Clone - The Book of Olivia (Book #2)

By Paxton Summers

Would you sacrifice love for a greater cause?
After months on the run, Olivia has changed forever, but even more than she, the clone she’s fallen in love with has transformed, and not for the better. Buried deep inside Axel is a different personality, one he only shows when he is handed power. He’s got that now and much more. Axel is convinced Olivia is his reason for living, and he will do anything to hold onto her and the freedom he’s won—no matter the cost.
Marcus Axis has found his wife, and letting go is the last thing he plans to do. The forced marriage is one of many problems coming to the surface after the clone uprising, and Olivia has no idea if he’s after total control of Aeropia, or if he speaks the truth when he tells her he wants a family, and he wants it with her. He’s certain she’s the only way to heal a fractured country, but is she?
Torn between the clone of her past and a man who could change the future by fusing Aeropia back together, Olivia is determined to make the right choice for her people this time, even if heart desires something else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paxton Summers
• Release date: Apr 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463426968

Paxton Summers

Paxton writes edgy new adult dystopian, paranormal, science fiction and military stories, all with a touch of romance. As a United States Army Veteran and avid fan of all men in uniform, she naturally gravitates toward alpha males in her stories. Her goal in her books, though you may curse her for pulling an all nighter to get to the last page, is to bring you worlds that stay with you long after you've read the final word. She loves cats, iced coffee (even though most think decaf would benefit her) mixed martial arts, and good books she can get lost in. Go ahead, click that buy button. She'd love to have you join her for an adventure. http://www.paxtonsummers.com

Book preview

Prologue

A cockroach skitters across the bench and over the rim of a rusty metal bowl filled with some kind of mush. I am sure I knew the ingredients but pretend otherwise. The insect is so large I can hear the click, click, click of its brown spiky legs as it passes. Now, the roach sits inches from the tip of my nose. It twitches its antennae and cocks it head, as if to say, may I? I shudder and swallow.

Though the slop has cooled for several hours, it hasn’t made its stench any better. The combination of decay, stale grease and mildew envelop me. It almost seems as though the stink has invisible fingers tightening around my throat. The back of my mouth waters and my stomach clenches. I cup my hand over my lips. I will not heave.

My stomach aches, its emptiness as bitter as the acid coating my tongue. My condition is deteriorating and I know I need the sustenance, but the contents of the bowl remind me too much of my past, something I have no desire to taste, let alone swallow.

The little creeper tips his head again, watching me. Waiting. Waiting.

Let him have it. I whack the steel dish with the back of my knuckles. Its dreary contents spin across the cell like a UFO, yet the bug rides it out, its spiky appendages clinging to the rim. Clang! The dish hits the floor and bounces once before sliding into the stone wall.

Scrape. I lift my head to glance at the mold-covered stone blocks. The silence in my cell amplifies everything, and I know without a doubt, I’ve made a bad choice.

Great. Good job.

My self-berating does little to still my nerves and help me brace for what will come next. The only sibling of my legal husband has taken an interest in me I don’t understand. Nor do I want to.

I push myself up to sit and pull my knees to my chin, wrapping my arms around my shins in an attempt to stop the shivers racking my body. The cell is hot and sticky, but to me it feels like the Arctic. The city brig is below ground, isolated—damp. I’m no longer sure if the sun shines or the moon glows above, and I guess it doesn’t matter, since I don’t expect to get out of this place. I close my eyes.

My teeth chatter on their own volition. If oblivion were a mattress, I’d gladly drop into it and remain there forever. Yet, it isn’t. I’m stuck here, mired in misery, about to sink deeper.

Oliviaaaaaaa....

And there it is, the misery I’d dreaded, increasing tenfold. I clamp my hands over my ears. Of all the things I want to go away—the pain, the shaking, the steel door and stone walls that hold me hostage, it is my next door neighbor I desire most would vanish. I hate the bastard. It’s an emotion I didn’t think I possessed, but have recently discovered and dusted off.

Shut up.

Pilot laughs, reminding me of a maniacal villain in a holo-drama, following it up with a cliché bad-guy line I knew before he said it he couldn’t resist spouting, and I prove it by miming along with him.

Poor little Olivia.

A fever burns at my temple where the skin pulls and puckers at the site of a wound. It has long since ceased smelling like fresh blood, and reeks like dead flesh. It reminds me of my relationship with the man who put it there. Putrefied. Painful.

The cut itches. And I’m not talking a little tickle, more a persistent sensation, begging me to scrape my skin off with a dull razor in order to find relief. My flesh twitches and I slap it several times with my palm, hoping the sting will take my mind off the infected tissue. I’m sure I look like I’ve lost my mind, and perhaps I have. If not, I soon will. Smack. Smack. Smack. This itch could drive anyone mad.

I want to scratch the wound raw, but I know more of the need to scratch will follow the brief moment of relief. I refrain only by exerting all my self-control and focusing on the wall. There is one other irritation I’d like to banish, but raking him open isn’t an option. If only.

I know you can hear me. The acoustics are great down here. Each word throbs through the tender tissues in my brain, spiking the gray matter, pulsing in my temples. Driving me, for lack of a better term, nuts. More so than the itch.

The acid in my stomach roils, and I rock back and forth to ease the discomfort. My father didn’t believe in nanites, or my injury would be minor, causing me little discomfort, unlike now. If I possessed the tiny robots, I’d probably have a slight scar, if any, and the wound would be a memory. The infected tissues, I can live with for now.

Pilot—not so much.

I’ve been dying to have a little chat, Olivia.

Of course you have. I wish he’d really die. Keel over. Stop talking. Shut the hell up. His idea of a chat and mine, are much different. As if I actually wanted to engage him in conversation. The last thing I desire to do. For days, I tried to ignore him, but, like the niggling need to scratch, his continuous talking torments me. It would be a mistake to respond, but, as I glance at the wall and the three tic marks I etched there with a stone every time the soldiers brought my daily meal, I can no longer resist his taunts. Leave me alone.

Ah she has a voice. I’d begun to wonder if I spoke to a corpse. Until you hurled your dish, I didn’t know for certain. What do you hope to accomplish in your rebellion, Iron Bee? Even though the stone blocks between us are thick, I cannot escape his whispers.

Why do you care? I cave and dance with the devil, letting him take the lead. It would not be the first time. I rest my head back against the hard surface, savoring the chill the granite holds.

Scrape, something drags across the floor next door. A spring squeaks. I know he’s directly behind me now, sitting against the other side of the barrier. Back to back, like girls’ gossip hour. I roll my eyes. Right.

Were you going to save the world, do all the great things your family failed to do?

Is that possible? Freedom comes with great cost—I just never thought the price would be so steep. It seems the mistakes of my youth have become my grave marker. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Marcus will execute me as a traitor soon. I try to tell myself it isn’t so, but the longer I’m confined to the cell, the more I begin to believe death is in my future—and from my husband’s hands, a man I’d given the benefit of the doubt.

He chuckles. I fear I am right. And are you not a traitor? he asks.

No sense in denying something the entire nation knew. I am. But I had my reasons. I betrayed my family, government, and the only world I knew. No, I won’t argue it. Treason sits at the top of a long, long list of my many crimes. Crimes for humanity.

Ah, honor, or your sense of it. You wouldn’t be the first queen in history whose honor or, in your case, dishonor, caused her to lose her head. Or is there another reason?

I have never claimed to be a queen.

Is this empire not of your creation? Do you not struggle to keep it together—hold the keystone in place so your glass foundation won’t fracture at your feet? That is not the behavior of a citizen, but of its leader, or their so-called queen. He snorts. So why did you do it?

Pilot can wax quite poetic at times, reminding me all too much my enemy had as much intelligence as mental imbalance. A dangerous combination. My reasons are far more selfish than honor. I fear for my soul. I sigh. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?

There, you are wrong, Olivia. Redemption is not for people like us. Our souls were lost a long time ago. If I had one, I’d most likely care about losing it. But, since I don’t, it’s not an issue.

Us? I’m nothing like you. Anger washes over me like breakers on a beach. I’ve never done anything to intentionally hurt anyone, not like the monster in the cell next to me. He murdered and reveled in it—most likely kept souvenirs in a trophy case. There is bad, and then there’s evil. Pilot fits into the last category. Serial killer—most certainly. But, then again, by definition, I, too, fit into the classification. My hands are stained with blood, and all my good intentions will not remove the tarnish.

As if reading my mind, Pilot speaks up. You don’t have a soul, little sister. Like recognizes like.

You’re mistaken. But is he? Would someone with a soul do what I did?

Tell me, how many are dead because of you? My father and mother are among them. In my place, would you not see you as soulless—a black-hearted murdering bitch?

Ah, the man does have a way with words. As for his father—he deserved what he got, even if I had an indirect part in it. I wouldn’t change General Axis’s outcome if I could. But of his mother, a woman I had never met, I cannot say the same. What I did is different from what you did.

Is it? Can you reach down deep and really say that? Slaughter is slaughter, even if you dress it up and call it revolution for a noble cause. What makes what you did any less than murder?

I can’t deny he spoke the truth, so I remain silent.

Ah, poor misguided, Olivia. I didn’t think so. He chuckles. Tell me, what do you know about your husband? Now there is a man of honor. I want to be just like him when I grow up.

Shut up. I need to sleep. The last thing I want is to drift off into my nightmares, a surreal world I can no longer separate from my waking existence. I stumble from dream to dream, reality absorbed along the way. When I close my eyes, memories push to the surface and any rest eludes my grasp, dancing like vapor before me, slipping through my fingers in fragile wisps. No, I do not desire to sleep, but I don’t want to listen to him any further. He comes way to close to the truth with each word past his lips.

But I also don’t want to hear about Marcus. And of course his brother gave me no option.

There’s no rest for the wicked, Olivia. Your countdown timer started a long time ago. Pretty soon it will hit zero. You might as well tell me why you feel what you did could redeem you—save you? For posterity’s sake. I’ll be sure to let my brother know when he releases me.

Do I want Marcus to know why? My guts clench. If I am honest, I do. Desperately. I want him to know I am not what people think. Inside me a lonely girl still resides, a young woman who cares what happened to the people of Aeropia. In fact, she always cared, even if her actions caused so many deaths. You wouldn’t understand. One has to be able to feel to truly know my torment.

Try me.

Maybe my desperation for a sounding board, or the thought my time would soon run out as he insinuated, has me bearing witness. I do not know. When I open my mouth, my story flows. A confession of sorts, and the sick, twisted man next door—my priest.

To my surprise, something else happens as I talk. Pilot remains silent. For such peace, I would trade my empire ten times over. And so, I can’t hold back. The queen will lose her head. These stolen moments will be my final words. Lord forgive me, I intend to make them count.

Chapter One

He has no idea what my life has been like—even before the revolt. I did not exist on champagne and parties, as most assume when they discover who I am. I cannot conceal the rage in my voice, nor do I want to. The bastard wants to know then he shall. I’ll gladly share my personal sliver of hell. Once upon a time, the dictator had a sick daughter.

Pilot chuckles. And she wanted to be a queen. He tsks. Olivia, you can do better. Nobody starts a story like that anymore, unless it’s a fairy tale. Is there magic, singing princesses, and happily ever afters in your story?

No. My father and mother had me for one purpose only, to lead the country, to be in charge someday when they were gone. That someday came much faster than I expected. I never wanted the responsibility. I wanted to belong—to someone, somewhere, and exist as more than a puppet to further an agenda. That is not the stuff young girls’ dreams are made of. My story is not a fairy tale, far from it.

Ah, so we have motive. You did it for love.

Yes, I whisper. I did it for love, and.... Were my drives so pure? I blow out a breath as I recount the past few months, tossing the devil scraps and unloading my conscience. What were my motives, if not for love?

Four months before....

Incoming! A bolt hit the ground near the trench where I took cover. Sod and rocks flew everywhere, forced up from the impact, turning red like hot coals then black, and finally to ash, floating away before the debris could rain down. Waves of heat rolled across the clearing, warping the air. Typical Aeropite attack. Tidy.

Our tactics were not so clean.

Rebels scrambled for cover, dodging blasts from every direction, some running for the orchard, a viable food source the enemy didn’t want to destroy, only pillage. Others didn’t make it, instead turning the same cherry red and disintegrating into ash before my eyes.

Run. It’s an extermination squad. A young clone of perhaps eighteen flew past me, jumping over the trench, clearing it easily, continuing on into the forest behind me. I knew whose forces had come to pay us a visit. The clone soldier might’ve retreated, but I had no intention of going anywhere. Marcus’s damn troops weren’t raiding this field or orchard. They couldn’t have it. No amount of fear could chase me away. Not this time.

Everywhere around me, chaos ensued, but I remained calm, focused, waiting for our enemy to land, so I could get a clear shot at one of them. As the ships stopped swooping over us, and began to hover above the field, I lifted my crossbow, tipped my head, and squinted through the iron site. Our weapons might be low tech, leaving behind bodies to pick up, but they got the job done. As I said, not so clean.

Grabbing a handful of grass, I let it fall to the ground, watching the wind direction and how far it floated from my location, using the angle where it landed in conjunction to my body to calculate the windage correction. A year ago, I would have laughed at what I did, how being a killer had become second nature. Now, it didn’t seem funny. I adjusted my sites and inhaled, slipping my finger over the trigger. One, one thousand. Two, one....

The composite material on the tip of my arrow would blow at impact. We didn’t have to have our enemies’ fancy weapons to wreck destruction. Basic chemistry and a little ingenuity was all we needed, and we’d proven to be a formable opponent. Before the revolution, I wouldn’t have known how to make gunpowder from piss and straw. Now, I could call myself an expert, thanks to Axel and his mind-blowing ability to retain everything he read.

A man rolled into the trench, landing on his feet beside me. Speak of the devil. I didn’t have to take my eyes off the ships to know who had joined me. Electrical jolts chased through my blood every time he came near, as intense as the first day we’d met.

Hi, I said without glancing in his direction.

We need to pull back. Axel had a way of being blunt. If he wanted something, he didn’t hold out. Sometimes it came off as charming; more often than not, his direct approach infuriated me. The new Olivia, the dictator’s rebel daughter, didn’t take to getting bossed around.

I knew what we needed to do, but I didn’t always want to do it. Sometimes, sticking your ground and fighting proved to be the only option. If we kept giving up territory, we’d eventually run out of places to go—and food. Negative. They’re not getting these crops.

I’d busted my ass to bring the old orchards to fruit, and I’d be damned if I lost this one. They’d already raided us three times this month, and we could not afford any more before the rainy season. The enemy wanted to starve the resistance right out of us and they were close to meeting their goal.

The camouflage nets over the fields and trees were no longer working. The enemy had begun to search for concentrated thermo patterns, the body heat of the workers in the fields. They’d let us do all the work, and, when time to harvest came, they arrived like locusts, so numerous we were quickly overwhelmed.

We needed some technology on our side, and an EM dome shield would do the trick. Not only couldn’t the ships fly over, through, or near