turned and looked at Noah. “Through no fault of my own.”
“Noah?”
“I screwed up and you were being so completely difficult. You’ve always been. I don’t know why we rescued you. You’re nothing. Your family was not important. Your father taught high school science.”
“Noah.” His father whirled on him. “You can keep your opinions to yourself or maybe I will lose your vial.”
“Yes, Father.”
We stopped moving and I gasped as I saw the figure standing at the doorway. Liam Icahn was dead. I’d seen Keith kill him, saw his skull bashed in.
“This is impossible.”
“It’s not.” Icahn flung the door open. “You know my son, Liam.”
Dead Liam nodded his head. “I sure do. Nice to see you again.”
“You’re dead.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Not anymore.”
“There was another technology we had back then, Rachel,” Isaac Icahn said from inside the room I knew within my very soul I didn’t want to enter even as I was pushed inside. “It’s called cloning.”
Giant containers filled with a clear liquid lined the walls of the room. Ten or more devices surrounded the walls of the huge space. I didn’t have time to count them as my eyes immediately fell onto one specific container. I wr
enched my arm from Darren’s grip and ran to the glass.
Inside, floating like a mannequin of himself was the boy I’d killed who I never thought to see again in this world. A sob escaped me before I could stop it. Chad Lyons. So beautiful and unmarred. Exactly as he’d looked before the vampires.
“I put a stake in his heart. He dissolved into dust.”
“Yes, you did.” Icahn placed a hand on my shoulder, and I was too exhausted to even shove it off. “That was very brave of you. Otherwise he’d be one of the vampires, waiting for me to cure him. Instead, he can be here. Waiting for you to do the right thing again.”
“What would that be?”
“I want Genesis back, Rachel. It was my habitat. All the scientists have their home base. I want to go home. Back to my people. I want it back.”
I closed my eyes and placed my head on the glass. “I can’t do that. I’m just one girl.”
“You can. You can help me beat them. We’ll bring them here. Rearrange their memories. No one has to know. Not even you if you don’t want to. Chad will come home with you. His family will have him back and never know they lost him. If you want, you can all live happily ever after. We’ll incorporate Deacon and the others into the fold. It’ll be like they were always there. I’ll keep working to save the vampires in secret. We can bring back your mother. You won’t be motherless, Rachel. Your father can be a hero again. I really don’t mind. My daughter lives here. I think you met her. Rosemary, that’s what she calls herself now. Unlike her, Chad never needs to know he’s a clone.”
“I can’t decide other people’s destinies. I’m just one person. No one should have that power over anyone else.”
“And therein lies the problem. If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to turn off Chad’s machine before he’s done cooking, and I’ll lose his vial. You’ll stay here. Forever. Never see your people again. And you’ll live knowing you actually had the chance to bring him back.” He patted my shoulder again. “Why don’t I let you think about it?”
Chad’s eyes flew open from the other side of the glass. I jolted backward.
“He can’t see you, dear. At this point it’s just a reflex. Nothing to worry about. By tomorrow he’ll actually feel pain if I shut off the machines. But the choice is yours. Don’t let that sway you. Much.”
Chapter Eighteen
I steadied myself. Or at least I pretended to. When I looked him in the eyes, I wanted him to see a confident person and not the sniveling mess I had currently become.
“When I was here before and Chad got bit by the vampire, what happened?”
I knew this seemed like a pretty unimportant question considering all of the things that I had just learned. But, I needed to know if I could trust Isaac Icahn. This whole thing—even down to Chad’s so-called cloning—could be nonsense. I had to know if I could trust this man. The only way to do that was to get the complete story from him and listen to my gut to know the right answer.
Well, I hoped that was the case. I had a history of massively screwing up.
Still, when I turned around, I kept one hand on the glass structure holding Chad’s body inside. A part of me needed to feel connected with him, even if it was just a shell that looked like Chad.
“You kept trying to escape. Chad had actually settled in pretty nicely and was taking the reprogramming pretty well….”
“How exactly do you reprogram someone? You make us sound like computers.”
“It’s rather easy actually. A series of videos, suggestions, and an administration of a drug that makes the person susceptible to the suggestions.”
“Does anyone ever resist? Does it hurt them?”
“In the cryogenic chamber, everyone took to it with no problem. But sleep makes us susceptible. For the last three years, there have been people who need a little extra coaxing. You, for example, but eventually everyone takes to the memory alteration.”
Me, for example. I nodded because I was finally starting to understand. Chad had been made a vampire. And Icahn had altered my memory of it to make think I’d been in a vampire mine. The entire escape had been manufactured.
“Jason said he rescued me from the mine.”
“Yes, that’s what he told you. That’s what I told him to tell you when I handed you to him.”
Jason was so devious, I almost couldn’t stand it. He knew all of these things, probably that we even knew each other before Armageddon, and he’d never uttered one word to clue me in.
“You were resisting the treatment. You even challenged Noah—bet him—that you could get out of here, that we couldn’t restrain you.”
“What about my memory of the vampire worshiping humans?”
“That happened. Unfortunately. Those poor souls have been dealt with. You rescued Jason, too. All of that happened before we could get to you.”
So at least all of my memories from the last year hadn’t been fabricated.
“You got away and you managed to free Chad. In doing so, you set him entirely back. All of the work we’d done in bringing him to the fold was undone and the two of you headed for the exits together. Only he didn’t make it. A vampire that had escaped his chains bit him. He was infected but he still managed to escape. You, we recaptured.”
And gave me to Jason.
Now that he’d told me the story, I could remember it perfectly. We’d run down the hall holding hands. Chad had been confused, altered but coming back to his senses.
“I love you, Rachel. Thank you for saving me.” He’d squeezed my hand in his. His smile was huge and mine had been as well. As far as we could tell, we’d done it. No one knew we’d gotten out. We could get out of this mess together and tell everyone what we’d learned.
“I love you, too.”
We’d rounded the corner, and that was when we’d seen the vampire. It stood in the hall looking dazed, confused but still deadly. My vampire warnings hadn’t gone off. Maybe all of Icahns reconditioning had messed with my abilities. At that moment I’d never been more pissed off to not be the human vampire radar. What good did it do to be a freak if you couldn’t use the ability when it could actually come in handy?
We were weaponless. Hell, we were practically clothesless too, both of us dressed in white paper nightgowns that wouldn’t protect us from the cold. Chad dropped my hand, and before I could speak, ran at the vampire.
“Go, Rachel. Go.”
I didn’t. Instead, I stood frozen to the floor watching as Chad slammed his body into the vampire. Perhaps if I had moved then to help him, as I would have any other moment in any other circumstance, what happened next could have been prevented.
Wishes and would-haves filled up my palms and blew away every day of my life, but none more than that moment. The vampire leaned over and bit down on Chad’s arm, drawing blood seconds before Chad got away from him. He grabbed my arm and pulled me forward to run from the bloodsucker with still no word about what had happened to him.
An alarm sounded in the building. They knew we were gone. We picked up our speed and only wetness falling down on my neck alerted me to the fact that I cried. Finally, on exhausted feet, we made our way out of the compound and into the woods.
Chad doubled over. “We’re out.”
“Chad.” There weren’t words to say and tears slammed down my cheeks. I made no move to stop them.
“Promise me you won’t let me end up on his table as one of his test subjects, like those vampires in there. I’ll have your words as you love me that you’ll put a stake through my heart.”
“Chad.” I gulped for air. “I don’t have a stake. I have nothing.”
“I will find you. Go, Rachel. Get away from me before I die and change or whatever is going to happen. Please, go.”
I shook my head. “No, I won’t leave you.”
He pulled me into his arms. “You will.”
His mouth came down on mine and I knew it would be the last time, which made it both sweet and bitter. His light couldn’t be going out. Li
fe couldn’t be that cruel.
Except, of course, it had been. But now it need not have been our last kiss, and I didn’t need to ever forget it again.
“What will you do to change the memory of every person in Genesis?”
Icahn nodded. “Good question. They’ll all be put in cryogenic sleep again until I can reset Genesis. Their memories will be changed and then they will wake up one morning at home, none the wiser.”
“Except for you and your family.”
“I’m actually thinking of leaving them here. They were not helpful the last time around. They could do more good doing research here.”
I turned around to look at Chad. His eyes were now closed, and he looked as if he might be asleep, floating comfortably in the water.
“Will any of them be hurt in any way?”
“No.”
I knew what Chad would do in my place. I knew what Keith would do, what Patrick would do. I was even certain what Deacon would do. They would save their loved ones.
So why did it feel as if I was about to do the wrong thing? If Icahn was fooling me, if this was all junk designed to get me to betray my people, I’d never be able to live with myself. I knew that Icahn lived knowing he helped to cause Armageddon. I didn’t think I could be that calm if I’d done the same. Or maybe he’d just gotten used to it over time. Either way, the idea made me sick.
“I’ll do it, but I have conditions of my own.”
Icahn shifted his weight. “What would those things be?”
“I want your word—for whatever its worth—that no one is to be harmed.”
He nodded. “That’s always been my intention.”
“I want your word that no one will ever tamper with my memory again.”
“If that’s what you want. It was always done for your own benefit.”
I wasn’t certain that was the case, but I wasn’t going to argue with him about it now.