Chapter 11 - The Push
Dr. Voss’s face filled the screen rising from the pool.
He looked older than the photographs, but not fragile. His white hair was cut close, his eyes bright with the calm vanity of a man who believed history had misunderstood him.
“Do you remember me?” he asked Amelia.
A pressure built behind her eyes. The garden blurred. For an instant, the terrace became a hospital corridor, and Voss stood at the far end holding a syringe.
“I remember enough,” she said.
“No. You remember what we permitted.”
Police moved toward the pool, but the stone gates slammed shut around the garden. A high electronic tone burst from hidden speakers. Guests clutched their ears and dropped to the ground.
Amelia felt Lily twist violently inside her.
Adrian covered Amelia’s ears and pulled her behind a table. Detective Cross shouted orders through the earpiece, but static swallowed her voice.
On the balcony, the woman claiming to be Mia vanished into the villa.
Vanessa remained beside the pool, bleeding from a wound near her shoulder. Amelia crawled toward her despite Adrian’s attempt to stop her.
“Tell me who she is,” Amelia demanded.
Vanessa’s lips were gray. “Voss calls her Eve. She is not our sister. She is a reconstruction.”
“A clone?”
“Not exactly. A body altered to resemble us. A mind trained on our Mirror files.” Vanessa coughed. “She believes she is Mia because he deleted everything else.”
“Where is the real Mia?”
Vanessa looked toward the villa. “Closer than you think.”
The electronic tone stopped.
Voss spoke again. “At the edge of the pool, nine years ago, one sister chose herself. Tonight, we repeat the choice.”
A section of terrace opened. Two transparent chambers rose from beneath the stones. In one stood Noah, pounding on the glass. In the other stood a woman wearing a hospital gown, her face hidden by wet black hair.
Cross’s voice returned through the earpiece. “The boy with me is gone. Officer down. They switched him during the blackout.”
Amelia ran to Noah’s chamber.
He pressed both hands to the glass. “Mommy!”
The second woman lifted her head.
She had Amelia’s face and a scar along her temple.
Mia.
The real Mia.
Voss offered his choice.
“One chamber fills with water. The other opens. Amelia chooses.”
Adrian pulled the unloaded revolver from beneath his jacket. He had kept it as part of their trap. “You will release both.”
Voss smiled. “You still imagine authority is inherited.”
Water began pouring into Noah’s chamber.
Amelia struck the glass. “Stop!”
A control panel lit between the chambers. Two buttons appeared: SON and SISTER.
The guests watched. Cameras broadcast everything. Voss wanted not only a death but a public definition of Amelia’s identity. A mother would choose her child. A sister burdened by stolen history might hesitate. Every response could be measured, copied, and sold.
Amelia pressed neither button.
She looked at Mia.
Mia pointed downward.
Beneath the control panel, partly hidden by stone, ran a cluster of emergency release cables.
Amelia understood. The choice was theater.
She seized a metal chair and smashed the panel. Sparks erupted. The water rose past Noah’s waist.
Adrian fired the altered cartridge into the exposed circuitry. The glass capsule shattered inside the panel, shorting the current. Both chambers unlocked.
Amelia dragged Noah out as Adrian pulled Mia from the second chamber.
For one brief second, all four of them stood together.
Then Eve attacked.
She came from behind Amelia with a syringe aimed at her neck. Vanessa threw herself between them. The needle entered Vanessa’s shoulder.
Eve shoved her aside and reached for Amelia again.
Noah screamed.
Amelia backed toward the pool. Her heel caught the edge.
Eve’s hand struck between her shoulders.
Amelia fell.
The world became blue and silent.
Her dress wrapped around her legs. Pain tore through her abdomen. Above the surface, distorted shapes moved. She saw Noah kneeling at the edge. She saw Eve step backward and arrange panic on her face.
Then the front gate burst open.
Adrian had been thrown outside during the struggle, but Cross had opened the outer lock. He ran through the garden, dropped his briefcase of evidence, and jumped into the pool.
He lifted Amelia from the water.
“Call an ambulance!”
Eve, still wearing Amelia’s face beneath a dissolving cosmetic layer, changed tactics. She tore away the mask and revealed Vanessa’s features underneath.
“She slipped,” Eve cried in Vanessa’s voice. “I tried to save her.”
Noah pointed with trembling hands.
“She pushed Mommy.”
The garden fell silent.
Adrian rose with Amelia unconscious in his arms. He looked at the woman everyone believed was Vanessa.
“Enjoy this villa,” he said. “One last day.”
His phone rang.
He answered while paramedics rushed through the gate.
The distorted voice said, “The woman in your arms is not Amelia.”
May you like
Adrian looked down at his wife.
A tiny surgical scar showed behind her ear, one he had never seen before.
