by Sarah Porter
“Hello?”
My brain is just starting to work again, because all at once I recognize what that noise is: the mob is back, and from the ferocity of the slamming, they must be making a serious effort to break down the gate. Has everyone run away? Did they completely forget about me? I picture the hotel burning, everybody running for the woods or the sea, with me still locked in this room and Marley, poor Marley, helplessly dangling in her chrysalis.
Adrenaline floods through me, and I stand up and beat on the door. “Hey, I’m still trapped in here! Where is everyone? Please, somebody, answer me!”
In a lull between slams, I think I hear something near the door, but it’s so soft I can’t be sure. A whispery noise, like a hand brushing wood.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
No answer, so I drop to the floor again and twist my neck to peek through the crack. I don’t see even a hint of red warmth.
But I do see two objects moving, shifting gently and restlessly from side to side on the hallway carpet. After staring in bewilderment, I realize what they are. They’re only inches from my face.
A pair of damp bare feet the color of pale jade.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THOSE FEET are big enough to belong to a grown man, or even bigger—it’s definitely not anyone I know here. Maybe I made a huge mistake by yelling and calling attention to myself. The feet step back, the shadows move, and then a greenish finger slithers under the door and brushes my forehead; it’s cold, amphibious, sticky. I pull away with a cry and jump to my feet.
There’s a quiet slurping noise. An instant later, I get it: that thing is sucking the taste of my skin off its finger. My heart skips at a broken rhythm, and I stumble backwards, pressing against the far wall. The crashing at the gate has started again, and now there are staticky voices booming through loudspeakers as well, too warped for me to make out words.
But now what scares me isn’t the thought of the mob breaking in here. It’s that, with all the clamor they’re making, I can’t hear what that damp, speechless chimera is doing on the far side of the door.
“Aah—aah,” it sighs. So it does have a voice, though barely. It sounds muddy and strangled. “Aah—aah. Dah—lan.”
Oh, God. It’s trying to say my name.
“Aah—aah. Dah—lan.”
Ada, darling. That’s what the blue mouthed at me that time in the woods.
Maybe the blue sent this thing to me: another of its children. I breathe in, deep, trying to calm myself, to loosen my bunched muscles and slow my heart. It’s just another chimera, I tell myself. It’s not that different from me.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m Ada. Are you here to help me?”
There’s a horrible squelching sound at the door. What is it doing? A few wet, babbling sighs. A long jiggling.
And then the lock pops open, and the doorknob turns. The door falls back, and I see it standing there: seven feet tall and greenish, with strange, bowed legs. It has huge, rounded, muscular thighs, but its arms are scrawny and crooked. A sort-of-human face with a mouth stretched across both cheeks and long pale eyes that wrap around the sides of its head. It’s naked, wide-bodied, reeking of salt and seaweed; gills on its neck flutter with each exhalation. If I’m forty-five out of forty-six, this thing might be about twenty-three.
It gawks at me, sad and wistful and terrified, even though it could probably kill me with a single kick. Then it turns and shuffles up the hall without a backwards glance. A moment later, I run after it.
“Hey,” I say, reaching for its soft pale arm. “Hey, wait! I didn’t even get a chance to thank you. And I want to know who you are. The blue sent you, right?”
It aims a befuddled look at me, and its shuffle turns into a kind of hopping lope. It’s going pretty fast now, and I trot to catch up. I’m not sure it understands a word I’m saying.
“Where did you come from?” I try. “Why haven’t we seen you before?”
Then I get it: those underwater caves Rowan explored. He said there was more in them than just the bioluminescence everywhere; he just never told me what he’d seen. And I was too much of a coward to ask him.
Just like with my dad’s messages, I was scared to know, and it makes me furious with myself. I’ve kept talking about how I want to speak the truth, know the truth, but when it’s been right in front of me, I haven’t wanted to look at it.
The greenish chimera darts around bends, and I keep following it, though it shoots me annoyed glances now and then over its shoulder. Where is everyone? I can’t hear voices, not even the fizz coming through the loudspeakers at the gate. The banging has stopped, too. I think we’re heading for the lobby.
“If those people outside break in here, you should head straight back to your cave, okay? I don’t think they’ll ever find you there.”
It breaks into a springing run, long feet curling like soft hooks at every step. There’s no way I can keep up, but I try anyway, sprinting after it around the scarred mahogany check-in counter and into the lobby. Cold, rain-flecked wind whips into my face.
The picture window is completely shattered. Shards of aquamarine glass mound on the floor, and the sea looks raw and wild and somehow much too close. Points like crystal teeth edge the empty frame where the window used to be.
The chimera that freed me is already through, leaping across the meadow.
Did the mob already break in here, then? Is everyone hiding? I can’t let myself think about any possibilities worse than that. Besides, if that mob had come rampaging through, wouldn’t I have heard something?
If I take down Marley’s chrysalis, will I be able to carry her by myself, hide with her in the hollow where Rowan and I saw the tadpoles? I’d be too afraid of tearing her covering if I tried to drag her.
I hesitate for half a moment, sick with everything I don’t know, everything that might have happened while I was imprisoned and unconscious. Then I clamber over the heap of glass, hearing its awful soprano crunch, and outside.
Clouds sag overhead like a collapsing tent, and the rain twists and snaps.
Still nobody. Just grass thrashing in the wind. Beach roses and a few tattered daisies.
I realize what I was afraid of seeing out here: bodies. I walk forward, confused, gazing at the wild sea. Lightning flashes, and for an instant, the fence and its loops of razor wire reflect the light like a streak of diamonds.
There’s something on the beach, deep in the shadow under that grassy shelf. A long ragged line, mostly hidden by the jutting rocks and tall grass in the way, and dark enough that I didn’t notice it at first. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s moving.
Footsteps pound behind me, but high up. I turn just in time to see Ophelia launching herself off the roof, her wings in a savage whirl. She flies, or almost, and lands just beside me.
I flinch. She’s been reporting on me. She was the one they sent to search our room, and she’s probably convinced I’ve been spying on her, too.
“Ada! Ada, you know I tried to stop you from getting mixed up in everything here! But you wouldn’t listen, or somehow I couldn’t make you understand, and now you probably hate me. I didn’t know what else to do, but I swear—I didn’t understand in time how bad it would be.”
I’m just wondering what she was doing up on the roof when the loudspeaker turns back on. A rough voice blasts through the static. “Fifteen minutes. We’re waiting the way we agreed, but we won’t give you any longer than that. Fifteen more minutes to show us, or we’re coming in.”
She jumps and clutches at me. “Ada, what are you thinking? You can’t just stand here! You have to hide!”
But there was such a long stretch of silence before this! “I hoped they had gone, the mob out there! It was quiet. Ophelia, what—”
“You’re not listening to me! You need to run! Go, before he comes out and finds you!”
“But the normals—they’ve been staying away—Ophelia, why are they here now? What do they want?”
She stares at me like I’m insane, then starts shoving me down the slope, her thin arms taut and her wings beating into a blur. I stumble a little. “They came for you! Ada, go!”
“But if they came for me”—what sense does that make, though?—“shouldn’t I go to the gate? Ophelia, you know I’ll go with them if that’s the only way to protect everyone!”
Even while I’m talking, part of me thinks, Oh, really? Why should I? And another part answers with a tumble of images: Indigo crying against my legs, Rowan’s sad smile, and even Ophelia as she is right now, pushing me down the meadow in the dusky light, her black eyes glittering in their complicated way. But maybe I’ve gotten better at understanding the expression in them, because I could swear she’s worried. About me.
“Ada, you can’t do that! You’re supposed to be dead! That’s what Gabriel and Ms. Stuart told them. That you died yesterday in an accident. If they see you alive, they’ll go berserk.”
“But—why do they even want me?”
She’s given up pushing me now. It’s obvious that I’m not going anywhere until I get at least a few answers. Ophelia stops, breathing hard, and leans her head on my shoulder.
“Your dad, Ada. After he talked to Ms. Stuart, he went into town and started telling everyone in the bars that you’re a normal human girl, and that we’d kidnapped you and brainwashed you. I think he thought it was the only way to get you back.”
“But if they think I’m dead, then—”
“They don’t believe it, Ada.”
“Ophelia, I don’t understand!”
“So Gabriel told them we’d show them the body! He said he and Martin found your body an hour ago, and they were going to pull it up from the cave.”
Now I understand. I don’t think Ophelia’s eyes can cry, but her breath comes in rapid sobs. Really? Ms. Stuart would let that happen?
Maybe she would. If she thought it was a choice between killing me and watching all the other kids here die, probably she’d tell herself she had no choice. She thinks I know things that would destroy them if they let me leave here alive. What did she say when Rowan was missing? That she didn’t have the luxury of worrying too much about my safety?
“Ada, I don’t know—his ankle’s still slowing him down—and maybe he and Martin decided to search the building first, but any second now they’ll look out here. Please just go.”
Where’s Rowan? I want to ask. But now it’s sinking in: there’s no time to ask anything. I nod and turn to run, toward the woods or toward the water. Maybe, just maybe, Soraya will come for me again.
I turn, and whatever it was I saw on the beach isn’t there anymore. I do a double take and then spot it again, a long dark formation advancing through the rusty grass. They’re squeezed so close together, and it’s getting so dark, that it takes even me a moment to understand what I’m seeing: a hundred human-shaped bodies with heads outlined by the tarnished glow of the sea.
A small army, it looks like, and they’re coming toward us. I hear myself cry out.
Ophelia turns to follow my gaze, and screams.
Chapter Thirty
COLD, THEY’RE SO COLD. I forget about running and stare at them, fascinated: I’ve never seen a group of human-looking bodies with no red glow in my life. I’ve never seen people who look like a swarm of shadows in the twilight, but this must be what everyone else sees all the time. Even the air is warmer than they are; I guess they’re still chilled from the sea.
“Ada! It’s them! It’s the mob! I don’t know how, but somehow they got through the fence!” Ophelia is twisting in panic, not sure which way to go, and one wing slaps at my arm. I think she’s flapping unconsciously.
“No. It’s something else. I don’t think they’re here to hurt us, Ophelia.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re cold. Cold-blooded. They’ve just—gone beyond what we are.”
She gives a strange, sobbing laugh. I’m not sure she believes me.
“Ada? There’s something I have to tell you. I did something I knew was wrong. Gabriel said—but I shouldn’t have listened to him. Please don’t hate me. I’m really sorry.”
I turn to her. She’s staring at me, and the glitter of her eyes seems quicker than usual, even desperate. “I wasn’t spying for my dad, Ophelia. I would never do that.”
“I know that now. For a while I let Gabriel convince me, but I don’t think—in my heart I knew it wasn’t true. Oh, Ada, no!” She isn’t looking at me anymore, but behind me, toward that maw of broken glass that used to be the lobby window. I start to turn.
And that’s when something big, heavy, and huffing comes slamming through the air and knocks me flat on my face. A heavy body drops on top of mine, its hard wings clacking. Meaty hands on arms with too many joints pin my wrists to the ground. They’re glowing bright red, like he has a fever.
“Bad, bad Ada. Thinks she’s a normal human. Thinks I’m no good, but she’s the bad, horrible, sneaking liar. She has to die. Now. But I’m sad to kill you, Ada.” He gets both my wrists in one hand, and his free hand moves down. He must be reaching for my throat. I try to struggle, but he’s too heavy.
“Martin, let her go!” Ophelia aims a vicious kick at him, but he’s so bulky and she’s so fragile that he barely grunts.
“You’re really pretending you care what happens to Ada?” Gabriel’s voice asks from somewhere pretty close by. He almost sounds like he thinks it’s funny, but in a cold, numb way. “After what you did to her?”
Martin moves so he has one knee pressed between my shoulder blades and his hand across my mouth. All at once I understand: he’s not planning to strangle me. That leaves too many obvious marks that the human mob would notice. He’s breathing heavily, maybe crying, as he works up the nerve to snap my neck.
That’s something they can say happened by accident.
Ophelia gives a shriek and flings herself on Martin, but this time she doesn’t seem to be punching him. I can’t quite tell, but I think she’s got her hands on his back, prying at something. He lets out a high, shocked grunt, and his grip loosens. “Ophelia! Don’t hurt my wings!”
“Let Ada go, or I’ll tear them right off!”
The kime army is close enough now that I can hear the rubbery flapping of their feet. With all the drama going on, I think Gabriel hadn’t even noticed them, but he does now. My face is crushed into the grass, so I can’t see what’s happening, but I hear his sudden intake of breath. It’s dark enough that I wonder if he’s making the same mistake Ophelia did, thinking they’re human.
Martin sort of reels back in confusion, trying to shake off Ophelia. He’s still straddling me, but at least my hands are free again, and I can push myself up enough to look around. This time I think I see a sliver of red glowing way back in the crowd of bodies, but what sense does that make?
Then Martin sees them too and starts making a low, terrified babbling.
Because they’re all around us now. One swoops down without breaking his stride, grabs Gabriel by the knees, and swings him over his shoulder. Gabriel screams and flails, but it doesn’t do him any good. They look more or less like the chimera that opened the door for me, tall and pallid and greenish, but there are variations—like somebody was trying to come up with the perfect saltwater frog person and wanted to see which way worked best.
One of them grabs Martin by the back of his neck and casually flings him into the grass. Those scrawny arms they have are stronger than they look. I’m struggling to my feet, soft green skin sticking to me and slurping free again with every passing touch—and then I get scooped up too, but a lot more gently than Gabriel was. One of the kimes has me wadded up in its arms the way a little kid would smoosh a pet cat. I don’t see Ophelia, but she must be here somewhere.
And now the metallic crashing is starting again: louder, steadier, more determined. In a jumbled way, I understand that the mob is working seriously to batter down the gate. And afte
r what those people did to the scientists at Novasphere, how can I think that they won’t do the same to us?
I hear a chorus of screams starting at the bottom of the hill, then breaking apart. Some of the kids are running for it, off to hide the best they can in the woods or the water—but except for Rowan, probably nobody has much hope of getting out of here. Can anyone else dive deep enough to get through that hole?
Rowan. Where is he?
There’s one thing that mob isn’t expecting, though, and it’s the mass of amphibious kimes carrying me and Gabriel. As we sweep over the top of the hill and start charging down, one thing is absolutely clear: that’s where we’re going. The gate.
Maybe Gabriel is about to get the war he’s always wanted. Maybe most of us, human and chimera, are going to die tonight, torn and stabbed and wallowing in blood. Will I see stars in the horror like Dr. Jacoway did?
Then something hits me. “Marley,” I gasp to the chimera holding me. “She can’t run. She can’t move at all by herself. But you and your friends—you can carry her to the cave? You have to help her!”
“Aah—aah,” it says. From its tone I can tell that it’s trying to calm me, hush me. “Aahd—aah. No. Not Maar—lah.”
That’s the closest they’ve come to really speaking, but it’s enough for me to know that they can learn to say English words—and also that this kime can understand me. It knows who I am, and it knows who Marley is, too.
“Not Marley? How can you say that? She’s helpless, and she’s—your sister! You can’t let them hurt her.”
It looks down at me, sharply. The movement of its run shakes through my body, but there’s just enough light for me to see the reproach in its eyes. “Not. Hurt. Maar—lah.”
“You’re saying no one will hurt her?” I ask. But it’s not looking at me anymore. It’s gazing ahead to the gate, and when I turn that way, I see the night broken by streaking headlamps and floodlights. I hear the methodical booming of a heavy truck, squealing back and then slamming forward again and again. Bodies like red flames in a gust, jumping and fearful and ready to blaze higher; from here I can’t tell which ones are humans and which are chimeras.
