Chapter 29 Laura
TWENTY-NINE
LAURA
I step out of my room, bleary-eyed and heavy with fatigue.
Last night turned into a blur of restless hours tangled in thought, worrying about Dom.
The collar they put on him can't be good, but somehow, I know he's alive.
I can sense something through the mind-sync, just not hear him, like someone pushed pause on him.
He wasn't loud before, but I could always hear the murmur of his thoughts: now, the mind sync still hums between us, but there's nothing on it. Just… mental static.
I run my fingers along Samara’s golden wall as I pass it.
It's cold. Solid. Not like the flood of emotions I’m still carrying from last night.
Seeing all the horrible shit he went through, realising the cracks in him run deep.
He doesn't show it except in the vulnerable moments where he needs pain to cope.
He's always been honest about his hurt and what he needs, whereas me? I paper over my cracks.
Laying my forehead against the cool stone, wishing it was my warm alien, I breathe deeply. Dom said it wasn’t my fault. That I’m not faking it.
But I am.
I project confidence. I wear it like a costume. I push myself harder than anyone else ever could, so no one sees how often I second-guess. How sometimes, panic claws its way up my throat and I have to swallow it whole.
It isn’t the bond. I blamed it, thought maybe Dom’s presence was what was throwing me off balance, shaking me. But… I was like this before. The panic was mine. The control too thin, painted over with lipstick, using a different shade to pretend I could change how I feel and how I act.
I pause in the corridor, rest my palm against the wall, and take one full, deliberate breath. I clutch the data pad they gave me to my chest with the other, the only thing I have as a weapon to save Dom. I can't fail him. Not when he’s trusting me with this much. I can’t freak out. He needs me.
This trial is the most important of my life. It’s all on me. My strategy, my responsibility, my fire, to fight this injustice. To take on a culture that thinks it can chew clones up and spit them out and never answer for it.
I brush my hair behind my ears and lift my chin.
As long as I’m prepared, I can’t fail. I have all the evidence, and it's watertight. Imaya helped me interpret the records of chip scans both at Katyen's apartment building and the Milagrove Tree, their hospital, and Dom's number appears nowhere on them ever.
‘I think I've got a few angles to pry at,’ I reassure Dom, but he doesn’t answer. His warm mental voice has been absent all night. I chew my lip.
It should feel… good. I’m finally alone in my head, my secrets my own, the way I wanted it to be.
I mean, I was so desperate I took Dom up on his offer to return to a place which literally shot him on sight.
I should never have accepted. Ellen and Arabella were both so sure, but I thought I could handle it once the mind sync was fixed.
My hands tremble, and I curl them into the fabric wrap.
I want to hear his voice again, both in person and…
yeah, in my head. He never flinched at what a mess it was in here, never dragged out my anxiety and judged me for it.
He’s the one person who’s seen all of me, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.
All the stuff with my dad is out there now, the clockwork mechanics that make me tick, and he didn’t turn away.
He stayed with me, enduring the flood, holding onto me through it. He knew he had a choice, and he still chose to reach out to me. All of me.
Now, I have to do the same.
This place better have a metric shit-tonne of the alien equivalent of coffee.
Sliding my thumbs around the layered strips of fabric to make sure I'm presentable and adjusting the translation headphones to sit smoothly encasing each ear, I knock on the door to Samara’s office, projecting all the confidence I can muster.
But nothing happens.
“How do doors work here?’ A flat panel to the left on the lintel looks significant. I wave at it, then poke the surface. Maybe it’s a data pad thing?
“Allow me to assist.” A tall male appears as if from the shadows, his scales sliding from dark camouflage to gold and black before landing on a calm blue.
How long had he been standing there?
“Females do not have chips. Ask any nearby male to serve you,” he says politely.
“So women still need guys to open doors around here. Got it. Thanks,” I say.
At least the door opens, and the guy melts back to wherever he came from.
‘Are there doormen clones?’ I ask Dom.
Nothing. Silence.
‘It just wouldn't surprise me, is all,’ I finish, blinking. My eyes burn. Damn.
As I take in the gleaming, ultra-modern surroundings of Samara’s office, I can almost feel my exhaustion sinking deeper, weighed down by the sleek, pristine sterility of the place.
Everything in here is meticulously polished, edges sharp, lines crisp. The walls are a stark, smooth slate, interspersed with iridescent panels that shift color subtly. The room is beautiful, in a clinical way.
Samara sits at her desk, glancing up as I approach. “Did you rest well?”
“I got enough,” I reply evenly.
Samara gestures for me to sit in one of the sumptuous sofa chairs opposite her desk. “Give me a moment to finish up my work here.”
Any normal person's reaction is to say ‘fine’, but this is a power play I'm very familiar with. As I settle I ask innocently, “Am I early? I didn't think I was. I'm certainly not late.”
She gives me a look that could strip paint off walls.
Good. I'm getting a reaction already.
I slide my alien data pad onto the desk, Shade on top.
The succulent waves their pale green leaves, their tendrils beginning to stir as I set them on the low table between us.
They twitch and wave like a prawn tasting the current, absorbing the tension in the room.
Samara’s eyes flick to them. Just for a second, but in that second, her expression shifts.
Recognition, curiosity… calculation. She knows exactly what Shade is, but she doesn’t ask me how or why I have one.
I don’t smile, but I let the silence stretch enough for the plant to start dancing a little more eagerly, feeding on the low hum of territorial power play and unspoken challenge. Samara presses her lips together, and the corners of her mouth twitch. Not in displeasure. In interest.
She raises her voice. “Are you going to sit down, or stand there looking dramatic?”
She can't be talking to me, so I swivel in my seat to see who I've missed. Shara stands near the window, the light outside outlining her silver scales to a brilliant bright shine almost too blinding to look at. She gazes out with that calm focus of hers.
With her calm presence, she should be like a warm breath of air in this too-perfect environment, but there are still question marks over what her goal is. Hopefully the All-Mother will be an ally for me now, even if she’s as enigmatic as the Prif.
“Laura, I greet you on this new day,” she says, turning to smile as I approach, her expression open and genuine. It’s such a contrast to Samara.
Before I can respond to her, two males enter the room, each carrying a silver tray bearing glasses filled with some kind of crystalline, faintly iridescent drink.
The first is tall and regal, with hair a shock of platinum blonde, tied back in a simple knot that emphasizes the fine, chiseled lines of his jaw.
The second is his opposite in almost every way, shorter with dark, wild curls framing his face.
His eyes glint with mischief as he catches my gaze with a sly, knowing grin.
I take the drink he offers, and he lingers a fraction too long, his fingers brushing mine.
“Welcome, human. It’s rare for us to see such exotic beauty in this room.”
I give him a polite smile. “Thank you. I’m sure you say that to everyone who passes through here.”
His grin widens. “Not everyone, just the ones worth saying it to.”
I take a small, bracing sip from the glass, the liquor hitting like peaty whiskey, and shift my attention back to the matter at hand; proving Dom’s innocence.
I focus on Samara’s expectant gaze. “How is my client? Last I heard from him he was enjoying your finest hospitality, being brutalized before being mentally scraped to extract a confession.”
Samara’s scales go pale for a moment, then she quickly recovers. “Of course. You know that from the mind-sync.” Her fingers tighten on the stem of her glass as she watches me. “I’m not responsible for what the clones do to one another.”
Shara opens her mouth, but I hold up my hand to forestall her. “Is he well?”
“As well as can be expected, for a Parthiastock with a sync-canceller on.”
“Let me guess,” Shara murmurs. “Cancels out psychic waves?”
My stomach drops. Shade shivers, leaves curling in on itself.
Samara doesn’t alter her light tone. “I don’t know the physics of it, but it has the effect of isolating the mental frequencies of the wearer, shutting them off from their abilities and disrupting any mind-syncs.
” Samara smiles at me, red eyes glinting.
“I’m curious to know whether it worked in your situation? ”
“Yes, it did. Rather well.” My jaw aches from the urge to grind my teeth. Shade reaches out a tendril, questing, wrapping it around my little finger.
Steady.
“You’re welcome,” Samara says with a smile. A smile that’s anything but warm.
She knows what she’s doing to Dom. Being cut off from his psychic abilities must feel very lonely to a Parthiastock. Perhaps he’s never experienced being alone in his head. I know I miss having him with me; it’s probably torture for him.
I’m going to do a total Morgan on this bitch. Curling my hands into fists, I instead scoop Shade into my left hand. I open my fingers so I don’t crush them, and the Sanitatum plant turns its leaves toward me, as if I’m the sun. It gives me enough time to fix my composure.