The Missing Sister Read online

  I don’t reply. I don’t know how. I shouldn’t feel this shock and terrible sadness that Seb’s pragmatism would mean killing an acquaintance, possibly a friend. Even if he seems disturbed by his actions, too. Seb lost his brother to war—his only family, his sanity, he said—and somehow that means pursuing a cure at all costs. Maybe the tightening of my stomach, my chest, has more to do with finally seeing him for who he is. Who he was all along.

  Weeping willow, my ass.

  “What about Manu?” I say, trying to solidify the details still out of focus. “She disappeared two days before Angela but only turned up last week, deposited back in her apartment.”

  Seb shrugs, his candor revived. “In every experiment a control and a variable are needed. Without both, the experiment is flawed. Before it became clear identical twins held the key, I believed I needed her brother to advance my theories. Without him, my findings were assuredly inconclusive.”

  I picture the French heartthrob in the photo, his cheek pressed so lovingly to Manu’s. Not her boyfriend, after all. “Manu was a fraternal twin.”

  “She blamed me for Christophe moving away to Belgium,” Angela says, breaking her silence. She stares down at her dirt-covered sneakers. “For months she followed me around, pleading with me to speak to him, get back together with him, stealing my metro tickets so I’d need her to drive me home and let her talk.”

  “Finding adult twins without any family or people to ask after them was difficult,” Seb continues, speaking more to himself now. He crosses to the cabinets along the wall of skulls, cutting off Angela’s lament. “Imagine my surprise when I learned Manu was friends with another twin, an identical twin, working underground as an intern, and whom I recognized from down below. I only needed to follow Angela to learn where she lived, her interests, even her internship schedule. Once I saw her leaving Manu’s apartment, and that’s when I took the gypsy. I soon realized she would not serve my needs without her brother, but I kept her to serve as insurance. When Angela escaped, Manu became my leverage; Angela could not approach the police or the American embassy to obtain a new passport if she was the chief murder suspect, after being seen leaving Manu’s apartment the day Manu disappeared. The only thing left was to ensure Manu’s death appeared personal, emotional, as an angry friend might do it—with a shot to the heart.”

  Anger swells within me, remembering the tidy front room. Her neat, stacked magazines. The pink photo frames. “You’re sick.”

  Seb turns from steel drawers with a glare. “Luckily, medicine cures all sickness, Shayna. The greater good calls for my research, despite those who would impede it. The Nazis used these catacombs during World War II, yes?” He watches me, lapping up my angst as I paw through my memory, desperate for something to stop this.

  “The best of them was Josef Molinare,” he continues. “A visionary. Physician of the Third Reich, banished to Brazil by the Allies for his extraordinary research. His experiments on twins gave me the idea.”

  Seb’s hero: not just a textbook serial killer with unchecked impulses, but a sadistic tormentor.

  I weigh my options for avoiding the same fate as Molinare’s victims, but I’m in zip ties, with an injured sister chained across from me. The only option is to keep Seb talking. “Did you learn about Molinare before or after you were dishonorably discharged?”

  His smile falls. Seb peers at me as though seeing me for the first time.

  “What did you do?” My words are breathless. “Kidnap Afghan twins?”

  He needs us. He didn’t need Chang. He wants us alive. Fully functioning.

  “Mourning,” he says, his eyes sharp. “I was grieving my dead brother and the horrifying way in which he died. I was so emotional, I struck the officer who tried to remove Baptiste from the tent, to ready his body for transport back to France.”

  We lock eyes.

  Valentin’s phantom voice fills my ears—Have you been watching the news?

  No, I’ve been busy mourning, I snapped in his office.

  Understanding mingles with disgust before I can dash the thought: I would have done the same.

  He searches for something in a cardboard box. A book, maybe. A fresh femur. “After I was discharged, I made good use of my time. Studies show twin rats can withstand exposure to nerve agents and doses of ricin longer than single births. Twin human fetuses recognize each other as nonparasitic organisms in the womb. This ability to differentiate between good and bad foreign agents must have further utility.” His voice grows quiet, thoughtful. “What is it that makes the two of you together stronger than the one of you alone? Is it your blood? Your muscle tissue? Your cellular composition? I’ve tested each of these in my other subjects, and none has shown the strength to withstand chemical agents—none as I believe identical twin blood will. If I can prove that—” He breaks off and turns from the shelf, a cable trailing from his fist, his voice rising again. “If other scientists had had the courage Molinare did, the willingness to push boundaries, then Baptiste might not have had to die.”

  The fervor that lights his eyes sparks a flicker of recognition in me. We were in Angela’s apartment, my second day here. Seb was trying to convince me of some extrasensory ability twins possess.

  “What you’re looking for isn’t plausible,” I say now. “Some extrasensory thing, if it exists, doesn’t translate to cellular—”

  His backhand connects with my cheek, slamming my head to the other side. Ringing fills my ear canal, like a gong struck inside my skull, then deepens to buzzing. An image from the Champs-Élysées fills my thoughts: Seb crushing a fly against his bare skin. No flinch. No wince. No spark of empathy.

  Seb’s mouth pulls into a frown. “Do not dismiss me, Shayna. I will find a cure, whatever it takes.”

  Angela continues playing deaf and dumb as Seb raises a type of syringe pump with a heavy cylindrical base—a small motor with a long cord trailing to his feet.

  “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” My voice is wispy, beaten.

  “For your first tattoo.” Seb tightens the ink cartridge on the tiny motor. “Did you know the local traffickers like to brand their product? Once I dispose of your bodies, the police will observe these tattoos—and the gunshots I’ll administer to your heads—and conclude you were victims of human trafficking gone awry.”

  A notch, then a tug on the cable, and the machine clicks on. The whirring motor abruptly shrieks with all the ambience of a dentist’s office, only infinitely more terrifying, because we’re in a cave from God knows how many centuries ago filled with enough medical gear for a field unit in Kabul. I inch backward, my hands and feet bound, planting my back against the wall, trapped. My toes point, waiting for the first puncture, as Seb looms closer and grips my left ankle. My teeth clench in the interim, grinding tighter, my molars scraping, looking for purchase, some resistance, until finally the tattoo gun is at my feet.

  He leans in. “Do not move.”

  The needles stab the skin of my ankle, just above the knotty bone, the lateral malleolus, and along the fibula. Pain radiates outward like a sound wave across my nerves, propelling the awful sensation through each layer of muscle and bone. Their rhythm jars like a jackhammer until I find an almost easy tempo to it that allows me to ignore the screams coming from my mouth.

  “Hold still, Shayna!” Seb drops the gun and clamps a hand on my calf. “I cannot tattoo a dead body. I learned that with the hospital cadaver I left in the Seine,” he growls. The whirr of the machine begins again while I steal a glance at Seb’s table of tools. Angela’s quiet stress radiates, and I try to withdraw to somewhere inside me, too.

  You can’t logic him to death.

  I was wrong. I’ve been wrong for so long that it felt right. Angela’s belief that we are connected via some ethereal twin plane and my obstinate belief in the opposite—in science, logic, and myself—probably grew out of reactions to one another. To how society pitted us against each other, insisted that we were antithetical, and we, foo
lishly, fed into the idea with our behaviors. I played the favorite with our parents, secretly loving it, insistent that mine was the only way, instead of realizing it was merely half the picture. We have always needed each other to be our best. To push each other out of our comfort zones and help the other be more than what she is—from ganging up as kids to get our favorite food for dinner, to my eighth-grade presentation that Angela completed while pretending to be me. I think of Angela’s unsent emails and the way in which she strove for the middle ground between our defaults—for balance—here in Paris. But it wasn’t enough for her. And moving on to medical school wouldn’t have been enough for me. I am most wholly myself when I’m with her; she is my first friend, my ephemeral enemy, and the only person in the world who would do anything for me, just like I’d do for her. We are better together.

  When Seb finishes he stops to admire his work. “Voilà. A perfect Gemini symbol, despite your antics. The curved bars were difficult, but I have had good practice recently.”

  “I think your brother would be proud,” I reply.

  Seb raises his eyes to mine. Angela shifts across from us. Nervous energy vibrates in the air. My flesh throbs, but I focus on my game of What Would Angela Do. She always knew to give people what they want, to intuit what they desire.

  Seb lays the tattoo gun down. He studies me. “How magnanimous.”

  “I mean it. I came all the way from San Diego for Angela. I understand what it’s like to do anything for your sibling.” Sometimes you have to go along to get along, Shayna. Angela’s words from her email pulse in my head. Play by his rules. Give him what he wants. “You loved your brother. If my sister were dying in a desert from some poisonous gas, I would be thanking you for finding a cure.”

  Dark eyes narrow to slits. “Baptiste was always afraid of me when we were children. But I loved him; you’re right.” He comes closer. “Medicine is the only way out for any of us, Shayna. I hope you see that. And you will contribute to the field. Just not as the doctor you intended.”

  He wheels a steel table from the corner to the middle of the room. He begins counting his instruments: three scalpels, a pair of surgical scissors, a retractor, a dermatome, clamps, two syringes, a spray bottle of antiseptic, a coiled tube, and a roll of paper towels.

  Think, think, think. Weltering pity ratchets my throat. What does Seb want? It’s Jean-Luc’s words that provide the answer: psychopaths—those are the ones who sneak up on you. All of Seb’s tears over Angela were an act. He lacks empathy. He’s arrogant and rational to a fault. What I say has to be true in some respect, and also flattering. I clear my throat. “Seb?”

  He pauses his tally with a huff. “Yes?”

  “Do you remember that afternoon on the park bench? I didn’t say anything then, but I need you to know something. That day I denied my feelings for you out of some loyalty to my sister—misplaced loyalty. Because she’s only ever brought emotional upheaval into my life. But with you, Seb . . .” I meet his gaze. Dark blue stares back, bloodshot and round with cautious curiosity. “With you, I met my intellectual equal. And I threw it all away for a sister who moved six thousand miles from me. I was wrong to walk a path that diverged from you, from anyone I truly connected with. I guess it’s all in the past now. But I had to say it.”

  Instead of excitement or a smile, the show of affection I wanted, he doesn’t blink.

  The curiosity recedes. Tentative appreciation hardens into dark fury that clouds his face and flares his nostrils. He grabs me by the shoulders, dropping his gun and kicking the wheeled table behind him. “Have you heard nothing I have said? Misplaced loyalty? Loyalty to your sister is the only thing you should feel in this world.” His grip tightens, bruising me, and he shakes me like a child. “You should thank the heavens every day that she is still alive. That you were given this gift of being a twin, and a bond deeper than anything!”

  He shakes me again, and my head bangs against rock. Stars crack across my vision, and I see Angela move in fits and starts as though she too feels the pain tearing across my skull.

  “You will never know what you are missing until it is too late!” he roars with emotion.

  Angela’s leg continues to flail as clarity returns to my eyes. The table, the one holding Seb’s supplies, has been pushed backward during his lunge forward—into Angela’s reach.

  “What if she’s not worth the sacrifice?” I press on, giving Angela the best shot I can. “What if—”

  Angela stretches for the aluminum tray. Her chains clang, and Seb turns at the noise, but I cry out, “Baptiste will never know! He’ll never know how devoted you are in his death, how much you loved him, just like my sister will never understand me.”

  Seb slams me into the dirt, looming over me. Red, bloodshot eyes plead in outrage, and his lips pull back over his teeth. “Do you not see? The missing brother in my life has been my greatest ghost. I would make any sacrifice for him, even in his death. You have no idea the loss of a sibling, a missing sister from your life—”

  Quickly, Angela withdraws the scalpel from the tray. She sits back and slices the plastic that binds her ankles in a swift upward motion. Placing the scalpel between her heels, she rubs the zip tie of her wrists back and forth, then shifts and presses the blade beneath her knee, sliding her wrists up and down until the plastic snaps. She stands.

  “Misplaced loyalty,” Seb says again, spitting the words, tears filling his eyes. “Shows how little you—”

  Angela doesn’t hesitate. She carves the scalpel through the air and stabs Seb’s lower spine, again and again. Blood spurts as he releases an animal scream. He arches backward, then falls off me, his body contracting wildly, his hands scrabbling at the wound.

  Angela slices through the ties binding my ankles and wrists, then whirls back to where Seb hunches over in the corner. I get to my feet, blood oozing from my new tattoo, entranced by the scene. Wrapping an arm around Seb, Angela rams the scalpel into his back again, tearing a soprano scream from his chest.

  “How does it feel, Seb? Does it hurt? Do you like that?” Angela twists the blade deeper. “Do you?” Her voice is shrill, reaching a fevered pitch.

  I shift my weight back and forth, waiting for the cue to run. Adrenaline pounds through my limbs. “Angela, we should go—let’s go!”

  “I will find you,” Seb growls. “I have your passport—you cannot leave.”

  Angela and Seb are wrestling—dancing, almost—and as they move to the doorway, Seb gasps as Angela does something else from behind. Their hands dip into each of his pockets, but he whips out a passport—Angela’s passport, I assume. Shocked, she releases him and tries to grab it, but he yanks it backward.

  She leaps toward him, and, in one swift movement, he rips the passport in two. A wicked smile upturns his cheeks. He whispers something in French, too low, too fast for me, and she launches at him and stabs him in the chest.

  “Angela!” I scream; she yanks her fist back, withdrawing the scalpel, and Seb’s hands clap to his sternum, his face gone pale. She arches, then swipes the scalpel across his throat like it’s warm butter, his insides dripping then gushing onto his white shirt, a Jackson Pollock canvas brought to life. Tree-trunk arms forget his chest and fly up, trying to hold the blood inside. Red eyes turn to mine, begging, pleading, and the seconds seem to tick by like hours until his body finally buckles to the ground.

  I stand frozen. Shallow breaths rack Angela’s frame while her face crumples at the carnage seeping across the dirt floor. A moan of chilled air carries into the bunker, freezing the sweat across my skin; the salty smell of the beach rises from somewhere in my memory.

  Angela snaps to. She crosses to me—eyes wide, her stride deliberate, mechanical. Meeting my stunned expression for the first time since she cut herself free, she is all business.

  “Now, where are those antibacterial wipes Seb mentioned?”

  Chapter 33

  Angela is alive. Seb is dead. We are safe. Repeat.

  I stumble along be
hind my sister, my new internal mantra on a loop. Thinking it a dozen times somehow doesn’t equate to believing yet. Dribbling water nearby directs our path in the dark. We’re still underground and near the Seine, which means we’re near an exit. My legs feel weak despite only having to walk fifteen minutes to get back to the official path. My arms continue to throb from Seb’s crushing grip. Angela adjusts to the darkness like she never left, whereas, even with the key-ring flashlight, I fall twice on the uneven dirt path.

  “You okay, Shay?”

  “Yeah. Where was that manhole you mentioned?”

  “Over here.”

  We continue forward and find crisscrossing bones wedged together, forming two narrow walls. I should be used to the sight by now, but I startle all the same. Angela plunges forward.

  While Angela quickly began rummaging around for supplies—a bandage for me, food and water for us both—I continued to stand still, staring at Seb’s body for another five minutes. Angela is alive. Seb is dead. We are safe. We found pamphlets for the Notre Dame crypts, dozens of printed emails from Angela’s inbox, and surgery textbooks in Seb’s steel cabinet, along with several handguns. We found a bowl of house keys and identity cards, one of which belonged to Clément Gress, the body found in a dumpster. Seb’s first victim. When Angela shoved my clothes at me and said, “We have to move,” I obeyed without conscious thought. Flashbacks to my sister’s expression when she brought the scalpel to Seb’s throat were still playing in my mind.

  A domed hub extends in four different directions, four tunnels. A series of iron rungs leads up to the surface.

  Angela turns to me. “All right, this is our exit. I don’t want to run into anyone else down here.”