Shane knew the urban legend that clothing stores used trick lighting and mirrors utilizing borrowed funhouse technology to move more product. Women looked into these magic mirrors and subconsciously had no doubt that this dress or pair of pants made them the fairest one of all. The illusion never held up to the light of day, but the tags were all ripped off when the truth was revealed and there could be no return. Worse, such honest light had never seen this place and never would; her double thus was every bit that beautiful even as she continued to try to bury Shane in a grave Shane had dug on her own. Her double's eyes held the brightness of blue flame, large and unlined. If she knew worry, she had forgiven and forgotten instantly. Her nose ceased to be as awkward as Shane's, seeming instead like that of some 1930s starlet. The reflection's soft blonde hair hung freely as Shane's own never would, since she kept it nearly always confined to pigtails or a ponytail. Even her blinking seemed somehow elegant. While she still resembled Shane, she was a version of Shane who spent five additional years in charm schools and ballet classes, sandblasting and airbrushing faults to oblivion. In comparison to this dangerous woman, Shane felt like a sullen, overtired child. Shane had a hard time plotting against this idealized version, but that did not mean she would not do it with every fiber that remained of her being.
Among the double's many virtues glared one great imperfection, though even it could not mar her increasing beauty. Each of her long, fit limbs had been decorated in a delicate filigree of scars rippling out from larger anonymous, pink scars like deep puncture wounds or third degree cigar burns. Shane thought she resembled a porcelain doll that had shattered and been reglued too many times to count. Her double may be a homicidal bitch, but Shane's curiosity pulled too strongly to let this pass uncommented.
Shane hopped over the dirt wall to attract her double's attention and see better over the edge. "Did you always have those scars?"
She did not look up and Shane felt annoyance passing to acute embarrassment that it bothered her that the double didn't look at her to say, "You just never noticed them, but I've had them as long as I can recall."
Shane considered this distinctly possible, but knew she had searched every part of the double when she mimicked Virgil, both with her eyes and the mental focus Gabe had taught her. His skin had been unblemished, showing not one freckle Shane had not seen on the original - to say nothing of a gunshot wound she had touched. The thought of it still made her hands ache to he washed again. There seemed something too vain and discomfiting to studying the replica as intently now that she emulated Shane, though Shane of course knew every inch of her own body as no one else did or, given this state or affairs, would.
"Did I scar you?"
"Who else could?" Even the double's sneer appeared serene and confident like that of a contemptuous swan princess. No wonder people felt so willing to forgive the manifold sin of celebrities. Even as Shane tried to think of a spell or trick to destroy her, she knew she would mourn having killed something so much better than she could ever be.
"When I cut myself?" Shane probed from the hole. Keep her talking, because the only thing this clone would give unsolicited was another inch of earth obscuring Shane's answers.
She laughed melodically and Shane felt the urge to try to see if her voice could make this sound. It didn't seem possible. "No, that would be silly," she answered. "You didn't feel more than a moment's discomfort then so I felt even less. No, I wear these because you won't, because you push the pain down like you pushed me down. Eliot died and you cracked a little. With each day that you wouldn't think about it or stop thinking about it, I grew more apart from you. You whipped me nightly. I bled so you could be in control, so you could hide in the pages of books like you never could in Eliot's arms. Nothing touches you because you let every slight emotion pillage me."
"I'm sorry."
The dirt flew toward Shane. "You aren't. Even now, you have a plan and are unconcerned. You keep climbing and you'll fight me, even if it means you never get out of here. You've long shut off to the severity of living and forget that I know you better than you do. I am the queen of your lies, crafting each one with affection."
Shane winced at the accuracy. She almost laughed to think how she had chided the double for being too robotic, understanding now the parody in it. "You're right, I'm not sorry at all. I don't need to be crushed with every breath and it sucks that some part of me is. But I can't do that and survive."
"Then you can't possible survive." Shane climbed over the falling dirt and reached out for the delicate foot of her persecutor, but she moved back too quickly.
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