by Malinda Lo
Her mom seized her by the arm and pushed her toward the front door. “Move!”
Reese saw her dad pull the pin on the fire extinguisher and a spray of white foam launched at the flames. “What about Dad? Is he coming?”
“He’s coming,” her mom said, grabbing her purse off the hall tree. She opened the door. “Go!” she ordered.
Outside the air was fresh and cool, and as Reese went down the front steps Agent Forrestal came barreling up. She heard her mom talking to him in frantic tones as the shrieking of the fire alarm receded. At the bottom of the steps she turned to look back at the house. Agent Forrestal had gone inside, and her mom was coming down to the street. The living room window—illuminated by the dying glow of the fire—was broken. Dread slid down her back, vicious and cold. Someone had thrown something through the window on purpose. That’s what the glass on the carpet was from. Who would do that?
She didn’t have to guess for long, because her dad and Agent Forrestal soon emerged from the house together. Her dad hurried down the steps toward her and her mom and said, “The fire extinguisher’s empty. I got most of it, but the alarm’s still going off.”
Reese stared at the front door, which Agent Forrestal had pulled shut. Written in neon-green spray paint were four words: QUEER ALIEN FUCKING FREAK.
The fire department came first, their sirens and whirling lights waking up the neighbors who hadn’t been disturbed by the incessant beeping of the alarm. They charged into the house in their neon-striped black coats, and then the police arrived, their sirens adding to the cacophony. All along the block, lights began to come on.
Reese stood with her mom’s arm around her, feeling the cold sidewalk through her socks, trying to focus solely on herself. She couldn’t handle her mom’s terror and anger in addition to her own.
“Weren’t you watching our house?” her mom demanded of Agent Forrestal. “How could you let this happen?”
“It was only one guy, and he broke the window before I realized what he was doing,” the agent said.
“If it was only one guy, why didn’t you catch him?” her mom pushed.
Agent Forrestal bristled. “It’s dark. He knew the neighborhood and ducked into someone’s yard. And my job is to make sure Reese is safe, not chase common criminals. I couldn’t leave the vicinity.”
“The police will find him,” her dad said, squeezing her mom’s shoulder.
“They’d better.”
After the fire department was finished, the police did a walk-through. The first-floor bay windows were vintage single-paned glass—Reese’s mom had never had the time or money to renovate—and it hadn’t taken much to break one: a few fist-sized rocks hurled from the street. They found the rocks on the floor beneath the coffee table. After the window had been broken, someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail through, and it had exploded on impact. Reese’s dad had put out most of the fire with the extinguisher, but the fire department had sprayed everything down anyway, so when Reese and her parents were allowed to return inside, the living room was soaked and blackened, the rug and the furniture ruined. As Reese paused in the archway, staring at the mess, she heard her mom talking to the police about hate crimes. Nobody needed to guess who the message was for.
After the police took their statements—including Agent Forrestal’s vague and mostly useless description of the attacker—Reese’s parents herded her into the back of the house, making her sit at the kitchen table to drink a cup of hot tea. The house smelled of smoke and gasoline and the lingering, sweet odor of the fire extinguisher chemicals, and mint tea did little to mask it. Her parents were talking in low, intense tones by the sink, acting as if she couldn’t hear them. They were debating whether or not she should stay in the house.
“Where am I going to go?” she interrupted.
They turned as one to look at her. “We’re discussing that, honey,” her mom said.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Reese said tonelessly. “If I go somewhere, they’ll win.”
Her mom crossed the kitchen and pulled out the chair next to Reese. “Honey, I admire your courage, and I’m the first to agree that I don’t want some jerkwads dictating how I live my life, but—”
“Where are you going to make me go? You want me to go to Nanna and Grandpa’s? How do you know the jerkwads won’t follow us there?”
“At least you won’t be as accessible there.”
“They live in Mill Valley! It’s just over the Golden Gate Bridge.” Anger burned through Reese. “No. I’m not leaving. They can fuck off. I don’t care if they think I’m some disgusting pervert.” Her mom sighed, reaching out to smooth away Reese’s messy hair from her forehead. Reese jerked back. “You don’t have to baby me. I’m not a little kid anymore.” She stood up, her chair’s legs scraping across the floor. Her color rose as she spoke, her voice growing harder-edged with every word. “I know there are crazy people out there. It doesn’t matter where I go, they follow me. They’re everywhere—on our block, at school, at the ferry. Not to mention on the Internet. Have you seen the shit they say about me? I can’t let them dictate what I do!”
Her mom seemed taken aback. “I’m only trying to keep you safe, honey.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t do that either,” Reese said harshly.
Her mom stood, her face flushed. “Well, I’m going to try. You’re not a little kid anymore but you’re still my daughter. And you’re going to go where I tell you to go.”
Reese gaped at her mom. Then she whirled on her feet and headed for the stairs.
“Come back here!”
“I’m going to my room,” Reese snapped.
“No, you’re not! That’s facing the street. Get back here.”
Reese had never heard her mom speak like that before, her voice choked with desperate terror. She turned around. “Where do you want me to go?” she asked in a low voice.
Her mom hesitated. She glanced at Reese’s dad for a split second. “Go into the guest room,” her mom said. “You can sleep there.”
“Fine.” Reese went to the guest room and closed the door. Then she sat down on the edge of the sofa bed, the blankets still mussed from when her father had woken up a couple of hours earlier. Her whole body shuddered as she swallowed her sobs so that her parents wouldn’t hear.
Reese did not go to school on Thursday, but the news of what had happened spread quickly, because she began getting texts from her friends by midmorning. Even David called, but when she saw his picture light up her cell phone she couldn’t bring herself to answer it. His voice-mail message was tentative, concerned. It made her feel even sadder.
Her mom came up with a solution that night. “You’re going to Angel Island,” she said, pulling plates out of the cabinet for the pizza she had picked up.
“Are you serious?” Reese asked. Since when had her mom decided that staying with the Imria was a good idea?
“They’ve invited you to go with them to the UN anyway, and it’s important for you to do that. You might as well go a little early, because it’s the only place I know where you’ll be safe.”
“Why do you think that? You’ve never—”
“I’ve been talking to Dr. Brand,” her mom said. “She might not be a human being, but she’s been honest with me throughout this entire ordeal. She showed us her research; she talked to me and David’s parents about the adaptation and answered all our questions. I know you and her daughter have had issues, but Dr. Brand wanted the best for you. She saved your life. If it weren’t for her, you’d be dead. I trust her.”
Reese was stunned.
“I talked to her this afternoon. She agreed that you can stay on their ship, and she’s sending a ferry tonight at eight o’clock. You’d better eat quickly and pack up. I’m going with you; your dad’s staying here.”
“I’ll get the windows repaired and put in an alarm system,” her dad said, taking a plate.
Reese turned to stare at him. “So you’re staying?”
He lo
oked from Reese to her mother. He was obviously tired. Reese didn’t know where he had been sleeping since she had taken over the guest room, and she didn’t want to think about the possibilities.
“He’s staying for a while,” her mom said. Her words were vague, but the look on her face as she offered her ex-husband a slice of pizza was not.
Now, that’s a tell, Reese thought. She tried to focus on her dinner, but the pizza tasted like cardboard.
Nura Halba met Reese and her mom at the Angel Island harbor. It was almost dark by the time the ferry had arrived, and going to the island without David had felt strange to Reese. She knew she needed to talk to David soon—her move to the ship changed everything with regard to Mr. Hernandez and CASS—but she told herself she’d call him tomorrow. One more night wouldn’t make a difference, and maybe in the morning she’d have a better idea of what she wanted to do. Right now, everything was a jumbled, confusing mess in her head, and the only thing she could think about was the fact that she and Amber were going to be sleeping under the same roof tonight.
The rooms that Nura Halba took them to were in the living quarters on the third level of the spacecraft. “Your door is programmed to recognize you,” he explained after Reese pressed her palm to the black glass plate in the center of hers. “You don’t need a key.” Inside, on the wall across from the door, was a screen that showed the dark hillside of eucalyptus trees outside. “You can adjust the view with the touch screen here,” he said, showing her a smooth glass surface beneath the screen. “It is done by thought, but if you have trouble with it, you can use voice commands. I’ve had it modified to understand simple English words. You can turn the screen off or dim the lights by commanding it to do so.” Reese and her mom shared a tiny, efficient bathroom between their rooms, and Halba explained that they were welcome to help themselves to food in the dining hall on the first level. “There will be breakfast available in the morning. If you need any assistance, don’t hesitate to let me know.” He showed them how to contact him through a device near the door.
When he left, Reese’s mom said, “I’m going to give your dad a call to tell him we’re all settled in. Do you need anything?”
“No. I’m kind of tired. I might just go to sleep.”
Her mom kissed her on the forehead as if she were a six-year-old. Reese smelled the scent of her lotion and she wanted to curl up in her arms and pretend like everything was completely normal, but she didn’t let herself give in.
“All right,” her mom said. “Good night, honey.”
“Good night.”
After her mom left, Reese changed into her pajamas and lay down on the bunk, staring up at the ceiling. The overhead lights glowed warm and golden. “Turn off the lights,” she said out loud, feeling a little ridiculous as she did so. The lights dimmed immediately so that the only illumination came from the screen depicting the hill outside. It was peaceful to watch night fall over the eucalyptus grove, and when she could no longer make out the shapes of the trees in the dark, she turned off the screens. The room was plunged into blackness.
As she closed her eyes, she wondered where Amber’s room was. Did Amber know she was here? She rolled onto her side, pulling the blanket over herself. She wondered, too, if the adaptation chamber was really in this spaceship. Had she slept within these walls before? The thought was perversely comforting, and she fell asleep remembering the cocoon of red and gold around her, soft and warm as her mother’s embrace.
CHAPTER 27
Reese’s phone pealed, the screen lighting up the dark room. She sat up, disoriented, and grabbed the vibrating device from where she had stowed it on a shelf near her bunk. It was David. She answered the phone, heart racing from her abrupt awakening, and croaked, “Hello?”
“Hey, are you coming to school today?”
He sounded wide awake, and she pulled the phone away from her ear to check the time. It was nine fifteen in the morning. She fumbled for the light switch and then realized there wasn’t one. “Lights,” she said groggily, and heard David’s tinny voice coming from the phone. She raised it to her ear again as the overheads glowed on. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. What’s going on?”
“I looked for you at school but I couldn’t find you. Are you still at home?”
She blinked. “I’m on Angel Island.”
A beat. “Why?”
“My mom thought I’d be safer here.” Reese rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to wake herself up. She pushed the pillow against the wall and leaned back. “Aren’t you in school?” At nine fifteen, he should be in the middle of second period already.
“Yeah, I snuck out for a minute. I got some news from my dad. The scientists who are analyzing our DNA—they have an initial assessment. They think we’re descended from the Imria.”
She stared at the close weave of the blue-gray blanket over her legs. It had a meticulously repeated diamond pattern. “What?”
“They think humans evolved from the Imria. My dad says they can trace this back through our mitochondrial DNA—it’s the same way anthropologists have been figuring out how humans evolved. They thought we were descended from a common ancestor in Africa, but apparently our DNA says we came from the Imria.”
Reese was wide awake now. “Are they sure? They could figure this out just from our DNA?”
“They also had a sample from Dr. Brand. She gave one to my dad—he never told me this. But with the Imrian sample and ours, yeah, they’re pretty sure. I think they want to do more analyzing, and they’re not going public with this yet, but it kind of explains a lot, doesn’t it? Why we look like them.”
“But Akiya Deyir said they didn’t know why—”
“Obviously he was lying. And you know what? Lovick had to be lying too. CASS has had access to Imrian DNA for years. They have to know too.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees. She was cold. “So Charles Lovick and Akiya Deyir were both lying.”
“But Dr. Brand wanted us to know. Why else would she have given that sample to my dad?”
Reese’s mind raced. “Do you think there’s some kind of disagreement among the Imria? I mean, if Dr. Brand wanted us to know but Akiya Deyir didn’t…”
“Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on with them. If you’re on the ship now, you need to find out. Talk to Dr. Brand.”
“Okay, I’ll try.” Her shoulders were stiff with tension. “But what are we going to do about Mr. Hernandez? I know the Imria haven’t exactly been telling us the whole truth, but I don’t trust CASS at all. You can’t go to that meeting with Mr. Hernandez tomorrow night.”
“If I don’t go—you saw the photos he had. And what about you? Have you decided not to go?”
“My mom won’t let me leave this place until after she thinks our house is secure. I can’t go even if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to help CASS do whatever shady thing they’re planning.”
David’s voice dropped. “My family, Reese. I can’t leave them.”
“Then bring them here,” she said impulsively. “Just bring them all.”
“To the ship?”
“Yes. Bring your parents and your sister. CASS can’t get to them here.”
“I’ll have to tell them why.”
“So tell them.” She was tired of lying; the idea of simply telling the truth was a seductive novelty.
He was silent for a moment. “So you want to just throw in with the Imria. We rely on them for everything.”
“No. We rely on each other. You’re supposed to be here tomorrow for another lesson with Eres anyway, and the UN thing is on Monday. You should stay here tomorrow night, because if you go back, you’ll have to go to the meeting with Hernandez, or else CASS will move in. At least if you stay here, we’ll be able to talk to Dr. Brand together. We’ll get them to tell us everything. We’ll figure it out together.”
She realized this was the first time she had talked to David since he broke up with her in the school hallway on Monday. She had avoided hi
m all week, not even returning his texts after he heard about the attack on her house, because she had been so embarrassed by the breakup. Now that seemed like a million years ago. She was glad David had called this morning while she was asleep, because that was probably the only reason she had answered the phone—she hadn’t been awake enough to be self-conscious. She slid to the edge of the bed and threw off the blanket, swinging her legs off the bunk. The matte black floor warmed beneath the soles of her feet, as if the material was made to sense her presence. David still hadn’t answered, and the silence on the other end of the phone worried her.
“Please,” she said. She didn’t care anymore if she sounded like a dork. The only thing that mattered was keeping him safe. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Just come here.” Her heartbeat thudded in her ears as she waited for him to respond.
Finally he said, “All right.”
“Thank you,” she said, relieved.
After they hung up, she held the phone in the palm of her hand for a long moment. She took a deep breath before calling her home number. “Hi, Dad,” she said when he answered. “Look, you need to pack a suitcase.”
It was past ten o’clock by the time Reese made it down to the dining hall for breakfast. She didn’t expect to find anyone there, but the room wasn’t empty. Amber was seated at the curved table closest to the plant-filled cylinder, a laptop open in front of her. She didn’t look up when the doors slid open; she was too absorbed in whatever she was reading on the computer.
Reese knew she should say something, but it was the first time she had seen Amber since the disastrous afternoon on the beach. She was wearing a faded green T-shirt, and her blond hair was messy, as if she had just woken up. Reese wanted to be angry at Amber for trying to kiss her last Saturday, but it was hard to be mad at someone who had only done what she knew you wanted. Amber had made a mistake, but so had Reese. Did that make them even now? Reese wasn’t sure.
