All Chapters of THE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SUBSTITUTE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

"Wake up, little ghost."The bucket of ice water hit my face like a brick. I sucked in a lungful of freezing air, my chest burning. My eyes snapped open. Red. Everything was red. The walls, the floor, the heavy industrial lights humming overhead. The Red Room. I tried to move my arms, but the overhead chains bit into my wrists, pulling my shoulders toward the ceiling. My bare feet dangled an inch above the concrete."He's awake, Ma'am."The Surrogate stood in the corner. He was a mountain of meat and scarred tissue, his jaw missing the bottom half, replaced by a silver plate. No tongue. Just a wet, rhythmic huffing sound as he breathed. He held a leather roll of tools. Scalpels. Pliers. Things that didn't have names."Good." Elinor’s voice came from the shadows behind me. "Bring her in."The heavy steel door groaned. Guards shoved Evangeline into the light. She stumbled, her white silk dress torn at the shoulder, her hair a bird’s nest of knots. They didn't let her fall. They shoved a

"Don't let them turn the machines back on."The man's voice was a wet rattle, like gravel shifting in a shallow stream. I stood over the tank, the glass cold against my palms. Inside, the Template—the man they told me was my father, the original Alexander Blackwood—looked like a piece of drift-wood. His skin was translucent, stretched over bone. Tubes snaked into his throat and groin, pumping green fluid that smelled like a hospital dumpster."I'm not here to save you," I said.His eyes cracked open. Milky. Yellow. He looked at me, and his chest hitched in a jagged rhythm."I know." He coughed. A spray of black bile hit the inside of the glass. "You're here for the codes. You want to kill her.""She killed my sister, Alexander. She turned me into a photocopy." I leaned in, my face inches from his. "I want the override for the District Nine grid. I want to shut her out of the Archive forever."The man in the tank let out a sound that might have been a laugh. It ended in a gurgle."Phot

"Get the girl to the bird!"The roar of the rotors drowned out the crackle of the burning mansion. Red and blue lights strobed against the smoke, turning the front lawn into a neon hellscape. I ducked as a spray of dirt kicked up inches from my face. My ears rang."Marcus, stop!" Evangeline screamed.He didn't stop. He didn't even slow down. He gripped her upper arm so hard his knuckles showed white through his tactical gloves. He looked like a god of war in that black police uniform, the 'COMMANDER' patch on his chest reflecting the flames."The party's over, Evie." Marcus shoved her toward the open door of the sleek, unmarked helicopter. "Time to go.""You're killing them!" She struggled, her heels digging into the turf. "Those are your own men!""Collateral." Marcus didn't look back at the carnage.Behind him, the Iron Lotus soldiers—his own cartel brothers—were being mowed down by the tactical teams he’d led onto the property. It wasn't a raid. It was a harvest. The police were ex

"You're six weeks pregnant."The words hit the air like a wet slab of meat. I didn't breathe. Evangeline didn't move. She just lay there on the moldy cot, her face the color of the concrete floor. The disgraced surgeon—Doc, they called him, though his Blackwood medical license was a blackened memory—wiped a blood-stained hand on his apron. He didn't look at us. He looked at the flickering screen of the portable ultrasound."Six weeks," I repeated. My mouth tasted like rust. My brain started the math. The frantic, desperate math of a man trying to figure out if he just inherited a kingdom or signed his own execution."Six weeks is a long time in a war, Kai." Evangeline’s voice was a whisper. She didn't look at the screen. She looked at the ceiling, at the water stains that looked like maps of countries we’d never see."It’s not mine." The words came out before I could stop them.She flinched. Like I’d slapped her."Is that what you want?" She turned her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed,

"Eat the apple, Evangeline. It’s crisp. A bit tart. Like the choices we make when we're desperate."Elinor sat on a crate of rusted machine parts, her back straight, her silk suit pristine despite the grime of the warehouse. She moved the silver knife with surgical precision. A long, unbroken spiral of red skin curled away from the blade. She didn't look at me. She didn't look at the gun in my hand."I’m not hungry." I gripped the handle of the 9mm until the checkering bit into my palm. My hip throbbed. Every pulse of my blood felt like a hammer hitting the wound Marcus had stitched shut."You should be. You’re eating for two now. Or is it three? The growth is so fast, I lose track of the caloric requirements." Elinor sliced a pale wedge. She held it out on the tip of the blade. "Take it.""I'm not touching anything you've breathed on." I shifted my weight. The floorboards groaned."Such a waste of energy." Elinor popped the slice into her own mouth. She chewed slowly. Methodically. "