Isobel stared at the monitor. It hadn’t been hard to get access. The truck stop didn’t have much in the way of security. Real security, anyway. They probably never thought anyone would be interested in hacking into their feed, or maybe they didn’t care. After all, if someone wanted to watch the coming and goings of interstate truckers, what could it hurt? All the better for her.

Sienna moved through the restaurant on the tiny screen. She was fast, but sloppy, perhaps rushed. Isobel had been like that when she was younger, before it had been refined out of her. Isobel frowned. They walked differently now, Sienna jerking along with her ponytail bouncing behind her. Growing up, Mother would have punished her for such boorish behavior. She tilted her head. It was strange, watching almost a mirror image of yourself act so differently. Sienna moved with all the flaws Isobel had trained out of her own personality. The girl was fiery, and didn’t mind showing it. There were times when Isobel was a little jealous of that. It had been a long time since she’d been able to just let loose. Not with so much responsibility on her shoulders. But then, Sienna also made mistakes. She’d let Isobel inside her head, hadn’t even appeared to know she was there. Isobel had struggled holding the connection from such a distance, but it had been nearly long enough to solve all her problems.

She crossed her arms, frowning at the screen. Ambition was the only thing in life that mattered. Isobel’s mother, Claudia, had taught her that. Claudia had been born into nothing, but she followed her dreams. She’d become an accomplished scientist, a geneticist, the government’s youngest and brightest. And that had been before she’d discovered the anomaly. She’d kept it quiet at first, slowly gaining support from those who thought as she did. Claudia had known if she revealed her discovery too soon that she’d be shut down by those wanting to maintain the status quo. Those who believed that everyone was born equal. Please! One little tweak to the gene that Claudia had uncovered and she could turn ordinary humans into gods. She’d used that to bless her daughter with divine power. Someone had to save humanity, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be a fictional deity in an old book.

There’d been trial runs, of course, some abject failures, but many with small successes, a slight glimpse into true power. Then she’d created Isobel. She’d known what she was from the moment she was born, and had been perfecting her craft ever since. There were no lies or secrets during her childhood. Her mother made her purpose clear. She was to subdue mankind and set herself up as their leader. If she didn’t, then the toxic waste and violent tendencies of an already decaying population would force the entire human race into extinction. The lives of individuals no longer mattered, not in a world as vicious as this. Isobel learned that early on, too.

She prided herself on her ability to stay calm. It was why she would succeed while Sienna failed. Whatever had made her how she was, she was no real threat. She couldn’t be. While humans would be stampeding, Isobel would stand aside, distance herself from the herd mentality. She would rise against the chaos and panic and use it to her advantage—thinning the herd so that those who remained could have a better life. Sienna may have passion, but it would be her downfall. She would falter at what was to come.

She remembered the first dead body she’d seen. A young girl in her early teens, another like her who just wouldn’t listen to reason. Claudia had brought Isobel in to show her the price of disobedience. The girl had lain on the ground, black hair stained dark with blood against a backdrop of packed snow. The thick fluid oozed from her skull before freezing against the hard, cold ground. Isobel had shaken violently at first, but her mother had made her stand there in the cold until the sight no longer frightened her. It was for her own good, and the good of the cause. Those who would not stand with them were cut down. She got in Claudia’s way, and so she had to die.

But then there were the others. The tall blonde and her apostles. At first the other had failed, almost to the point Isobel believed her to be lost herself, broken. But then she found the first other, and their strength had built. Every one of Isobel’s efforts in the last few years had been blocked. Every man she’d sent, destroyed. They may not make good test subjects—Claudia had learned early on that only female psychics survived the trials—but they were good foot soldiers.

Until they came along.

Light and dark, chaos and structure. Good and evil. You couldn’t have one without the other. Could it be possible that Sienna was Isobel’s final trial? Created in her image but her exact opposite, sent by her mother to test her a final time? She couldn’t stop watching the girl. Every morning she woke, went through her morning routine, and then sat, turning on the monitor and never once moving her eyes away. Sienna was chaotic, but she had an uncanny ability to use it to her advantage. Rather than be repulsed by it, people flocked to her, cared for her. The girl had somehow found a way to control the human stampede from within.

Isobel had been on the sidelines her entire life. It was how her mother had told her she had to be. Was there another way?

No. This was a test. That was all. This girl was the antithesis to Isobel’s order. A smile slid over Isobel’s lips. She loved a good opportunity to showcase her strength. This double, no this girl, couldn’t see past her own nose. She was so consumed with her own life that nothing else was on her horizon. Her ignorance would work to Isobel’s favor.

That was, until she’d seen the other.

Her. The one who had gotten past her defenses. She’d beaten everything Isobel had thrown at her. She’d even caught a glimpse of Isobel herself. Just once. But that had been more than enough.

After that, Isobel lost herself in Sienna’s black-and-white world. Time passed. She ate and drank little, only what her staff brought her when they became more afraid she would die than they were of her. She’d pushed her will out to Sienna, trying to lock their minds. After all, if she looked just like her, they must have other traits in common. She’d been able to influence her—to bend her reality—just once. But then that man had intervened. A mere human. He should not be able to stand up against her forces.

But he had. As had the men belonging to the others. How had they found such love when all Isobel found were experimental failures and sycophants? Some thought they loved her, but none of them really did. They worshiped her power, but that was all. For the brief moment she’d shared Sienna’s mind, Isobel had tasted what love actually felt like, and it had nearly brought her to her knees. Overwhelming, passionate. Everything Sienna was and Isobel was not.

Sienna had emotion, all right. She’d been scared for her life when two of Isobel’s men had followed her in a car. They’d tried to run her off the road, abduct her on the spot, but Sienna’s emotions had flared out, taking over and pushing their car back. That had never happened to Isobel. She could manipulate the mind, control anyone she wanted. She could fuck with anyone’s head, but never anything else. She grabbed a cigarette and began pacing around the room. She was invincible. Claudia had told her that. She was just being toyed with. There was no other explanation. She stopped and stared at the cigarette case that was resting on the glass table top. She jutted her will outward. “Move.”

Nothing happened.

“Move.”

“Move.”

Nothing.

Isobel closed her eyes, tensing her entire body and channeling every molecule of power. She had to be stronger—use everything— that was all.

“Move! You motherfucker! Move!”

Not even a single twitch.

Isobel dropped her cigarette, stamped it out on the oriental rug, then collapsed on the floor.