Chapter 36
Alicia
For a second, I thought I was losing my mind. The voice on the other side of the door sounded exactly like mine. Not close. Not similar. Identical.
Marcus turned sharply toward me. “Tell me you heard that too.”
I nodded slowly. My throat had gone dry. Damon’s hand rested on his gun, his body rigid as he stared at the door.
“Alicia,” the voice called again, soft, almost pleading. “Please. I need to talk to you.”
My heart slammed in my chest. It wasn’t a recording. Whoever it was sounded real, right there on the porch.
Damon’s eyes met mine. “You stay here,” he said.
“I’m not staying anywhere,” I whispered.
“Alicia...”
“If that’s someone pretending to be me, I need to see who it is.”
Marcus moved closer to the door, gun raised. Damon signaled for him to wait, then glanced at the front window. The curtains shifted slightly in the draft. No shadow outside. No movement.
He reached for the door handle.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice trembling.
He opened it anyway. The porch light flickered once before steadying. The night air rushed in, cold and damp. For a heartbeat, the doorway looked empty. Then a figure stepped forward. It was me.
Or it looked like me. Same hair, same clothes I’d worn yesterday, even the same faint scratch on my wrist. She stopped under the light, and I swear I felt my knees go weak.
Damon raised his gun instantly. “Don’t move.”
The other me didn’t flinch. She looked straight at him, then at me, her eyes glassy with exhaustion. “Put it down,” she said, her voice calm. “You’re making a mistake.”
“What the hell is this?” Marcus muttered.
I couldn’t speak. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the wall to stay upright.
The woman...my twin, my reflection, whatever she was took one small step closer. “You have to listen to me,” she said, eyes locked on me. “He’s lying to you.”
Damon’s voice was hard. “Who’s lying?”
She didn’t look at him. “Nathan.”
Something in the way she said his name made my stomach twist.
“Who are you?” I managed to whisper.
“I’m you,” she said. “The part he tried to erase.”
Damon’s grip tightened on the gun. “You’ve got ten seconds to start making sense.”
She slowly reached into her coat pocket and pulled out something small...another flash drive. “There’s more,” she said. “Everything he didn’t show you is on this.”
Marcus stepped forward. “Put it down.”
She knelt and placed it on the porch floor. “You want answers? Start there. But I’m warning you, once you see it, you can’t go back.”
Damon’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll understand,” she said. Then she looked at me again, softer this time. “He’s not who you think he is, Alicia.”
The words made my chest ache. “You’re lying,” I said, though my voice shook.
“Am I?” she asked quietly. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? The videos, the gaps in your memory. You’ve felt it.”
I swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”
But before she could answer, something flashed from the trees beyond the porch. A light. Then a gunshot.
Damon reacted first, pulling me down behind the wall. Marcus fired toward the darkness, shouting something I couldn’t make out. Glass shattered as a bullet tore through the window. The other me stumbled backward, clutching her shoulder.
“Get her inside!” Damon yelled.
Marcus ran out, grabbed her, and dragged her through the doorway. She fell onto the floor, gasping, her hand slick with blood.
I crawled closer, heart racing. “You’re shot.”
She smiled faintly, pain twisting her features. “He found me.”
“Who?” Damon demanded.
Her eyes flicked toward him. “Nathan.”
Marcus was already at the window, scanning the yard. “He’s gone.”
Damon crouched beside her. “Why come here? Why now?”
She coughed weakly. “Because you weren’t supposed to open the grave.”
That made him freeze. “You left the note?”
She nodded. “It was the only way.”
I looked between them, completely lost. “The only way to do what?”
“To stop him before he finishes what he started,” she said.
Her breathing was uneven, blood soaking through her sleeve. Damon ripped part of his shirt and pressed it against her wound. “You’re not dying here. Not until you tell me what this is.”
She met his eyes, then looked at me again. “You need to see the drive,” she whispered. “You’ll know the truth.”
Her body went still.
“Damon,” I said, my voice breaking.
He pressed harder against the wound. “Stay with me.”
But her eyes had already glazed over.
Marcus swore under his breath and grabbed the phone. “Calling the medic.”
Damon just knelt there, staring at her face. It was like watching him look into a mirror he didn’t want to believe was real.
I stood slowly, backing away, my head spinning. “That was me,” I whispered. “She looked exactly like me.”
Damon didn’t look up. “I know.”
“That’s not possible.”
He finally turned to me, his voice low and hoarse. “Alicia, I think it is.”
I shook my head. “You think I have a twin? That I didn’t know about? That’s insane.”
“She said Nathan erased her,” Damon said quietly. “Maybe he didn’t just fake his death. Maybe he created her.”
“Created her?” I repeated. “You’re talking like she’s not human.”
He met my eyes. “What if she isn’t?”
Before I could respond, the front lights flickered again. The power wavered, then went out completely.
Marcus cursed. “We’ve lost the grid.”
The house plunged into darkness, only the faint glow from the dying laptop screen lighting the room. Damon stood, gun raised, every muscle tense.
Then the sound came again. Three slow knocks.
This time, from the back door.
My pulse hammered. “It can’t be her,” I whispered.
Damon motioned for Marcus to cover the hallway. “Stay behind me.”
He moved toward the kitchen, each step measured. I followed close, clutching the wall. My mind was spinning with everything that had just happened, with the woman’s face, her voice, her blood on my floor.
Another knock. Louder.
Damon turned the handle and opened the door halfway, gun ready.
Outside stood a man. The porch light flickered weakly back on, enough for me to see the face. Nathan.
He smiled. “Took you long enough.”
Damon raised the gun, but Nathan only lifted his hands slightly. “Relax. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
My whole body went cold. Seeing him alive didn’t feel real. His skin looked pale, his eyes sharper than I remembered from the photographs of the sports promotion he had done.
“What did you do to her?” I demanded.
Nathan’s gaze shifted to me. “Which one?”
Something in his tone made my stomach drop.
Damon stepped forward. “You set this up.”
Nathan tilted his head. “I only told the truth. You were the one who started digging.”
“What are you after?” Damon asked.
Nathan smiled faintly. “The truth. Same as you. But unlike you, I know how to find it.”
He looked at me again, his expression softening almost kindly. “She doesn’t know yet, does she?”
“Stop talking,” Damon snapped.
Nathan ignored him. “Alicia, tell me something. Do you ever wonder why you don’t remember your life before three years ago?”
I froze. “What?”
His smile deepened. “Because you weren’t alive before then.”
Damon fired. The shot exploded through the air, but Nathan was already gone, disappearing into the trees like a shadow swallowed by the night.
I stood there shaking, staring at the empty doorway, the echo of his words pounding in my head.
You weren’t alive before then.
I looked at Damon, searching his face for some kind of denial, some comfort. But all I saw was fear.