“How did you even get here?”
“A pilot.” Better she doesn’t know which one. “It doesn’t matter. He’s come and gone.” At least, she hoped he’d left. She was sorry she’d roped him into her plans to begin with. If anything happened to him . . . I can’t think about that. Anyway, I’m sure he’s long gone by now. He’d been itching to leave since the moment they’d landed, and she imagined Jim had taken her continued absence as an excuse to clear out— that is, if he’d gotten the plane repaired. She uneasily forced her thoughts away from the pilot. She had enough to handle here in this room.
Sophie leaned forward on her elbows. “I heard everything. About the Vitros. And Lux.”
Moira’s face was expressionless. “I’m aware.”
Sophie jumped out of her seat and slammed her hands onto the desk, sending loose papers flying. “How can you just sit there? How can you be so calm? You’re making slaves.”
“It’s not what you think,” Moira said softly.
“Not what I think? I heard every word in there!” She pointed toward the hallway. “How could you?” she whispered. She lowered her arm and curled her fingers into a fist. “It’s sick and it’s wrong.”
“Do not presume to lecture me, young lady.” Moira’s voice was low and dangerous, and she looked up at Sophie from beneath a rigid brow. “Sit down and tell me how you got here.”
Sophie sat, her back straight and her shoulders high with tension. “Does it matter? You’re going to send me back to Dad, anyway. Well, fine. Try it. But I’m not going back there. Dad doesn’t get me, doesn’t want to let me make my own decisions.” She drew a breath, pausing on the edge of the words, and then she jumped. “I wanted to work with you,” she said, all in a rush. “I wanted to be part of this—” she gestured at the walls around her “—and I argued with Dad about it for months. Now . . . now I don’t know what to think. Now that I’ve seen what you really do it’s like I don’t know you at all. And if I go back . . .” I’ll have to admit he was right all along, that you are untrustworthy and deceitful. All those years I defended you, and in the end, I was defending someone who didn’t exist. The only thing that outweighed the shame she felt for having to admit her father had been right was the hollow and shocked disappointment she felt when she looked at her mother.
Moira opened her mouth, then thought better of it and sighed, steepling her fingers under her chin. “This is bad. You were never supposed to be here.”
“At least now I know why you’ve been hiding the truth from me. You knew I’d hate you for it.”
“Sophie. You don’t hate me.”
She wanted to, and she thought she was very close to it, but when she tried to say it the words caught in her throat. “Whatever. How is this place even legal?”
“How long were you unconscious down there?” Moira’s brows drew together inquisitively. “Just when, exactly, did you arrive?”
“Yesterday. Someone knocked me out and put me in this.” She fingered the thin gown. “Next thing I know, I’m staring at that Russian guy. Kids, Mom? Really? You grow and sell kids? I saw the others—Caleb and Clive. They’re nothing but puppets. And Nicholas—what’s he got to do with it?”
Moira stiffened. “You met Nicholas? When?”
“Just tell me why,” Sophie whispered. “Why would you do something like this? Something so horrible? And what about Lux? Why is she . . . what is she to me?”
For once, Moira dropped her gaze and Sophie was certain there was a flicker of shame in her eyes. Her mother stared at an empty mug on her desk and absently fingered the tea bag tag that draped over the side. “Sophie . . . I’m sorry you saw this. Your father . . .” Her voice dwindled to a whisper, and she pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Your father was right about me.” She lifted her eyes, and they were filled with regret. Whether the regret was from her own guilt or just that she regretted that Sophie knew about her work, Sophie could not tell. Moira gave a short sigh and lifted her chin. “If Strauss knows you’re here, she’ll forbid you to leave. You’ll be stuck here for good. You’ve simply seen too much.”
“Strauss is a monster. I ought to tell her so, to her face.”
“No!” Moira rose to her feet and her nostrils flared as she exhaled in indignation. “You will not throw your life away. I won’t let you. This place—you’ve seen what it is. What it stands for. I won’t let you be a part of it.”
“You’re a part of it.”
“Strauss will never know you were here, and that is the end of this discussion. Now.” Moira put her hands on her hips. “Where is Lux?”
“I don’t know.”
“She isn’t downstairs with the other Vitros. I already looked.”
“Other Vitros?”
“There are twenty more of them who are still asleep. I found you this morning, when I was looking for Lux. You were lying unconscious in an empty room, arranged as if you’d been there—where she had been—all along. We need to find out who’s behind that. Few people have access to the sleeping Vitros. And speaking of Lux, she isn’t among them. So where is she?”
“I told you, I don’t know! I saw her last night, when I first got here. She was in that room, the same one I was in when I woke up and saw you and that Russian guy, and she was sleeping. That’s when someone hit me from behind.”
Moira pressed her hand to her mouth, her index finger tapping rapidly, as if she were hyped on too much coffee. “Then whoever hit you must have taken her and moved you downstairs. But why? And who?”
“Mom.” Sophie moved from her chair to the desk, and leaned across it so she could take her mother’s hands in hers. She looked Moira in the eye and felt her tears gathering. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice barely left her lips, a thin, pleading whisper.
Moira met her gaze for a moment, then broke it, turned her head aside and hid her expression. “It wasn’t supposed to be this. Not at first. But I lost control, Sophie. The Vitro Project slipped through my fingers and Strauss . . . no, not just Strauss, but Corpus . . . They changed it, made it what it is. Because that’s what they do.” She turned her head back, her eyes steely. “They consume you and bleed you dry and when they’ve exhausted you, they spit you out. You can’t win against them, because sooner or later you will always come to a line, a line you aren’t willing to cross—but they will. That’s how they win, every time. That’s why we can’t let them know you’re here. Corpus will swallow you whole, Sophie, and you’ll find yourself doing things you swore you’d never do.” She stared at her hands, still cupped in Sophie’s. “I came here to create. Instead, they’ve made me destroy. It’s not too late for you. Go home, forget about this place. Forget about me, if you must.”
Sophie pulled her hands away. The biggest questions of all still remained. “Why does Lux look like me? Is she a clone?”
“A clone? No, of course not. None of the Vitros are.” Moira twisted her fingers together, still staring at her hands. “She’s your twin sister.”
“Your own daughter.” Sophie felt cold all over. “How could you do that to your own child? Raise her in a tank? Strip away her will and sell her to a criminal who will just use and abuse her?”
“I . . .” Moira paused, licked her lower lip. “It’s not like that. When I . . . when I was pregnant . . . Lux was dying, Sophie. She was too weak and wasn’t going to survive. We almost lost her altogether, so we decided to give her the only chance she had—we made her a Vitro. We gave her life, at a cost, yes, but we gave it to her the only way we could. Anyway. That’s all in the past. You should forget about her.”
“How can I?” Sophie’s voice mounted in volume. She felt the urge to knock things off shelves, so she folded her arms tightly across her chest. “She’s my sister, apparently. Forget about her? Impossible!”