“Watch out!” Isobel screamed as the doppelgänger dove at him.
But her warning came too late.
The two Varens collided.
Falling into the ash, they rolled away, one over the other, until it was impossible to tell them apart.
40
Dual
The grappling doubles flipped to a halt as they tumbled into a clearing.
Isobel dodged through the trees after them.
“You don’t control me anymore,” she heard the victor growl as he slammed the other one hard into the dirt.
“And you don’t control me,” grunted the grounded Varen before inserting a knee between them, kicking his opponent with enough force to send him wheeling backward.
Seizing her chance, Isobel dashed into the clearing. She lurched to a halt between them and threw her arms wide, as if that could keep them separated.
To her right, the Varen who had been flung back regained his balance. At her left, the other duplicate climbed from the ash to his feet.
“Varen, whichever is you, just stop!” Isobel whipped her head back and forth, addressing them both. “Don’t you see that he wants you to fight? That she wants you to?”
Ignoring her, the doubles started toward each other again—toward her—and Isobel knew her Varen wasn’t listening. Not anymore. That left her with only one other option, and though she doubted she could appeal to the Noc, she knew she had to try.
“I said stop!” Isobel shouted. “Both of you. You’ll destroy each other.”
“Isobel, move,” said the Varen to her right.
“No!” she shouted, her gaze snapping toward him.
“Do what he says,” came the duplicate voice to her left.
Taking in their identical glowers, their replicated stances, Isobel tried to comprehend why the real Varen, whichever he was, would choose to enter this battle that was so obviously a trap. Especially when there was so much at stake, and so little time left.
She didn’t have a sure answer to her question, but one thing was certain: As long as she stood in the way, as long as she kept herself between them, neither would attack the other.
“Which one of you is which?” Isobel demanded. “Tell me.”
“He’s the monster,” said the Varen on her right.
“Don’t listen to him,” replied the Varen to her left. “He is.”
Isobel’s panic mounted as she looked from one to the other. No matter how fast her thoughts spun, she couldn’t think of a single way to defuse the situation. No more than she could conceive of a way to tell them apart. What was worse, she felt the tension between them building, poised to boil over regardless of what she did or said. And though the Noc had not been able to harm Varen moments ago, Isobel worried that the ghoul’s new appearance had changed the rules again.
With the rest of the Nocs preoccupied with the Lost Souls, and with Varen’s internal strength renewed to at least some degree, this Noc—the new front-runner who seemed eager to claim Pinfeathers’s place—must have sensed he was losing. Losing both Lilith’s fight, and his own grip on his host and source. Morphing into Varen’s form, Isobel guessed, had been the ghoul’s final resort, his last-ditch effort to shatter Varen’s resolve.
The Noc’s plan was working, too. Isobel could tell by the way each Varen glared straight through her, as if she was made of glass.
She’d seen this look on Varen’s face before. Only a little while ago, in the dreamworld version of Mr. Swanson’s classroom. When Varen had leveled the gun at her.
It was the same glare of hatred she’d seen that day at Trenton, when she’d found Brad hovering over Varen, threatening him for writing his number on her hand. For talking to her.
The same look of dark recklessness he’d worn after the explosive encounter with his father, when he’d taken off in the Cougar with Isobel in the passenger seat.
Ripping through the streets with total abandon, tearing around corners and through lights, revving the engine, Varen had not cared in that moment about what might happen to either of them. He hadn’t stopped or slowed down, even when she’d begged him to. Not until Isobel had compared his behavior to Brad’s.
But now there was no mirror to hold up to him.
Not when he faced one already.
He hates himself, Gwen had told Isobel that morning at the cemetery, and even then, Isobel had known she was right. Now here she was again, caught in the middle of a cross fire. Because, in Varen’s mind, he was no longer fighting down the shadow of his darker side.
He was fighting that darker side itself.