Page 18 of Romancing the Clone (Sunrise Cantina #3)

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

RUTH-ANN

I need to talk to my sisters. Desperately.

I drop the cake off in the Sunrise Cantina kitchen, then snag Ruth by the hand.

My sister’s been helping out with the food prep every afternoon, and so I drag her out of the kitchen to find Ruthie in the front.

I grab Ruthie’s hand, too, and then I lead them both to the booth closest to the door. “We need to talk.”

“This sounds alarming,” Ruthie comments.

“Remember when it was suggested that we get the fake blood markers to hide the fact that we’re clones?” I say, keeping my tone even. “How do we feel about making that happen?”

Ruth frowns at me, glancing over at Ruthie then back to me. “What brought this on?”

“Simone. She doesn’t know I’m a clone.”

Ruthie’s eyes go wide and she leans forward in the booth. “You haven’t fucking told her?”

“Of course I haven’t,” I hiss back. “It’s not just my secret, you know? It’s all of us! Why would I endanger both of you? And the baby?”

Ruth’s hand immediately goes to her incredibly pregnant stomach.

“I see your point.” She runs her hand along the curve of her belly, as if comforting herself.

“But I’m not going to get the biomarkers done.

It disguises that you’re a clone, true, but it shows criminal tampering, and I don’t want anyone throwing me in a prison. ”

“Oh please, you can hide behind Straik’s name,” I retort.

“So can you. You’re his sister-in-law,” she shoots back. “That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not the same!”

Ruthie puts her hands up, and I swear she jingles when she does. “I don’t want any sketchy medical junk injected in me anyhow. Kaz will protect me. He’s a clone and I’m okay with being a clone alongside him.”

“But how do I protect Simone?” I ask.

Ruth narrows her eyes at me. “She’s a grown woman.

What makes you think she needs protecting?

She’s safe here on Risda, just like you are.

Lord va’Rin’s name carries even more weight than Straik’s does.

And she’s got a carinoux! That thing’s going to be enormous.

He’ll eat anything that looks at her twice. ”

That makes me pause, because she’s not wrong. Pluto has been cuddly to me ever since Simone told him I was a friend, but I still remember our first meeting and how he’d almost eaten my face. “You think that’s enough?”

“It’s more than most people have,” Ruth says with a practical shrug.

“And look at it this way,” Ruthie chimes in, reaching out to tap the back of my hand.

“If you stay here on Risda, that’s the safest place you can be.

No one’s going to be coming to this planet without Lord va’Rin’s permission.

Even the dock workers won’t make eye contact if they think it’s going to get them in trouble. ”

I chew on my lip, considering. “Maybe I need a blaster.”

“Maybe you need to accept that some things are out of your control,” Ruthie says.

“Big words coming from me, the anxious mess, but think about it. You really imagine Lord va’Rin would let anything happen to a human here?

Even a cloned one? His children are half-human.

His wife is a human. More people arrive in Port every week.

What’s one clone amongst all the dozens of people here?

” She leans back and touches her earlobe, playing with one of her many earrings.

“Just stay back and blend in with the crowd.”

“Like… stay here stay here? As in get a house and stay here?”

Ruthie chuckles. “Well, yeah. Were you going to bail out on the cantina? The Scarlet Gaze isn’t going to stay in Port forever.”

I blink at my sisters, because…I hadn’t really thought about it.

Not truly. I just pitch in to help with whatever task is at hand, and figuring out the logistics of making the cantina work was a fun puzzle.

It didn’t occur to me to think of what my future looks like a year from now, or five years from now.

Of course they’re settling down to run the cantina. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

“It’s weird to imagine, isn’t it?” Ruthie says, hunching her shoulders and giving us a bashful smile. “I’ve lived day to day for so long that I have a hard time imagining what the future looks like. But with Kazex, it’s a lot easier to see.”

“Babies?” Ruth asks, nudging her.

Ruthie puts her hands up. “God, no. You can have enough for both of us. I was thinking more along the lines of a cozy little house and a bed big enough to stretch out on. Maybe a garden.”

“A garden?” I echo. “Who are you, and what have you done with Ruthie?”

She glances over at pregnant Ruth, then back to me. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud. Flowers might be pretty, that’s all I’m saying.” She turns back to Ruth. “What about you?”

“Babies, obviously.” She gestures at her protruding belly.

“Maybe more than one. But because of Straik’s situation with his mom and his family’s legal situation, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what comes next.

We’re going to keep the ship as our home for a while, but not necessarily here the entire time.

Which brings me to something else we need to talk about—Zebah contacted Straik. ”

I groan. Ruthie does too.

“She’s trouble,” Ruthie says, dubious. “Like, worse than Bethiah. And I didn’t think that was possible.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I scowl at Ruthie. “Zebah rescued me, remember? Don’t talk shit about her.”

“Is it shit if it’s the truth?”

“Okay, okay,” Ruth says, putting her hands up to form a barrier between us. “Go to your corners, ladies.” She looks over at me. “She is a bit of a loose cannon, but she’s also got a good heart.”

Ruthie makes a sound in her throat.

“Anyhow, there’s a lead on Michaela’s sister Rafaela, and Zebah wants some quiet backup. Aithar is insisting we go, and Straik doesn’t want to send him off without a solid crew around him.”

My fear spikes—not for myself, but for Ruth. “Is this a good idea? Straik’s supposed to be keeping his nose clean.”

“We’re just transport, or so Zebah says?—”

Ruthie makes another throat noise.

Ruth puts a hand over Ruthie’s mouth and continues on. “She has Rafaela’s location, but she needs a ship because she lost hers.”

“How do you lose an entire ship?” Ruthie mumbles from under Ruth’s hand.

“Something about how it wasn’t even hers in the first place? I didn’t ask questions. The bottom line is that Aithar needs us, and so we’re going with him.” Ruth lowers her hand from Ruthie’s mouth. “But we’re only going to be a ride. You know Straik won’t put me in danger.”

“Is that wise?” Ruthie asks, changing tactics. “Given that you’re a billion years pregnant?”

“Fourteen or fifteen months.” Ruth grimaces over at me. “But it feels like a billion years to my lower back.”

I don’t like this, but I have to trust that the situation is as it’s described. Lord Straik would not put Ruth in danger for anything, so this has to be safe. And poor Aithar and Michaela have been looking for her missing sister Rafaela for a while now. “Who all’s going?”

“Not many,” Ruth says. “Aithar, obviously. Dopekh is going to help Michaela with the butter business while Aithar is gone. Salvotor is still farm-sitting for Maeve, so he’s out.”

I can feel my frown growing, because Dopekh and Salvotor are the muscle of the team. Kazex is, too, but he and Ruthie are committed to the cantina. “Zaemen? Erzah? Jerzec?”

“Erzah yes, Jerzec yes. Zaemen is staying.” Ruth’s mouth tightens into a half-smile half-grimace. “And of course we’ve got Sakkar.”

“Woo.” Ruthie could not sound less enthused.

“What about you?” Ruth asks me. “No pressure either way, but we could always use another pair of hands for the bridge comms.”

I consider it. For a very brief second. “I don’t want to leave Simone behind.”

Ruthie arches her pierced brow. “But you won’t tell her what you really are.”

I swallow hard. “I just…I don’t want to drag her into trouble.

All she wants is peace and quiet.” Both of my sisters give me looks—one sympathetic, one judging.

“I know. I know. I’m going to say something.

Don’t leave without me. If she takes it badly, I’ll just leave the planet and flee with you guys. ”

The universe is surely big enough to hide a crushed heart, after all.