Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 151 - Chapitre 160

Cedric woke up slowly, the way he did now, in the quiet dark before the sun rose. Gianni's arm lay heavy and warm around his waist, the kind of hold that said the world could wait a little longer this morning. Light slanted through the windows in thin, pale bars, painting the room gold and soft, catching dust in the air like something worth noticing. For once there was no screaming in the night behind him, no cold sweat clinging to the sheets, just the steady rhythm of Gianni's breathing against his shoulder. He smiled, small and private, and eased out from under the blankets without waking him. The floorboards were cool under his bare feet as he padded down the hall. The foundation was already stirring by the time he reached the kitchen, someone's radio playing low in another room, footsteps overhead. Pancakes first, light and fluffy, the batter sizzling the second it hit the pan. Then eggs cracked one after another against the rim of the bowl, then coffee brewing for everyone who'd

New York had changed in fifteen years. The city was cleaner now, gentrified and polished, the streets brighter, the air less heavy with the memory of blood and despair. But to Cedric, it still felt like the same city where his life had shattered. The same sidewalks where he had once bartended in seedy bars, the same alleys where men had taken what they wanted, the same streets where he had learned that survival sometimes meant selling pieces of yourself just to stay alive.He felt it in his teeth the second they got out of the car. Gianni took his hand without a word and held on hard."You okay?" Gianni asked."Memories. That's all.""We can turn around. Alex can email the files.""No." It came out rougher than Cedric meant it to. "He's one of ours. I'm not sitting in a hotel room."Gianni nodded and let it drop, which was exactly why Cedric loved him.Alex met them in the lobby of the Upper West Side building, tablet under his arm, eyes red at the edges. He had the look of a man runn

Vance slapped the file down on the table and the sound bounced off every white wall.Cedric didn't jump. The straps had already rubbed his wrists raw, and the chair was bolted to the floor, so he stayed put and looked at her. The room was white, the light buzzed, and there wasn't a window anywhere. He'd been locked up in worse. At least here nobody was going to put a hand on him. Not yet."I know everything about you," Vance said. She said it nicely, like she was reading him a bedtime story. "Where you grew up. The years you sold yourself to pay rent. Gianni Falcone. The clones. I've had people on you for a long time, Cedric."Hearing Gianni's name in her mouth made his stomach turn, but his face didn't move. "What do you want?""Enzo Falcone Senior was a monster, sure. But he was also the smartest man who ever touched a genome." She flipped the file open and tapped a page he couldn't read from where he sat. "The way you heal. Your immune system. Whatever he built into the clones. Do

The river hit like a slap from a giant hand. Cedric went under, tumbled, lost up and down, and kicked until his head broke the surface and he dragged in air that tasted like mud and diesel."Aaron!" He spun in the current. "Nora!"The truck was already half gone. Its back end stuck out of the water at a steep angle, groaning, and the rear doors had burst open. Heads bobbed in the dark. Some kids clung to chunks of wreckage. Some were thrashing. A few weren't doing anything at all, just slipping under without a sound.He dove.The water was black and so cold it made his teeth ache. He found a shoulder, grabbed a fistful of wet shirt, and kicked for the surface with a boy of about nineteen hanging off him like dead weight. He shoved him toward a floating door panel and went back down. Somewhere to his left Aaron was doing the same, one arm bleeding into the river where a piece of metal had opened his forearm. He didn't seem to notice.Down, up. Down, up. Cedric's lungs burned and his ar

The water was cold enough to stop his heart.It slammed into him like a wall, and then it was everywhere, pulling him down, spinning him end over end until he couldn't tell the surface from the riverbed. Something hard caught his ribs. Something else raked across his thigh. He tried to kick upward and the current dragged him back, indifferent, enormous. His lungs burned. His shoulder, already wrecked from the fall out of the SUV, flared white. The last thing he saw was a thin gray light far above him, wavering and shrinking, and then even that went out.He woke to the smell of woodsmoke.For a long time he lay still and didn't try to understand it. There was a ceiling of rough-hewn beams over him, and the crackle of a stove somewhere to his left, and a weight of thick wool blankets piled to his chin. His ribs had been wrapped tight. Someone had cleaned the gash on his thigh and stitched it with neat, careful knots. Under the woodsmoke hung another smell, faint and sour, one he knew fr