Mag-log inChapter 261CALI looked at Theo. He was watching this exchange with the kind of careful attention I'd come to recognize in him over the past weeks — the attention of a kid who'd learned, the hard way, that adults lie to children for reasons they think are good, and that the only defense against it was paying very close attention to everything, all the time, so nothing got past him twice."You believe her?" I asked Theo directly, because that mattered more to me right now than whether I believed her.Theo didn't answer right away. "I don't know," he said finally. "I saw a room. There were tables in it. There was a face on one of them that looked like hers." A pause. "She didn't tell me I was wrong about that. She just told me the other thing was true. About leaving on purpose."That was, I thought, a strange thing for a liar to admit to a frightened kid, if she was lying. A liar trying to win him over fast would have denied the room, denied the table, smoothed it all into something co
Chapter 260CALI came up out of it the way you come up out of deep water. Slow, then all at once, lungs first, like the air had been waiting for me to ask for it.The first thing I did was check my hands. Habit, from years of jobs where waking up disoriented was a professional hazard rather than a personal one. Fingers moved. Good. Arms moved. Good. I wasn't tied down, which meant either they hadn't bothered or I hadn't been worth the trouble.The second thing I did was find Theo.He was right there. Close, against the wall, his knees pulled up, watching me with the specific stillness he got when he was working hard not to look as scared as he was. My chest did something complicated at the sight of him, relief and alarm arriving at the same time, neither one cancelling the other out."Hey," I said. My voice came out wrong, thick, like it belonged to someone else. "You okay?""You're awake," he said, like that answered something more important than my question."I'm awake." I pushed m
Chapter 259BIANCAThe dark held for three seconds, maybe four, before the lights came back.When they did, they were dimmer than before, the kind of dim that meant something in the building's wiring had taken damage and was running on whatever backup existed for a place like this. Theo hadn't moved. His question was still sitting in the room between us, unanswered, and I understood that I couldn't let the explosion be the thing that let me off the hook for it."That's a fair question," I said. "I'm not going to dodge it because the lights did something dramatic."He watched me. Waiting.I had thought, in the months since I left, about how I would answer this if I ever got the chance. I had built versions of the answer in my head the way you build versions of a speech you hope you never have to give. Most of those versions were better than the truth. Most of them gave me more credit than I deserved.I wasn't going to use any of them."I let you believe I was dead," I said. "That part
Chapter 258BIANCA"And she said that's what I am," I said. "Something built to look like her.""She didn't have to say it," Theo said. "I saw it."I let that sit a second."I'm not going to tell you what you saw wasn't real," I said. "I believe you saw exactly what you're describing. I think Voss wanted you to see it. I think she wanted you to see it right before she put me in front of you, so that whatever I said next, you'd already have decided it didn't matter."Theo's jaw moved, the specific small motion of a child working very hard not to show he was listening."That doesn't mean you are real either," he said. "It just means she's smart.""That's true," I said. "It doesn't prove anything. I know that."I didn't move closer. I kept my hands where he could see them, resting on my own knees, and I let the quiet come back in instead of chasing him with more words. He needed room more than he needed convincing. I had learned that from him months ago, through a glass door he didn't
Chapter 257BIANCATheo was on the floor.He was sitting against the wall, knees up, arms around them, and next to him, on his back, unmoving, was a man I didn't know. Dark hair. Breathing slow and even in the specific rhythm of deep sedation, the same rhythm I had just come up out of myself. This had to be Callahan. I had heard the name through walls. I had not pictured a face.Theo's eyes came up when I came through the door.I stopped where I was. I did not go to him fast. I had learned that much about him even from a distance, through months of watching pieces of his life I was not supposed to see — that fast was the wrong speed for almost everything with him."Theo," I said.He looked at me.Then he looked away. Down at the man beside him, at Callahan's chest moving, and he put his hand near the man's hand the way you'd guard something. He did not look back at me."It's me," I said. Quiet. "I'm here."Nothing."Theo."He still did not look at me, and the not-looking had a weight
Chapter 256MATTHEWThe house was dark when I pulled into the drive.Not late-dark, not the ordinary dark of a house where everyone's gone up to bed. Wrong-dark. No kitchen light. No hallway light. Cal kept lights on. He'd told me once, early on, that a lit house was a house where you could see who was in it, and he never let it go fully dark before Theo was down for the night.I sat in the car for one second too long, telling myself I was being careful rather than scared.Then I went in."Cal?"Nothing."Theo?"The silence had a texture to it. The specific silence of a house that nobody is currently in, which is different from the silence of a house where people are simply quiet.I went through it fast. Kitchen — empty, the apple core on the table, Cal's mug by the sink, untouched coffee gone cold. Living room — empty, the dinosaurs out on the floor in mid-formation, abandoned rather than finished. Upstairs — Theo's room empty, the bed made from this morning, the night-light off beca
Chapter 43.BIANCAIt had been a week since Rivera brought me to his home, and for the first time since waking up in that hospital bed, I felt almost human again.The dizziness had faded to occasional lightheadedness. The nausea had subsided enough that I could eat without feeling like I might imme
Chapter 47MIAI stood in the kitchen of the house I'd dreamed about for over a year, surrounded by expensive appliances and I felt nothing but hollow frustration because I had it and still I wasn't satisfied.This was supposed to be my victory. My triumph. This took thirteen months or careful and
Chapter 44BIANCAOver the next few days, I settled into a routine that felt almost like belonging.Mornings started with Louis's enthusiastic wake-up calls and expensive breakfasts that Rivera insisted were "not a suggestion as it was essential for recovery." I'd discovered he was an excellent co
Chapter 45BIANCA"I'm not—" I started, but the woman wasn't listening.Her grip tightened, her other hand coming up to cup my face like she needed to confirm I was real."I thought you were dead," she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. "They said the council had—but you're here. You're alive.







