The Hunt by Kade Stacey

Author:Kade, Stacey [Kade, Stacey]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Young Adult, Love & Romance, Fantasy & Magic, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781423153290
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Published: 2014-04-22T07:00:00+00:00

IT WAS LIKE LOOKING IN A MIRROR. I'd heard full-blooded humans use that expression before, marveling at the resemblance of their offspring or horrified at seeing their own worst characteristics reflected in someone else.

But I’d never experienced it. Until now.

In all three of Laughlin’s hybrids, I could see pieces of myself. The pale skin, the dark eyes, the minimal nose and disproportionately small ears. It was disconcerting and also somehow a relief. Family. Connection. Proof that I wasn’t alone.

Looking at Ford, the female, though, it went beyond all of that. She was…me.

It made my breath catch in my throat, and I felt the ridiculous urge to wave to see if she would mimic the motion, just as a dutiful reflection would.

Or maybe I was the reflection.

I shook my head. How was this even possible? The obvious answer, under normal (a.k.a. human) circumstances would be twins. But we’d been made, not conceived. And even if someone had created two identical “samples”—I hated that term—I doubted that either Laughlin or Jacobs would have been much in a sharing mood with a competitor.

Next to me, I could feel the prickling of Zane’s discomfort. He thought it was unnatural. And it was. We were. Humiliation churned inside me. This was just one more explicit reminder that I was not of his kind. That he and I were not the same.

I told you, Mara’s voice drifted across my memory.

Mara. Both she and my father alluded to GTX and Laughlin Integrated regularly spying on one another. So, perhaps, then, our shared looks were simply a sign of successful corporate espionage. I could easily imagine Laughlin or Jacobs driven to act on the information gathered or materials stolen. Out of scientific curiosity, maybe. Or, more likely, a case of thumbing his nose at the other guy. Anything you can do, I can improve upon.

I wondered which I was—the chicken or the egg. It didn’t matter, really. But it felt like it did. Was I, on top of everything else, just an imitation of someone else’s creation?

Upon closer inspection, we weren’t completely identical. Ford might have been an inch or two taller. Her hair was paler than mine, but I was pretty sure that was only because she had not dyed it. Her eyes were the same penetrating darkness that I saw before I put my contact lenses in. She was more me than me, in that respect.

As they passed, Ford turned her head to look at me. Meeting her gaze sent a shockwave through me. It felt like falling forward into open space with no way to catch myself and only a vague idea of where the ground might be.

From this angle, I could now see that she bore a small, dark line on her right cheekbone, like a single hash mark. It appeared almost as though someone had written on her face, but it was too precise and permanent-looking to be someone’s carelessness with a pen.

Before I could figure out what to say or do, if

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