Awakened by the Giant Read online

Not knowing what else to do, Maddy picked a plump chocolate cupcake sprinkled with shredded coconut and slivered almonds out of the box and took a bite. Snuffy, who was still cuddled in her lap, sniffed the sweet treat with his trunk and burbled excitedly so she gave him a few crumbs.

  As the cupcake melted in her mouth, the most delicious chocolate flavor exploded across Maddy’s tongue. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring it.

  “Oh, this is so good—I never thought I’d taste chocolate again,” she sighed. Opening her eyes, she realized that the girls gathered around her bed were waiting anxiously for answers.“I’m not friends with the, uh, body I was cloned from because she’s me—and she’s dead,” she said, wondering how much weirder things could possibly get. “I—she—was on board the Kennedy when it went through a wormhole and came out in the middle of an asteroid field and got smashed in half.”

  “The Kennedy?” Kat asked, frowning.

  "It was a spaceship the US government sent out to find a new planet for humanity," Maddy explained. "I was on it."

  “Oh—I read about that!” Lauren exclaimed. “But it only recently became declassified. Apparently the government launched a ship filled with scientists and all kinds of embryos and seeds and things for starting over on a new world back when the Scourge first appeared and started threatening the Earth. You know—right before the Kindred showed up and saved everyone?”

  “You mean these Kindred—the ones on this ship?” This was all news to Maddy.

  “Uh-huh.” Liv nodded.

  “The Kindred showed up only about a week after your ship was launched,” Lauren told her. “Believe me though—even after they came, it was touch and go for a while. And I was actually aboard the Father Ship myself, when the AllFather kidnapped me. It was awful!”

  “But if you hadn’t been kidnapped, you never would have met Xairn,” Kat reminded her. “She’s married to a Scourge warrior,” she told Maddy. “But he’s really nice.”

  “And his skin has kind of that same pearly gray sheen as your Jor’gen Kindred—as Calden’s,” Sophie said thoughtfully. “I wonder if they’re in any way related?”

  Maddy was still trying to digest the idea that the Earth hadn’t been completely overrun by the invading Scourge hordes as she had imagined back on board the Kennedy.

  “So…the Earth is still alive? I mean, people still live there?” she asked faintly.

  “Well, sure hon,” Liv said. “Of course they do.”

  “I just…when we left on the Kennedy we were afraid the Earth was going to be overrun and invaded and maybe everyone would be killed. When I said goodbye to my family…” Maddy put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, my family! My mom and sisters! I wonder if they’re still alive?”

  “I don’t see why they wouldn’t be,” Liv said practically.

  “Would you like us to check for you?” Sophie asked, smiling sweetly.

  “Yes!” Maddy exclaimed. Then her excitement died abruptly. “I mean no. No, of course not. I can’t see them again—I’m not the Madeline who left Earth all those years ago. I’m just…just a copy of her.”

  “Oh, not this again!” Kat exclaimed. “What makes you say that? Just because you’re a clone?”

  “Just because I’m a clone?” Maddy exclaimed. “Don’t you understand? I was killed—I died in the wreck of the Kennedy. Then, apparently my remains were found by the recovery robots from the station where Calden was working as a scientist. They brought me back and decided to clone me. But…” She swallowed hard. “But I didn’t know that until I found my body lying in a drawer in Calden’s lab.”

  She shivered at the awful memory of staring down at her own dead face and knowing that the man she’d thought she’d loved had been using her for his own awful purposes.

  “You found your own dead body in a drawer?” Lauren exclaimed. “That’s terrible!”

  “You have no idea.” Maddy shook her head. “And the worst thing was, it was Calden who cloned me. I thought…thought he loved me but now I think he just…”

  Her eyes were suddenly filling with tears and she could barely go on. Why was she telling all this to strangers? Maybe it just needed to come out. At any rate, she couldn’t seem to stop talking.

  “I think he must have cloned me more than once,” she confessed. “The way he’s cloned so many other animals like little Snuffy here.” She nodded at the little brantha who burbled sadly and caressed her wet cheek with his trunk, as though sensing her sorrow. “Cloned me over and over so he could have fun with me and then let me die, just like he let all the animals in his lab die with those awful self-termination units in their necks.”

  “But that doesn’t really make sense, hon,” Liv said gently. “If he cloned you over and over and didn’t care if you died, why would he rush you here to get the termination unit out of your neck before it killed you?”

  “Sylvan told me he was absolutely frantic with fear for you,” Sophie put in quietly. “He told me that Calden admitted when he cloned you he never intended to fall in love but he couldn’t help himself. He said he never would have agreed to have that self-termination thingy implanted in you if he’d had any idea of what being with you would be like or how you would affect him. I think maybe you were supposed to be just another experiment to him but then you kind of stole his heart.”

  “Really?” Maddy looked at them uncertainly. “I just thought…he made a big deal out of never, uh, being with a woman before me.” She cleared her throat, feeling her cheeks get hot. “But his technique is so good—I mean he just doesn’t seem that inexperienced, you know? I thought he must have been cloning me over and over so he could play out his little ‘first time’ fantasy more than once.”

  “He really doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would do that,” Liv said.

  “And if you’re thinking that his bedroom technique is too good to be true, well, welcome to the world of the Kindred, doll,” Kat said dryly. “They’re completely focused on pleasing their women and they’re very, very good at it—it’s like they have some kind of instinct about how to make you happy in bed.”

  “That does seem to be a Kindred trait—no matter what race of Kindred they are,” Sophie said thoughtfully.

  “Really?” Maddy was almost ready to forgive Calden for everything but then she closed her eyes for a minute and remembered that horrible moment of realization as she looked down at her own dead body lying in the drawer. “Well, Calden still shouldn’t have cloned me,” she said, frowning stubbornly.

  “What? So you’d rather be dead?” Lauren asked, sounding mystified.

  “I am dead,” Maddy pointed out.

  “Only your first body,” Kat said. “Why don’t you think of this one as a do-over? You know—body 2.0 or something. Like your first body went to sleep and Calden woke you up in this body.”

  “I think what’s upsetting Madeline is that Calden didn’t tell her she was a clone,” Liv said gently. “And it does sound like she found out in the worst way possible.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that,” Kat remarked. “Finding your own dead body in a drawer? It’s like something out of a Stephen King novel!”

  “It really was,” Maddy agreed and shivered.

  “Well, it seems to me that even though Calden is a Kindred, he’s still a guy and guys do stupid things sometimes,” Sophie said tactfully. “I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to find your old body in a drawer. And to hear my guy, Sylvan, tell it, he’s completely head-over-heels in love with you but he’s afraid you’ll never forgive him.”

  “He’s been pacing outside your room all night—ever since you got out of surgery,” Liv said. “He asked me to bring in that plant for you…” She pointed at the plant with its delicious-looking ripe fruit. “To make you feel more at home.”

  “Did he?” Maddy felt her heart beginning to melt, just a little. “I just don’t know how to feel about him right now.”

  “Look, doll—why don’t we leave you alone and let you digest thing