Generation (The
Imitation Series, Book 3)
Releasing October 13, 2015
After months of pretending to be Raven Rogen, Ven feels less
like a clone and more like a human than ever. But when Raven’s father,
Titus—the same man who engineered Ven—discovers her plan to escape, everything
she’s worked so hard for is taken away in one explosive moment.
Now she’s imprisoned in Twig City, the secret
warehouse where she grew up. She spends her days plotting ways to get back to
the outside world, determined to topple Titus’s empire and free every last
Imitation. But Titus’s reach is extensive and his plans are more deadly than
she realized.
In the shocking conclusion to the Imitation series, one wrong move could mean the
end for Ven and everyone she’s come to love.
**SPOILER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT**
If you have not Read Deviation Yet
STOP NOW!
Bonus Scene from Linc
*Two Months After the End of Deviation*
The car
is warm despite the chill outside. My window has fogged and I shift trying to
get a better view. My legs cramp at being bent so long. I stretch them slowly,
first right and then left. My knee pops and I wince. Anna looks over, an
apology on the edge of her lips.
“I’m
fine,” I say.
She
presses her lips together and I know what she’s thinking. We could leave. But
neither of us is willing to give up with so little to report back.
The
mission is to watch Marla, the woman Titus uses as his gatekeeper out of Twig
City. She’s one option among a scant few that we’ve come up with as a way in to
look for Ven. Melanie suggested we follow her and try to find a weakness,
something we can use against her. But the woman is a robot. She goes to work,
she comes home, she watches The Biggest Loser. If we don’t find anything
tonight, we’ll move on. I need to watch, to spot something we can exploit. I
can’t do that through frosted glass.
Maybe my
breaths are too heavy. I will myself to calm down. Anna’s still watching me,
her brow furrowed like she’s still trying to come up with a way to fix me. If
she only knew.
I
pretend not to see her and stare through the window. Outside, the darkness is
lit by the soft glow of the street lamps but it’s eerie to me. Shadows encroaching
on the light. Monsters plotting. Everything in my life feels like a damn threat
these days.
“You
could climb in the backseat,” Anna offers finally.
I sigh.
Anna’s always trying to please others.
“I’m
good,” I repeat, pretending the stiffness doesn’t linger when I reposition my
legs and tuck them underneath the dashboard. We’ve been here six hours and
counting. Not how I wanted to spend the night—with a girl who isn’t Ven.
As usual
when I think of her, I wince at the ache it brings. Anna’s gaze sharpens as she
studies me across the shadowed interior of Melanie’s car.
“She’s
fine, you know,” Anna says.
I
consider pretending not to catch her meaning but it’s no use. I’ve been an open
book with a harsh ending for months now. I pretend to stare at Marla’s
townhouse at the end of the street but I don’t register a damn thing about it.
Inside my head, Ven’s eyes blink back at me, trusting. Her lips pucker
affectionately. All of the images are reminders that I failed her.
“How do
you know?” I ask and hate the tortured sound of my own words.
“Ven is
a fighter. She always has been. She’ll find a way to be okay.”
I ran a
hand over my hair, rubbing hard as if that will erase the images that taunt me.
“You sound really sure about that. But you can’t know. Not really. She’s in
there and we’re out here and no one has even seen her.” Anger, helpless rotten
fury, wells in my veins. Without meaning to, my hands ball into fists in my
lap.
“He
won’t kill her,” Anna says. I don’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed
that she sounds so sure. Anna can be hopeful to the point of naïve. But right
now, it’s all I’ve got to cling to. “If he was going to do it, he would’ve done
it long before that night,” she adds.
I lean my
head back on the seat, giving up the pretense of actually performing any recon.
“How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do
what?”
I look
over in time to see her blink at me, so unaware of her own strength. Like Ven.
I grimace, shove that aside, and force myself to focus on the present. “Be so
optimistic all the time,” I say. “Even when things look completely hopeless
you’re upbeat.”
Sh
shrugs. “My Authentic was that way. Maybe she influenced me. Maybe it’s partly
my personality.” She sounds uncertain and I glance sideways at her.
“And the
other part?”
“Families
don’t give up on each other,” she says. And it’s a matter-of-fact kind of thing
that knocks me for a loop. Guilt gnaws at me. She’s right. And she’s family
too. All of them are now and I’ve been so wrapped up in losing Ven and trying
to get her back, I’ve forgotten all of them are messed up too.
“You’re
right,” I say, forcing myself to sound like I mean it. For Anna’s sake. I twist
to face her squarely. “We are family. And families always fight.”
She
smiles at me but I look away. I don’t know how to tell her that particular kind
of smile, the warm, fuzzy feeling it gives, reminds me of Ven. I don’t deserve
a smile like that when I lost her to a
man like Titus Rogen.
I clear
my throat and look around for something to say. “How’s your arm?” I ask.
She
holds it up and even in the dim lighting I see the scar is already fading.
“Much better,” she says.
I grunt,
glad to see the infection didn’t cause permanent damage. Cutting out a GPS
tracker is risky business. But she’s right, it looks a lot better. Much more
healed than my sorry ass broken heart. I look up at Marla’s house one last time
and start the engine. There’s nothing for us here. We’re going to have to do
this another way.
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Everyone is exactly like me. There is no one like
me.
Ven wrestles with these contradicting truths
every day. A clone of wealthy eighteen-year-old Raven Rogen, Ven knows
everything about the girl she was created to serve: the clothes she wears, the
boys she loves, the friends she loves to hate. Yet she’s never met the
Authentic Raven face-to-face. Imitations like Ven only get to leave the lab
when they’re needed—to replace a dead Authentic, donate an organ, or complete a
specific mission. And Raven has neverneeded
Ven . . . until now.
When there is an attack on Raven’s life, Ven is
thrust into the real world, posing as Raven to draw out the people who tried to
harm her. But as Ven dives deeper into Raven’s world, she begins to question
everything she was ever told. She exists for Raven, but is she prepared to
sacrifice herself for a girl she’s never met?
Coming Soon!
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Author of Across the Galaxy, Whisper, and the Dirty Blood series. I write, read, and fuss at my kids. Oh, and I do laundry, lots of laundry. I'm pretty good at it, too. Sometimes I even read WHILE doing laundry - and fussing at my kids. I'm a multi-tasker.
For more information on my books, release dates, or just general stalker material, um, I mean FAN material, visit my website. www.heatherhildenbrand.blogspot.com. I love hearing from readers!
Likes and dislikes? I love vintage tees, hate socks with sandals, and if my house was on fire the one thing I'd grab is my Amazon Fire TV! (oh yeah, I'm a fan of puns.)
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