“You are my ideal clone. Strong and agile like a Similar, with an extra-special skill: mind control. Once we can make others exactly like you, and use this technique to copy some of the greatest and most powerful men and women in this country…”

“You’ll have succeeded,” I say, the words tumbling out of me and tasting like poison on my tongue. “So what now?” I face Seymour, forcing him to look at me. To really see me. “You kill her? Because she’s my original, and therefore, she’s expendable?”

I hear my father gasp.

“Dad,” I croak. But when I search his face, there’s no response. Emma meets my eyes, silent, and I know what she’s not saying. He’s dead. That gasp was his last one.

I look back up at Seymour, ready to rail at him, but he isn’t there. Maybe he left—too much of a coward to stand there and face me. Or maybe a Similar has grabbed him and shot him. I hope so.

Staring back down at my dad’s lifeless face, I focus all my rage and pain on Gravelle. “You sick bastard,” I sob, letting myself open like a faucet, the tears for my father pouring out of me unchecked. “He was your roommate,” I shout. If I thought I wanted Gravelle dead before, there’s no contest now. I have never felt this much rage in my entire life. “He was kind to you.” I shake. “He cared about you. And this is how you repay him?”

“I repaid him already, and then some,” Gravelle responds. “I delivered Eden to him. Didn’t I?”

I charge at Gravelle, bearing down on him, knocking his cane from his hand. Maude’s at my side in an instant, pulling me off him.

“Save your energy,” she tells me. “He’s an old, sick fool…”

“I thought you shot him,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I did,” she answers quietly as I step back from Gravelle, watching him shakily reaching for his cane.

“Then where’s the wound?” I demand.

I get my answer in moments, as three other Gravelles stride into the room and surround this Gravelle.

“I must have shot his Duplicate,” Maude explains, her voice tight.

“You mean—”

“These aren’t soulless, blank Duplicates. They’re…”

Like me, I almost say out loud. Full of their original’s thoughts and memories. But I hold it in.

I understand exactly who they are, what they are. They’re an insurance policy for him. If one dies, there are more.

“It will be harder to eradicate me than you thought,” the Gravelle in the middle of the circle says. Our Gravelle—or is he? He’s got his cane back and is leaning on it. The ones who circle him don’t hold canes, I now realize.

Which means he’s our original.