Emerald: Hey peoples!!!
Me: Hey, that's my line! You're the one who rudely buts in!!!
Emerald: I thought we should change it around a bit.
Me: But that's completely pointless!!!
Emerald: It's not really…
Me: Why are you making us swap roles???
Emerald: Because…
Me: What are you sick of me or something?
Emerald: No but-
Me: Do you want me to make you die? Because I have that happy power you know!
Emerald: I'M SICK OF DOING THE DISCLAIMERS THE BORE THE HELL OUT OF ME NOW LEAVE ME ALONE! *Jumps out window and flys to Berlin randomly*
Me: Aw, well. Guess I'm disclaiming! I don't own Max Ride, but I own Emerald, her flock and the plot.
I was curled up in the bottom of my cage, crying. It was my fault, my fault. They're all gonna die…
"It isn't your fault." Angel said, reading my thoughts.
It is, it is, it is…
"Emerald, it's not." Dreamer said, "Poppy and Chase are just a bit angry."
With me.
"With the whitecoats." Angel said, rolling her eyes.
"Why are you so determined to blame yourself for everything?" Iggy said.
Because it's my fault.
"Emerald, it isn't." Angel said forcefully.
"That was major news you just got, you weren't exactly ready for a fight." Nudge said.
"Mmmm…" I muttered, feeling slightly better.
"I think we should just concentrate on getting out of here." Max said, trying to sound strong and leaderly while being bent almost double in a cage.
And then the only thing guaranteed to make me mood worse sauntered over. Emerald two.
"Hey, miss me." She jeered, bending down and looking in at me.
"Oh, yeah." I said sarcastically, "It sucks without you around."
"So do you, Emerald." She said, grinning scarily, "You've just wrecked any chances of survival. There getting the Erasers ready as we speak. It started off only they were going to die," I motioned to Max's flock, "But know you've killed your friends as well. You're a frickin' loser. I can't believe I'm your double. I'm probably a million times smarter than you. But that wouldn't be hard. You have the brain of a dead earwig."
I don't know what it was, but right then I got so angry. I couldn't swallow. I could hardly breathe. Everything else I could see faded away. Everything except her face.
She's nothing like me, I thought, she looks like me, she talks like me. That's the only thing similar between the two of us. We're two completely different people. And still the only thing I could see was her face. So I did the only thing that made sense. I raised my fist, and punched her as hard as I could in her nose.
***
I heard a weird crunching noise as her nose broke. Blood was flowing out of it like a river. She started swearing angry, kicking my cage.
"You little Bitch!" She yelled, red blood all over her face, and through the red I saw a more pinky shade. She was blushing, embarrassed that I had broke the "magnificent clones" nose. Magnificent my ass.
"You know, I don't think we look that alike." I said, "Because, last time I checked, my face wasn't that red." She kicked my cage again.
"Leave it, subject 19." The director, my frickin' aunt, said. Scowling at me, the fake me walked over to where the fake Poppy was standing.
"You are so like Megan." The director said, bending down to look at me. Then she said jealously, "You've even got wings like her. Though not the same colour."
"Well, what's your point?" I said, "You have them too. Or have you told your geeky friends that teensy tiny detail?"
She sighed, then looked me straight in the eyes.
"No, Emerald. I don't. I've never had wings."
***
"Huh?" I said, puzzled. Why would my aunt not have wings? It was kinda obvious it ran in the family, what with Charlotte and I having them and all.
The director sighed, then said, "When I found out I was getting a little sister, I was five years old, the same age as your friend Jake." She looked at him, and he gave her the finger. I blame Iggy and Gazzy. Her eyes closed briefly, then she opened them, speaking to me again. "Nine months came and went, and then I had a little sister, Megan.
Three months after her birth, she went missing from our back garden while our mother was inside. We looked for months; finally clarifying we were never going to find her. My father, mother and I moved on.
Almost ten years after her disappearance, she returned to us, telling stories about a place called the school and about being tortured there. We wouldn't have believed her, if it weren't for the fourteen foot wings that had appeared on her back." I sucked in a breath. My mom had went through all the pain I had? Probably more, since she didn't have wings when she was born.
"My parents were overjoyed. Although they had missed most of her childhood, they were so happy to have her back, safe. As our parents bought her gifts and affection, I was shunted to one side.
I left school and started working in a laboratory, doing tests on animals. On my thirtieth birthday, I heard some more news guaranteed to make me hate my sister more than I did already. She was getting married and had already started a child.
She got married and had a little girl, which she named Charlotte. Seven years after, she had another child. You, Emerald." She paused, as if she expected me to yell something like Oh my god, moi?" But since I didn't, she continued.
"I knew by now that I worked at the school. I knew we experimented illegally on humans. I decided I'd had enough. As your father was driving home from work, I shone a spotlight in his eyes. He swerved and was killed." Now rage was surging through me. This manic had killed my father.
"Ever since I killed your father, I had been thinking and thinking about Megan, about how she had always been more beautiful, more loved than me. Then I got news that gave me a perfect reason to do what I had been battling with myself for two years. I got a phone call from Megan, who had no idea where I worked, saying that she had been promoted at work and was going to work at the New York Times. I cracked. I sent Erasers to your house in Arizona, telling them to take the youngest daughter, my niece. I gave them permission to do whatever they had to do to get you."
I was shaking. No, no, please don't say what I think you're going to say…
She looked at me, her brown eyes, so like my mom's, meeting mine.
"I guess, in a way, I killed your mother."
All done! Nothing much to say here. I got a phone call from Emerald. She's flying back from Berlin soon. Next chapter coming soon.
IwriteUread.