“For the record,” Brogan said after a bit, “I don’t want to kill you. But I will if I have to.”
He tried to make himself stare through the old guy, the way his father did when he was mad at him, but he couldn’t. Maybe his father would have had a much harder time with someone who looked exactly like him.
“What did Clay Verris tell you about me?” Brogan asked.
Junior kept his lips pressed together, refusing to answer.
“Okay, then, let me tell you about him,” the old guy went on. “I happen to know Mr. Verris very well. How did he start you out—hunting? Birds and rabbit, right? Then when you were about twelve, he moved you up to deer.”
Junior refused to look at Brogan, concentrated on keeping his face a stony mask. But he couldn’t help thinking the man saw something about him—his eyes, maybe his posture or even his breathing—that told him he was right.
“I’m guessing you were nineteen or twenty the first time he ordered you to shoot a person. Any of this ringing true? He also told you to lean into your fear because ‘you’re a warrior blessed with great gifts to defend the weak.’ Right?”
Junior forced himself to stand motionless and silent despite the anger building inside of him.
“But he just couldn’t stop the noise, could he?” Brogan said. “That secret part of you that always felt a little different than everybody else. The part that made you feel like a weirdo.”
“You don’t know shit!” Junior blurted, unable to help himself.
Brogan laughed. “Kid, I know you inside out and backwards. You’re allergic to bees, you hate cilantro, and you always sneeze four times.”
“Everybody hates cilantro,” Junior said, wondering if Brogan really didn’t know that.
The old guy kept talking. “You’re meticulous, thorough, disciplined, relentless. You love puzzles. You’re a chess player, right? Good, too, I bet. But you suffer from insomnia. Your mind never lets you sleep and even when it does, it attacks you with nightmares. I’m talking about those three-o’clock-in-the-morning, someone-please-save-me nightmares.”
Junior began hoping the ceiling would cave in; anything to shut the old guy up.
“And then there’s the doubts,” Brogan was saying. “Those are the worst. You hate them, and you hate yourself for having them because they make you feel weak. A real soldier doesn’t doubt, right? The only time you truly feel happy is when you’re flat on your belly about to squeeze a trigger. And in that moment, the world makes perfect sense. How do you think I know all of that?”
“I don’t give a shit how you know anything,” Junior told him contemptuously.
“Look at me, dummy!” Brogan shouted. “Look at us! Twenty-five years ago, your so-called father took my blood and cloned me. He made you from me. Our DNA is identical.”
“He’s telling you the truth,” Danny put in, her voice quiet and matter-of-fact.
“Shut up!” Junior shouted. Were the two of them high or merely batshit? Everybody knew Clay Verris had adopted him, it wasn’t any kind of big state secret. But what Henry had said about his DNA had to be a steaming pile of horseshit. It had to be.
Except it explained how Brogan had his face.
No, it was crazy. Even though they looked alike, it had to be crazy. Cloning wasn’t a real thing, not with humans.
“He chose me ’cause there’s never been anyone like me,” Brogan went on, “and he knew one day I was going to get old and then you’d step in. But he’s been lying to you the whole time. He told you that you were an orphan. And of all the people to send after me, why would he send you?”
“’Cause I’m the best,” Junior informed him.
“Oh yeah?” Brogan shocked him by putting the barrel of his gun right up to his ear. “You’re obviously not the best. For one thing, you’ve got a hard-ass head. But I guess this was supposed to be your birthday or something. I had to die and you had to do it. As long as I was alive, Clay’s little experiment was somehow incomplete. That’s the maniac you’re pulling the trigger for.”
“Shut your mouth about him,” Junior said, his anger and frustration turning to rage. “You’re just trying to rattle me.”
“I’m trying to save you,” Brogan replied. “What are you, twenty-three? And still a virgin, right? Dying to be in a relationship and connect, but terrified to let anyone near you because what if someone saw who you actually are. If they did, how could they ever love you? So everybody else are only targets, and you’re just a real good weapon.”
The bullshit psychoanalysis finally pushed him over the edge. Junior grabbed the end of Brogan’s rifle and yanked it toward himself, hard. Brogan came with it and Junior kneed him in the groin, making him let go of the weapon as he fell. Junior reached for it but Brogan surprised him by kicking it straight to Zakarewski, then gave him an elbow to the head. Junior sprawled on the dirty stone floor, rolled over quickly to see Brogan had drawn his commando knife; he flipped himself to a standing position and kicked it out of Brogan’s hand.
That blow hurt, he could see it in his face. This will hurt worse, Junior promised him silently as he lowered his head and charged him like a linebacker, driving both of them into the wall of bones.
The impact sent clouds of dust billowing into the air as the shelves collapsed and bones that had lain undisturbed for hundreds of years broke into pieces and flew in all directions. This was the perfect place for Brogan, Junior thought—buried under a mountain of old, forgotten bones. He pulled away from the old guy and his hand fell on a broken thigh bone with a viciously jagged end. Junior tried to jab it into Brogan’s throat and discovered Brogan had also found a jagged femur and was trying to do the same thing to him.
More bones cracked and scattered as he struggled to get on top of Brogan, trying to get the upper hand. He almost had him a couple of times but before he could drive the jagged bone into the old guy’s throat, Brogan would somehow find the strength to heave him off or go upside his head, or trap his leg and twist it, forcing him to let go before the old guy broke his knee. Junior just couldn’t get the better of him. But at least Brogan wasn’t getting the better of him, either—
“Drop it!” Zakarewski yelled suddenly, aiming the rifle at him. Junior looked at Brogan’s face covered with dirt and bone dust. Brogan’s face; his face. He couldn’t deny it, now or ever.
“Drop it!” Zakarewski yelled again, louder now. “I will shoot you!”
“Don’t shoot him!” Brogan yelled.
Junior saw her freeze. Thanks, old man, he thought with a grin. She really wouldn’t shoot him, not if Brogan told her not to. He twisted his left hand out of the old guy’s grasp and punched him. At this angle he didn’t have the leverage for a knockout blow, but the feel of Brogan’s jaw slewing sideways gave him a moment of satisfaction before the old guy surprised him with a hard jab to his throat.
He fell away from Brogan, rolled over, and got to his feet, rubbing his neck and coughing. Zakarewski had a clean shot now; she could drop him easily.
Only she still couldn’t—he saw it in her face. No matter how much she wanted to, she just couldn’t put a bullet in someone who looked so much like her hero. Good to know, he thought just as Brogan used the linebacker charge on him.