Chapter 28 · The rest of you?

I turned toward him. "The rest of you?"

"Kaelen—"

"How many?"

The clone's mouth tightened.

"Enough to fill a training floor," she said. "Enough to die until one of us could beat your numbers."

"My numbers?"

"Your habits. Your timing. Your pain response. They fed us fragments and made us fight your ghost."

"Why do you look like me?"

"Because they finally found a face that worked."

"Worked for what?"

The breach team hit the door again. A red line burned through the seam.

Jax grabbed my arm. His palm was hot, damp, and unsteady around my wrist.

"We have maybe twenty seconds."

I looked down at his hand.

He didn't let go.

"If you want to keep that arm," he said, "stop staring at me and open the hatch."

"You're bleeding through your fingers."

"I noticed."

"You can barely stand."

"Then don't make me chase you."

The clone watched us. Her eyes dropped to Jax's hand on my wrist, then lifted to my face.

"He hasn't told you," she said.

"Told me what?"

"Why he really found you."

Jax's grip tightened.

"She's trying to split us up."

"Is she lying?"

"Not about the splitting part.