Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Stefanie Gaither
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Siblings
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
PROLOGUE
The Replacement
I took some of the flowers from my sister’s funeral,
because I thought her replacement might like them as a welcometo-the-family present.
An hour’s drive later, most of the velvety petals had little tears
and creases in them, because I couldn’t seem to get my fingers to
hold still. Mother had already fussed at me for dragging my nails
through the leather seats (you’ll leave scratches!), and for drawing
pictures on the foggy windows (those were just cleaned!), and when I
absently sent yet another piece of petal fluttering to the
floorboard, her hand snapped out and wrapped around my wrist
like a whip.
“Honestly, Catelyn, I wish you would stop fidgeting. There will
be nothing left of those flowers by the time we reach Huxley.”
I sank farther down into the seat. The seat belt cut into my
neck, but I ignored the burning and focused instead on the wobbly,
watery world outside my window. Any second, the towering gray
buildings of the Huxley Laboratory Compound would be coming
into view. Father was already there. He probably already had the
paperwork filled out. New-Violet was probably already waiting by
his side.
Not New-Violet, my mother’s voice scolded my thoughts. Our
Violet. The same, the one and only Violet.
She was right, of course. The girl we were picking up couldn’t
have been any more identical to the big sister I’d always known.
She was her perfect genetic copy. And thanks to Huxley’s
advancements in mind-linking and uploading technologies, this
Violet had all of the old one’s memories, too. She would fit right
in. It would be like my sister never left.
I was still nervous.
We reached the lab, and our driver pulled around to the front
entrance, parked, and went to Mother’s door with an umbrella.
Before he could come around to mine, I was already unbuckled
and halfway outside. I landed bright-yellow boots first in a huge
puddle, splashing bits of dirty water up my legs and onto the
ruffled hem of my dress. Mother glanced at me and plastered on a
smile. Her grip on her leather handbag tightened, but I knew she
wouldn’t scold me just then.
Not in front of the paparazzi.
And they were everywhere that day, in spite of the rain. For
security reasons, they couldn’t follow us inside the gates, but they
were still clinging to the metal bars, watching us, zooming in on
our lives with their shiny black cameras.
“Animals,” my mother said under her breath, her perfect smile
twitching just slightly. I hoped and prayed no one caught it on
camera. Because I could imagine the headline that would go with
her almost-grimace:
Wife of Mayor Benson Regrets
Controversial Cloning of Daughter.
And then yet another article underneath, detailing the evils of
cloning and of the entire Huxley corporation. More scathing words
to accuse my father of crooked morals, our family of setting a poor
precedent and dragging the entire city of Haven down with us.
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