The Other Morgan (Parallel Series, Book 5) Read online

  DM’s voice floated into the space—a voice filled with despair. “If you can hear me, please come and get me right away.”

  Hopelessness swelled inside me, and I was so caught up in the moment that when Nick paused the video, I blinked, unsure for a moment where I was. I glanced around the living room, and when I realized I wasn’t the one locked in a cell, relief flooded me.

  Chapter Four

  “Let’s take a short break,” Nick said.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Nick offered to get me something to drink, which I readily accepted, and after ten minutes of replaying the scenes in my head, I turned to Nick with a frown. “Why did Lori lie about Morgan’s weight? How did she even know her?”

  “Lori went to Morgan’s school—your school.”

  “I was supposed to start at a new school in two days.”

  “Yes, well, that’s where Lori went as well. Evidently the two girls didn’t get along and this was Lori’s way of getting back at Morgan for something or another.”

  “That’s so wrong.”

  He smiled. “Nothing about the F.A.T. centers are right, you realize.”

  “I’m beginning to.” I paused as I remembered Morgan’s voice filling the room at the end of the last clip. “Who was Morgan talking to? When she was in that cell?”

  “The people she was working with—the ones who gave her the camera. Evidently they told her the camera might be able to access the wi-fi in Camp Willowmoss and upload the video. She told me she was hoping they’d hear it and come rescue her.” He frowned. “I don’t think they heard it, but even if they did, there wasn’t much anyone could have done for her at that point.”

  A sensation of sisterhood with DM came over me. It was almost like a part of me had gone through what she had, and my throat ached. I was so glad it hadn’t actually been me in there.

  “Before we continue,” Nick said, “I want to show you the news conference that took place after Morgan was taken out of that cell. Morgan didn’t take any video, so this is all from the perspective of the media.”

  A moment later I saw DM being escorted into a large space. Fascinated by her appearance—she looked so much like me, although different too. She was a bit heavier than me, which rounded out her face, and her hair was darker and shorter than mine, and she wore glasses. But still, I recognized her. There were shouts of “Morgan” coming from the reporters, but then a voice I recognized shouted my—her—name. The camera swung to the left and I saw Mom, Dad, and Amy. They looked so distraught as they called out to DM.

  The camera focused back on DM as a pair of Enforcers—Enforcers I hadn’t seen before—walked DM to a chair, then after pushing her to sit in it, they cuffed her legs to the chair. A moment later a man strode up to a podium and began talking. He seemed quite pleased with himself and the fact that he had DM in custody. He explained how they’d caught her, and then announced that she would be transferred to Camp Stonewater, a facility with higher security.

  “Can I at least tell my family good-bye?” DM called out, and the man—Tasco—agreed.

  I watched as DM, with the Enforcers right behind her, went to my parents and my sister. With her hands bound behind her back, she wasn’t able to return their hugs, but as I watched their reunion, tears filled my eyes.

  A short time later the Enforcers escorted DM to a waiting vehicle, and a moment later she was gone.

  “Are you ready to watch the rest?” Nick asked. “The part where Morgan’s in Camp Stonewater?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “To get you up to speed, Morgan told me that when she first arrived at Camp Stonewater, the people there fed her several of the drug-laced power bars. Then a woman named Holly—who you’ll see in a minute—and a man named Fred questioned her about the resistance group she’d been working with. Fortunately she didn’t tell them all that much, and they brought her to her room and let her sleep off the drugs. That’s where this video picks up.”

  I nodded, feeling angry at Holly and Fred on Duplicate Morgan’s behalf.

  Nick started the video, and a moment later a woman walked into what looked like a bedroom, then sat on a bed across from DM. I assumed the woman was Holly. She asked DM how she was feeling, and told her that they needed her to help them. DM laughed at the suggestion, and I smiled. Why would she want to help them? Then Holly said something that grabbed my attention.

  “Morgan, you seem to think this is all just a game, but you have to understand that the people in charge are deadly serious.” She leaned forward and raised her eyebrows. “Deadly.”

  Duplicate Morgan’s laughter stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?”

  Holly sat back and looked more relaxed. “I mean, between you and me, they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the status quo. They’re well aware of the resistance groups out there that want to change the way the government has chosen to run things. To control things, one might say. And they want to stop those groups. Those groups represent an annoyance that they just don’t want to have to deal with anymore.” She paused. “They’ve had enough, Morgan. They want to put a stop to these groups once and for all.”

  I glanced at Nick and saw that he was watching the screen intently.

  Holly told DM that unlike Camp Willowmoss, she would have no freedom at Camp Stonewater—unless she cooperated. Then she told DM to take some time to think it over.

  In the next part, Holly came back into the room and asked DM for her decision. DM flatly said no. Pride for my clone pounded through me, but fear was close behind it. What would they do to her?

  In moments Holly returned, but she wasn’t alone. A pair of Enforcers and a woman in a lab coat were with her. DM obviously tried to run past the group, but one of the Enforcers easily stopped her.

  “Remember,” Holly said calmly, “you wanted this.”

  My heart pounded as I waited to see what would happen.

  Seconds later, DM collapsed to the ground. From the vantage point of the camera I couldn’t tell what was happening, but after a moment Holly said, “You’ll be fine, Morgan.”

  Tendrils of fear slithered up my spine at the tone of her voice, and I knew something awful was in store. The clip ended and I turned to Nick. “What did they do to her?”

  His expression was grim. “They inserted a device into the base of her skull.”

  “A device? What do you mean? What does it do?”

  His expression darkened. “You’ll see in a minute.”

  I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to see anything at all. I wanted to return to my normal, quiet, boring life. Not in the home of a resistance leader who was showing me the horrific things that had happened to DM—which everyone would believe had happened to me.

  Despite my reluctance to witness whatever was about to happen, the video played on.

  Holly entered the room. Knowing that she had orchestrated the insertion of some device into the base of Duplicate Morgan’s skull, I recoiled at the sight of her. I could only imagine how DM felt.

  Holly asked her if she’d made a wise decision, and DM said she would prefer to stay in her room. Admiration for another world’s version of me swept over me, and I suddenly had a great desire to get to know her. Then I realized that I could be her. She was me, after all. We shared the same DNA. Why couldn’t I be as brave and strong as her?

  Holly was obviously unhappy with Duplicate Morgan’s answer, and after leaving for a moment, she returned with the same two Enforcers that had been there for every other Camp Stonewater video. Both men were tall and muscular, and I didn’t think I’d ever forget their impassive faces. They approached DM, bound her hands, escorted her out of her room and into what looked like an interrogation room, then left her there.

  “Morgan was left alone for quite a while,” Nick said. “My technical people cut out the section of the video where Morgan waited.”

  I nodded, and watched as Holly and a man I hadn’t seen before came into the room with one of the Enforcers behind him.

  “That man
is Fred,” Nick said.

  Holly set a small case on the table, then she and Fred sat across from DM while the Enforcer stood against a wall. Fred began asking DM questions, but she didn’t respond. Fred sighed, then looked at Holly and nodded once. Holly picked up the small device that she’d placed in front of her and tapped the screen. DM screamed, and I could tell that she was in excruciating pain. I cried out as well, horrified to know that they were torturing her. My heart hammered against my ribs and adrenaline pounded through my veins. I wanted to reach out and help DM somehow, but knew that was impossible.

  The camera went to a crazy angle as if DM had slid out of her chair and her glasses had fallen off. A moment later DM stopped screaming, and then she sat upright. A pair of large hands came into the frame as someone—I assumed the Enforcer—placed Duplicate Morgan’s glasses back on her face.

  My heart still raced and I silently prayed that this was almost over. But it wasn’t. Fred continued to batter DM with questions, and Holly pressed the button on her device two more times. If it had been me, I would have been spilling my guts like nobody’s business, but to Duplicate Morgan’s credit, she resisted. She told them a few things, but it didn’t seem like critical information.

  Finally Fred and Holly left DM alone. My shoulders slumped in relief.

  Then Holly came back and I tensed, waiting to see what the evil woman would do.

  “You did okay, Morgan,” Holly said as she sat across from DM. “We still need your help though.” She smiled. “Tomorrow you’re going on a little field trip. You’re going to help us find Brynn.” Her smile grew. “I know you’ll be eager to cooperate. We’ll leave first thing in the morning, so make sure you’re ready.”

  The Enforcer—Holly called him Mills—undid Duplicate Morgan’s hands. Then Holly walked DM to her room, told her to be ready in the morning, and left. A moment later I saw Duplicate Morgan’s face as she stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale and streaked with tears.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t stronger,” she murmured. The screen went blank.

  Chapter Five

  Nick turned off the TV. “That’s the end of it.”

  “How did she escape? The letter didn’t say.”

  He told me how DM had been at a high school with Holly and an Enforcer looking for the girl named Brynn, and how DM had managed to snatch the torture device out of Holly’s hand before running away. “Someone from my team—” he began. “That is, the Enforcer who caught Morgan after she got away from Holly . . . he’s actually on my team. When he caught up to Morgan she put up quite a fight and he had to sedate her before bringing her here.”

  Having trouble processing everything, I nodded, then I thought about the girl they’d been after at the school. “What about Brynn?”

  “Thankfully, they didn’t catch her.” He gazed at me a moment. “How are you feeling?”

  Rattled, overwhelmed, terrified I’ll be captured and tortured. “I think I’d like to be alone for a while.”

  “I understand.” He stood and left the room.

  I stared at the screen where I’d witnessed the most horrific things I’d ever seen in my life. Though I’d always had a vague idea of what happened to those who went to Federally Assisted Thinning centers, I’d never really understood what truly went on in the buildings I’d driven past any number of times. Even when my own father was taken to a F.A.T. center, I’d imagined him going to a place where people would help him learn better eating and exercise habits. Not be terrorized by the people who were supposed to help him.

  Dad. The thought of him suffering like DM made me sick and I wanted to be with him and the rest of my family. But first I had to come to terms with my reality. Nick had told me that this video was on the Internet and that it had been viewed by tens of thousands of people and that the number of views was growing rapidly.

  Every single person who viewed that video would think it was me that had recorded it, me who had been tortured, me who had escaped the F.A.T. centers.

  The people viewing the video included my enemies. People I’d never met, but people who hated me. People like Hansen and Holly. People who were certain to be furious that I’d managed to escape them not once, but twice.

  People I feared now with every fiber of my being.

  I imagined meeting those people face to face and my body began to tremble. Coldness seeped into my bones and a sheen of sweat coated my skin. They would taser me, insert the torture device into the base of my skull, and then Holly would press the button that would send me into throes of agony. And she would enjoy it. It would be like retribution against DM for getting away from her.

  My stomach clenched and I raced to the bathroom, but I managed to hold down the contents of my stomach. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Haunted eyes in a pale face stared back. Fresh anger at DM tore through me and I wanted to throttle her, but since that was an impossibility, I stewed in my fury instead, momentarily hoping that she was suffering back in her world.

  Even as those thoughts came to mind I couldn’t help but admire her bravery in going back into Camp Willowmoss to help Amy. She’d put herself in peril to help my sister. Yes, Amy was in Camp Willowmoss because of DM, but she didn’t have to go back inside. She could have left Amy there and simply gone back to her own world.

  Yet she didn’t. If she’d known what was going to happen would she have made the same decision? Somehow I thought she would. She seemed like that kind of person.

  What would I have done? Ashamed to admit that I might have been too afraid to go back inside, even to help my own sister, I looked away from my reflection and stared at the white sink.

  All my life I’d been careful to follow the rules set up by society. Though I occasionally forgot to weigh myself, when Mom would receive a text telling her that my weight was overdue, I would immediately jump onto the government-provided scale, align the retinal scanner with my eyes, and stand still until the machine stated my weight.

  I’d never wanted the Enforcers to take notice of me, and now, I was certain, I was their number one target. All because of DM. Rage sparked inside me and I lifted my gaze to stare at myself again.

  “Morgan?” Nick called from the other side of the bathroom door.

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to talk some more.”

  What else was he going to tell me? And could I take it? “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “I’ll be in the living room.”

  His footsteps faded away. I turned on the faucet and splashed cool water on my face, attempting to wash away all the emotions swirling inside me. It didn’t work. Patting my face dry with the soft green towel, my fear and anger only grew.

  Of all the people who had to come from another world, why did it have to be my clone? And why did she have to make such a mess of my life?

  Logically I knew it wasn’t completely her fault. Lori had admitted that she’d lied about Duplicate Morgan’s weight in order to get her thrown into the F.A.T. center, but did DM have to make such an effort to grow her list of enemies? People who were now my enemies?

  No, she could have laid low, stayed under the radar—my preferred method of operation—and finished her time in Camp Willowmoss. Her letter had said something about dates being important when it came time to get home, so I kind of understood why she couldn’t wait around in Camp Willowmoss. But still, did she have to make such a spectacular escape? One where she stabbed an Enforcer? An Enforcer? The very people I feared the most.

  Sighing loudly, I finished in the bathroom, then went to see what other bad news Nick had for me.

  Chapter Six

  When I entered the living room I saw that Nick had set out a plate of sandwiches along with fresh fruit and glasses of ice water.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked with a kind smile.

  I shrugged. “A little, I guess.”

  “Good.” He gestured to the food. “Please help yourself.”

  I picked up the glass of water and took a sip.
“What did you need to talk to me about?” I wanted to get this over with. I wanted to see my family.

  “You may have noticed that Morgan’s hair is shorter and darker than yours.”

  An image of Duplicate Morgan being escorted by a pair of Enforcers at the news conference came to mind. Yes, her hair looked very different from mine. Then the point of his comment hit me. Nick wants me to cut my hair.

  My hands sprang to my hair and I slid my fingers through the long strands. I loved my long hair. It was my best feature. I really, really didn’t want to cut it.

  Nick held up a pair of scissors. “I’m sorry, Morgan.”

  Frantically thinking of an excuse to keep it long, I said, “But if the Enforcers think I have short, dark hair, wouldn’t it be better to keep it like this? Maybe they won’t recognize me.”

  “How will you explain to your family how your hair suddenly grew?”

  “Hair extensions?”

  He laughed. “If your hair is long you’ll be inviting some very uncomfortable questions.” He smiled. “Besides, you can always grow it again, right?”

  Clearly, he’d never tried to grow his hair out. It had taken me years to get it this long. “I’ll think about it.” That was all I was willing to commit to.

  His smile dimmed. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to see your family until you cut it.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Look, Morgan. Maybe you don’t realize how serious things have gotten, but we have to be smart about how we proceed. With the video going viral, you’re in the midst of becoming very well known. And not just by the Enforcers.”

  I hadn’t considered that. I’d heard of people becoming famous because of something they’d posted online, but I’d been too focused on processing what I’d seen to think beyond my immediate concerns. “What you’re saying is, not only do I need to know what happened to that girl while she was pretending to be me, but I need to look just like her?”