I don't even know how I got to the dinning table or how I picked a chair. The second I drop onto a cushion, I'm knocked back to my senses.
Startled, I look at Aubrey.
Fixing Noah's plate at the end of the table, at his highchair, Aubrey slows to a stop and droops her head to the side. She frowns at me.
"Sorry." Stress, I'm sure, is slapped all over my face. I point down at the steak already on the plate in front of me. There's a slab of steak, I realize, on every plate around the table. "Should I sit here?"
Aubrey nods, distantly, thoughts elsewhere. "He's not eating with us, is he?"
I scoot my chair in. "He is."
Her mouth falls agape. "Really?"
"Really?" Leah's head snaps up. On the other side of the table, setting the last of the silverware, she frantically sizes up the room, does the math. If I'm sitting here, and if she sits over there, she has a fifty-fifty chance to sit—
"Leah," Aubrey says, "you can sit by Evette."
"But I like this side."
"Sure you do." Malcolm comes from the kitchen, carrying in a bowl of mashed potatoes. He shoots Leah a half-amused, half-stern glance. "Even though you always sit on the other side?"
Groaning, Leah clomps around the table. She jabs a finger at Malcolm as they breeze past each other. "Do not try to embarrass me, Dad, in front of everyone tonight."
"Hah. Whatever do you mean?" Standing over me, at the head of the table, Malcolm sets the bowl in the center, among the broccoli and rolls. His gaze turns down on my face, and he raises his eyebrows a few centimeters, wrinkling his forehead. He has cognac eyes. Kind. Intelligent. "You doing okay, scout? You're welcome to start fixing your plate."
"I'm fine. Thank you." I grab the serving spoon wedged in the potatoes and shovel on a heap.
Wriggling impatiently in the chair beside me, Leah huffs and pivots to examine the archway. "What's taking so long? Where are they?"
I pause. And we glimpse at one another, simultaneously.
She's right. They should be out here by now.
The pace of my breathing kicks up a notch. My heart gives one hard thud, pumping blood into my throat, into my temples.
What is he saying to Dax?
Leah purses her lips. "Well, I guess I could go check."
"Or," Malcolm says, still standing, pointing a roll at her before she can move, "you can sit tight and mind your own business. Ah, see?" He gestures towards the archway. "Here they come."
With a quick snap of her neck, she looks, expectantly. Her shoulders drop. She turns back to Malcolm, scowling. "Not funny, Dad."
"Now, here they come."
She falls for it again. Only this time, she nearly hops out of her chair. Eyes wide and agleam, she whirls back towards the table and does her best to focus on fixing her plate. But she can't, for the life of her, stop sneaking peeks.
Quickly, I busy myself with picking out a roll.
"Welcome." Malcolm smiles, gaze cast behind me.
"Everything smells great." Dax's voice comes from the right of me. He skirts around the table, on Aubrey's side. And, head to toe, she is glowing. As he makes his way past, she reaches out and gives Dax's hand a quick, subtle squeeze. He smiles back at her.
"Happy for you to join us," Malcolm says. "It's Trip, right? Just Trip?"
"Right." His voice—the smooth one, the nice one—is behind me, getting closer, on my left. "Malcolm?"
"Right." Malcolm grins and sticks out his hand. "Nice to finally meet you."
He draws beside me.
He shakes Malcolm's hand.
"Have a seat," Aubrey says, sitting herself. "David, I poured you some wine. Trip, would you like another glass? The bottle is there, by Malcolm." In front of me. "Help yourself. Evette, honey, would you like a refill, too?"
Swallowing the gulp I just took, I blink at Aubrey, but before I breathe a word, he's already towering over me. He takes the bottle. I watch in my periphery as he fills his empty glass, then tilts the bottle sideways towards me. Asking, offering.
I nod.
He fills the glass I'm holding, and all I can do is stare at his hand. His knuckles are still bruised, but healing fast. An old, faded scar curves around the outside of his thumb. I never noticed it before. But I've never really looked.
Neither of us say anything as he sets the wine bottle back on the table.
"Mom." Leah jerks around. "Can I have—"
"No."
"Not even half a glass? Everybody has wine but me."
"Not exactly true." Seated, Dax waves a hand at the highchair between him and Aubrey. "Baby Noah doesn't have any."
"Shut up, David."
I'm aware the ice-devil has made it around Malcolm's chair. I can hear him dragging out the seat in front of me. Once he's seated, being the last now, and he's settled back into his chair, I finally bring myself to look at him.
He's tense.
I can tell by the set of his shoulders, the muscles he keeps unclenching in his jaw. There's no sign of anxiety in his expression otherwise. Only calm, serious composure, with a backdrop of night and beating rain behind him, through the tall windows. Chilled, his pale eyes slide over the food laid out, steaming on the table—stop on the potatoes.
Abruptly, Dax reaches across Trip and snags the serving spoon. "Mmm, mashed potatoes, my favorite. Potatoes, milk, and butter, salt and pepper. Is that all you put in them, Aub?"
"Nothing fancy."
"They're great." Dax spoons some onto his plate. "Want some, Triple—uh, Trip'll, uh, like 'em for sure." He dips his head, and starts piling mashed potatoes on Trip's plate.
Trip closes his eyes too long to be a blink. When he opens them, he's looking at me. Annoyed.
I look away.
Making a face at Dax, Leah hands the broccoli bowl off to me. "Why are you getting so excited over plain old mashed potatoes?"
"I haven't had them in a while." He shrugs, stabs the spoon back into the mound of potatoes—still reaching over Trip—plucks the bowl up, and passes it to Aubrey. "At least, home cooked. I've been living off of restaurant food for the past few years."
"Maybe," Aubrey says, "if you visited more often..."
"I know. It's just hard to get away from work."
Malcolm has been quietly, intently monitoring everyone. Especially Trip. Elbows poised on the tabletop, he moves his interlocked fingers away from his mouth briefly to say, "Seems to keep you busy."
"Yep."
"Doesn't seem to keep you out of trouble."
"Yeah, well..."
"What do you know about me?" Trip asks.
The house hushes for him.
Other than Noah's smacking and the torrent of rain, all falls quiet and still. I have the immediate urge to face plant the table, and Dax, who seems just as nervous, if not more, gawks at Trip.
Malcolm and Aubrey exchange a glance.
And Trip's eyes flash between them. Gauging, reading. "If you don't mind me asking," he says, still using his nice voice.
"I've heard rumors." Malcolm remains perfectly at ease, as if he expected the question all along. "About you, I believe. Are you finished with the broccoli, Evette?"
I am, and I've just been sitting here, holding the bowl. I pass it to him, wordlessly. And Malcolm starts loading broccoli onto his plate while we wait for him to go on.
Trip's patience checks out around five seconds. "What rumors?"
"A big project."
Trip doesn't move, becomes stone.
"I've heard," Malcolm continues, "rumors of experimental training methods. Of course, all confidential. Something much, much more effective than Force training. Some shadowy individuals a hell of a lot better than Force agents, putting major dents in anti-Government organizations. Strange accidents, swept under the rug. Missing persons. Suicides and murders that really don't make—"
Aubrey cuts in. "Malcolm."
"All kinds of odd occurrences." He bows his head with the word. "And if we're correct in assuming you are one of those individuals, and you're here, not there, and you're in trouble, then maybe you're not a player, but perhaps a victim of the same system. I want to believe you didn't even know what you were getting into."
He offers Trip the broccoli bowl.
The fog that has crept into Trip's eyes clears with a blink. He looks across the table to scan me for my thoughts.
They don't know he's a duplicate. But they know a lot.
We both turn to Dax.
Biting his lips together, he attempts a smile. His fingers fidget like he thinks he might be in trouble.
"Were you aware of this?" Trip asks, low.
"They don't know everything." Swiftly, as Trip breathes a controlled sigh, Dax raises one hand as if swearing. "They guessed, and I couldn't tell them they were wrong. I know. I should have told you, but I didn't think you'd actually come right out and ask. I wasn't sure if you would be—"
"He told us it's been hard for you." Aubrey sounds like she's not sure if saying this helps or hurts. Her shoulders scrunch, but her expression is hopeful.
Trip looks at Dax again.
"Eve told me I should tell them you were stressed and weren't sleeping."
Everyone's attention zeros in on me.
Before I even set a stunned, furious stare on Dax, he's already wincing. "What I mean is..." He struggles to find a way out of the hole he keeps digging himself into. He resolves to speaking only to Trip. "I asked Eve what to tell them. We jointly decided on telling technically the truth, and I elaborated just a little on those points."
Aubrey's eyebrows furrow in confusion, and Malcolm's climb halfway up his forehead.
Technically the truth?
"It is the truth." Dax raises both his palms, speaking now to the whole room. "He really hasn't been sleeping well, he has been stressed, and they have been arguing."
A small, involuntary jolt zips up my spine, causing me sit up straighter. I ignore the perceptive way Trip just tilted his head. His star eyes burn holes through me. I refuse to meet them. I keep my attention trained on Dax, trying to transmit a mental distress signal for him to shut up.
"I'm not following," Malcolm says. "Who are you?"
When Trip doesn't answer, I realize Malcolm is talking to—"Me?"
"How do you fit into this?"
"I don't."
"Eve's a nurse," Dax blurts.
My entire body solidifies.
Those words crawl up my arms. I feel them tingle and prick, find their way into my bloodstream, into my brain, ransacking my emotions. I brace for impact—a white sheet billowing, sweeping over a body—and the sharp stab of pain in the pit of my stomach stops my breathing. I place one shaky hand flat on the hardwood tabletop. Try to keep myself grounded.
A jumble of faces, concerned and perplexed, stare back at me and wait for me to say something.
Lost, I look at Trip, the only one at the table who is not at all confused.
In a heartbeat, he fixes an icy glare on Dax. A crystal clear message: Shut. The fuck. Up.
Dax, taken aback, shuts up. Everyone does.
Because Trip has seized total control of the room. Static electricity, the tension that erupts from him, cracks and fizzes in the air. His eyes—ablaze like lightning—shift and target Malcolm, who has clasped his hands in front of his mouth again.
"She has nothing," Trip rumbles, "to do with this."
"I see." Malcolm stays calm, polite. He gives a purposeful nod, gaze flickering aside at me.
Quietly, barely a whisper, I say, "I don't want to talk about it."
"Let's not, then."
Trip sits back, and the tension releases in my chest. A slight tug and a drop, and the air empties. A sheet of frost snaps back over his eyes. His mask of composure slips back over his face.
But he has a hard time keeping the mask on. He can't relax his jaw now, no matter how much he tries. His breathing wanes and wavers, growing uneven as he loses the fight, little by little, to control it. He doesn't look at anyone.
Malcolm slowly, very slowly, falls back against his chair, arms dragging backwards with him over the table. He glances up at his wife, seeking confirmation whether she's seeing this, too. She definitely is.
We all are.
"Okay. I get it," Malcolm says with another bow of his head. "Evette is a touchy subject."