Clone: A Contemporary Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 3) Read online

  Clone

  Ryan B. Schow

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  CLONE

  Copyright © 2016 Ryan Schow. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, cloned, stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this eBook via the Internet or via any other means without the express written permission of the author or publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents—and their usage for storytelling purposes—are crafted for the singular purpose of fictional entertainment and no absolute truths shall be derived from the information contained within. Locales, businesses, events, government institutions and private institutions are used for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes only. Furthermore, any resemblance or reference to an actual living person is used solely for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Design by Milo at Deranged Doctor Design

  Visit the Author’s Website:

  www.RyanSchow.com

  See Note To Reader at the end of this book for an important message from the author, as well as a quick look at what the next book in the series holds.

  Other Works of Fiction by This Author

  From the Swann Series Novels (In Order)

  VANNIE

  SWANN

  MONARCH

  CLONE

  MASOCHIST

  WEAPON

  RAVEN

  ABOMINATION

  ENIGMA

  This is for my mother. In my early years, long before I wrote my first story, you taught me to look deep within myself for understanding. By doing that, and with your continual guidance, I learned to see beneath the obvious veneers of my characters as well, so that I may understand their story and know exactly where their spoken and unspoken truths would take them. Whatever character depth, dimension and development has taken place in this series began with you. I also want to thank you for encouraging me, for picking me up in those times when I was down, for pushing me in those times you knew I could be stronger and for constantly championing me as your son. I am not only fortunate to have you as my mother, I am truly blessed.

  Table of Contents

  Pinpoints of Light

  Box Trauma and the Fractured Mind

  Playing Impossible to Get

  Georgia

  History Favors the Bold

  Marquee

  Tossed Trash and a Nose Job

  Boy Soldier

  Melting Down

  Circles of the Flesh

  You Are My Rabbit

  All the Pretty Roses

  A Face of Settled Ash

  Bumpin’ Donuts

  Behold, The Righteous Douchebag

  Shoved Face-First into the Abyss

  Tying off the Loose Ends

  The Rectangular Hole

  Impossible Like Me

  Unspeakable Things

  Red Pudding

  Silver State

  Butterfly

  A Dish Best Served with Gasoline

  Inflamed

  Epilogue

  Important Note to Reader

  Available Titles in This Series

  Book 4 of the Swann Series Novels: MASOCHIST

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  THERE’S NOTHING QUITE AS EXCITING AS GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING…

  Only the fly on the wall and your therapist know your darkest secrets. Today you get to be the fly.

  Download Your FREE Copy Here:

  http://www.RyanSchow.com/VANNIE-eBook-For-FREE/

  “No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole life will feel some day.”

  —CHUCK PALAHNIUK, INVISIBLE MONSTERS

  Pinpoints of Light

  1

  It seems the more I try to do good things, the more bad things happen to me and those around me.

  2

  Leaving school for summer break, closing out my junior year of high school, is much different than when I last left for winter break. It was not a graceful exit I made. Back then, I got into a fist fight with both Julie and Cameron, power heaved my guts out into an unfamiliar toilet and then I lied about all of it straight-faced to my friends. Plus I was pissed at Damien for leaving without saying good-bye. After everything we survived solving the mystery of his step-sister’s death, what he did was ungracious. What he did was downright rude. But that was December, and here we are at the start of summer break. I can hardly believe when I come back next it’ll be as a senior!

  It’s funny how things can change with just one semester. Except it’s not funny funny, because after everything that’s happened, I’m still waiting to develop a more appropriate sense of humor. Right now, what matters most is I’m really scared for Georgia. She could die and this reality eats me up. And Maggie? She’s coming home with me for the summer on account of the perverted ways of one scumbag music executive, and the depression that followed. I hoped bringing her into our circle of friends would lift the veil of guilt and self-loathing, but so far I’m sucking ass in that department.

  On a more cheery note, at least this time—before leaving for a couple of months—I’m able to say proper good-byes to Damien, and now Jake. The licentious ways in which I said these good-byes, and the timing by which these scandalous interactions occurred, just might make me the biggest slutbag ever, but whatevs. I prefer to view these two experiences as pinpoints of light in oceans of darkness.

  It sounds a lot less whorish that way.

  My bright mood doesn’t last long, though. The more pressing concerns sitting in the back of my mind are kick, kick, kicking at my psyche, demanding my attention. God I miss Georgia! I pray for her all the time. Her and Maggie.

  Ah, Maggie…

  She’s my obsession right now. Fixing her. Some days that girl is a freaking train wreck! The way she manages to dive head-first into a hellish depression, there is no freaking way I’ll let her spend three whole months with her asshole step-sister, Blake.

  I just hope I’m a competent enough friend to do what I’m hoping to do for her this summer.

  3

  Maggie and I say our final good-byes to Tempest and Cicely, and to Damien, Brayden and Caden, and then, without further incident, we slide into my sexy-as-hell Audi S5 and jump on I-80 west heading to Palo Alto.

  On the way home, Maggie and I talk about this and that, what we’re going to do this summer, her family and my family,
us as seniors, and then we sort of lapse into an uncomfortable silence. After an impossibly long moment of neither of us saying anything, I turn on the radio and put a much needed end to the imperfect quietude.

  Thank you Jesus for good music!

  The feeling of Maggie continuing to pull away is fast becoming a palpable thing. Like invisible walls growing taller and thicker between us. Like the thinning of oxygen. Looking at her, I almost feel starved for breath. She’s withdrawing again, tucking herself away inside herself. Even worse, I know I can’t do squat about it. Surviving a sexual assault will do that kind of thing to you.

  What I hoped would be casual, carefree conversation between us now bears the dead weight of Maggie’s depression. I put myself in her shoes for a moment. At least, I try. Honestly though, how do you imagine yourself being forced into sex with a stranger? If it never happened to you, then you can’t. Which means I can’t. I try though. So much so that thinking about it makes my skin crawl.

  I crack the sunroof, just for some fresh air. I’m feeling queasy, but it isn’t motion sickness. It’s worse. It’s my body being in pain for Maggie. For the abuse she endured.

  All I see is her pinned under that bare naked animal. Paralyzed. Made to surrender her virginity, her innocence and her dignity all because her father thought this man would be her lucky break in music. What a prick. My insides shiver thinking of the violation.

  Rape is an injustice for which there is no cure, except perhaps, vengeance. Even then, there will never be an acceptable cure. Not ever being raped, that’s the cure. Vengeance, the lure of it, it’s just a place to shove your hatred. Someone like me needs that place. That’s why my mind is churning out all forms of retribution. Anger is the by-product of my kind of thinking. It stirs, it deepens, it expands like dark matter inside me.

  Metallica’s song, “Nothing Else Matters” comes on the radio and all the sudden my boy DNA has my foot mashing the accelerator. The throaty roar of the engine is all I have. The car jumps forward. It roars, the speed nearly erotic, the thrill a substitute for my need to avenge my friend. Inside, my male, more antagonistic side has taken charge. It’s now in full control.

  The needle sails to eighty, pushes past eighty-five. Ninety. My fingers find the stereo’s volume, crank it up. Ninety-five. Part of me hopes Maggie will snap out of this horrible funk and at least yell at me to turn down the music, or slow down. She barely seems to notice.

  I’m zig-zagging my way through traffic at thirty miles an hour over the speed limit and she barely seems to notice!

  One hundred miles per hour. One hundred five.

  My entire blood supply is soaked with adrenaline; the more dominant parts of me are adamant that I push the car’s limits.

  One-ten.

  One-fifteen and jetting past other cars like they’re standing still.

  Suddenly this need of mine to lash out, to leave my rage on the road, it flattens. My aggression is now a switch flipped off.

  I ease off the pedal. Slow back down to seventy-four. Set the cruise control.

  “This douchebag music executive,” I finally blurt out, my voice rich with hostility, “I think we should kill him.”

  “Me, too,” Maggie says, distant, like I asked her to lunch rather than offered to help orchestrate a murder.

  “No seriously,” I say.

  “Seriously,” she replies, her voice more lost than ever. If I didn’t know her better, I’d guess she was on drugs. Downers, of course, not uppers. But she doesn’t do drugs. None of us do.

  Regardless, that’s all we say for the next hour.

  Maggie doesn’t know I’ve killed before, but the prospect of doing it again has me thinking of my past. The genetic, scab eating freak who threatened me and attacked me, the genetic beast Gerhard so lovingly referred to as his war model, there’s no way I could let him live. I thought about telling Maggie some people are better off dead, but really, what would be the point? Dopey eyed and distant, she would only agree with me, yet again.

  Or perhaps she would stop thinking of me as a friend and start seeing me as a murderer. Maybe I am a murderer. In a court of law, I’d get life with no possibility of parole for sure. Then again, a jury of my peers would never see the impossibility of decision I faced in those few moments, and how—when push came to shove—that motherfreaking animal had to be put down.

  In the bigger scope of things, Gerhard’s war model was never a real human being. He was an inhuman, genetic super-freak. An abomination of science whose sole purpose was to assassinate with efficiency. To operate only with brute force. His brain was broken, manipulated, molded for nefarious purposes. Like the battle-ready version of Frankenstein’s monster.

  For killing him, I refuse to feel remorse, although sometimes the aftermath of having taken a life, even one as twisted as his, affects me in unexpected ways. For one, I’m no longer an innocent.

  Like Maggie, my virtue was stolen from me long ago. Like her, I’ve lost something treasured inside myself. Sometimes it’s all I think about.

  Nowadays, the part of me who once knew restraint, she’s gone. Bred clear of me. The new me feels slightly out of control. Slightly manic. Controlled more by emotions than logic or common sense. The way I’ve been behaving since I received my DNA upgrades, it’s unsettling at the very least. Take right now, for example—what I want most, what I’m absolutely panting inside over, is the need to pull the guts clean out of the rapist music executive until he’s dead, dead, dead.

  Why?

  Because he’s like Gerhard’s war model: inhuman, unconscionable.

  Of course, this is my anger talking. It’s me wanting to avenge a friend. It’s me desperate to do something to save Maggie from all this pain, even if it adds one more mistake to my rapidly mounting stack of impossible mistakes.

  Still, says the little voice in my head, there must be justice. And I agree. The little voice says, there are other, more permanent ways to exact your vengeance. I think to myself, yes there are.

  Yes, there most certainly are…

  4

  “Are you going to miss your family?” I finally ask. At this point, I really don’t know what else to say, I just don’t want her to sit there not talking anymore.

  “No,” Maggie replies, stoic.

  Inside, I’m hoping to somehow revive our conversation, but deep down, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. Already I can feel her depression bearing down on me. In a tug of war, I’m sure I’m going to lose. Actually, I’m positive.

  “Is Blake’s mom nice?” I ask.

  Without any significant signs of life, she shrugs her shoulders and suddenly I’m thinking, if she’s going to be like this all summer, I’d better text Margaret and tell her to keep some extra bottles of Xanax around.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I say. “Come home with me?”

  The question sparks something inside her, perhaps awakening the old Maggie. Her face lifts in the weakest of smiles, then she looks at me and says, “I just need a distraction. Are there any cute boys in Palo Alto?”

  “Yeah,” I say, relieved she’s trying to get back to the world of the living. “Absolutely.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Uh, Stanford’s nearby, for starters. And my neighbor’s cute, but he’s douchey. Then again, there’s a decent chance him and I will go on at least one date. I’m sure I’ll tell him to take a freaking hike, though.”

  “If he’s cute, why tell him to take a hike?”

  “Of all the people who teased me most when I was fat Savannah, he was the worst. A real blue-ribbon prize. Even though he’s super good looking, I can’t stop seeing him as that boy I once liked but grew to hate. It’s weird, I’m dysfunctional, and he’s sort of a butthole.”

  “Then why date him?”

  “He was my first crush. Going on a date, it’s kind of like I’m getting him out of my system, you know? Or maybe he’ll be different and I’ll like him.”

  “Boys are like th
at. Sometimes they suck, other times they surprise you.”

  “On the flip side, if I can get him to like me enough, then I can torture him, too,” I say with a mischievous grin. “Really make him hurt. So that’s a dark and wicked idea I’m considering.”

  She looks at me, her entire demeanor completely still, like she can’t believe it. I’m looking back like, yeah, believe it bitch, but in a bestish-friend kind of way.

  “He’s not the only dick in town, though,” I explain. “Like I said, Stanford is nearby and we look old enough for college guys now. Certainly pretty enough.”

  Sadly, almost sheepishly, she says, “I don’t know why I’m even asking about boys, I doubt I’ll even have time for dating. I have to work on my album.”

  Um, hello depression, I haven’t missed you.

  “Have you always wanted to sing?” I ask, trying to stay the gloomy side of her. “Professionally I mean?”

  Again, she shrugs her shoulders. These kind of non-committal answers remind me I don’t really know the real Maggie. The deeper parts of her anyway. She has this thing where she keeps most of herself to herself most of the time, and it makes it hard to connect. The fact that she’s like this, even with people she considers friends, speaks to her inner demons, and how tortured and betrayed she must feel.

  “Seriously, Mags. I want to know about your singing.”

  She turns and looks at me, like she’s trying to read my thoughts. Memories of her getting teased about the demo of her first single spring to mind. How her step-sister Blake took pleasure in humiliating her in front of the entire school. Forget that the radio version of her debut single sounds amazing; it was that rotten little bitch who aired an early, not-so-good YouTube version in the cafeteria for everyone to hear twice that really set Maggie on edge. Like playing it the first time wasn’t torture enough. The fact that Blake played it twice attests to the awfulness of her character.