The Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and the New York Civil Liberties Union have teamed up to file a lawsuit against the federal government, charging that it has kidnapped members of the Alpha and their human families. According to the filing, the suit also claims that officials know the whereabouts of nearly fifty-two missing individuals, all of whom are connected with the Alpha. The suit demands their immediate release.
Lawyers representing the State Department call the suit baffling and claim to have no knowledge about the missing individuals, but NYCLU lawyer Andrea Quindlin says she has proof, including a witness who claims to have been inside a secret camp where the Alpha are being held.
“The government has been singing this song for three years. They throw up their hands and claim they’re in the dark. It’s a lie, and we can prove it,” said Quindlin during a press conference held this morning at the Washington Memorial Arch. “They can’t pretend they don’t know anything anymore. We’ve got a witness who was there. He saw what is happening.”
Quindlin declined to identify the witness for fear that it would compromise his safety but said his testimony would be “damning.”
Speculation has swirled since the first member of the Alpha vanished three years ago, along with his human wife and two young daughters. Charles Sands and his wife, Kathryn, as well as Belle, age twelve, and Lara, age eight, were reported missing less than a month after Charles confessed to being a member of a group popularly known as “the originals,” who arrived twenty years earlier and masqueraded as human.
Seventeen of “the originals” and their human families have been reported missing. Another is rumored to have died in a car accident. Two others are believed to remain at large.
Chapter Five
Dead catfish is impossible to get out of your hair. It’s gummy and tacky, and all I have are a handful of soggy paper towels and a bathroom sink that doesn’t have a hot-water knob. It’s hopeless. Stupid fish.
Bex finds me mid-sob and gives me a hug.
“You smell like Manhattan clam chowder,” she says.
“Bex, don’t!”
“You’re right. It’s definitely New England clam chowder.”
And despite it all, I laugh and she laughs, and for a moment we’re free, just two normal teenage girls in a normal high school in Normalville, USA, suffering an embarrassing indignation. But it doesn’t last. The door to the bathroom swings opens, and a female SWAT team member enters. She’s wearing a black bulletproof vest and matching fatigues. Her helmet has a plexiglass visor that my father says is designed to take a brick. She nods to us—not a hello, more like an I have cataloged you along with all the other dangerous objects in this room, then stalks the floor in her polished boots, each step a click on the marble tile. She shoves a stall door open so hard, it crashes against its steel frame, then peers inside. Once she’s satisfied it’s empty, she moves on to the next. Step. Click. Slam! Step. Click. Slam!
When her search is complete, she leans against the wall nearest the door, adjusts her rifle strap so that the gun hangs where her hands can reach it, and then watches us.
“Fun,” Bex mouths as we stare at each other in disbelief. “Hope you don’t have to use the toilet today.”
Bex can always laugh at this stuff, but I hate it, and I hate this woman. She should be ashamed of herself for taking a job where she spies on girls in the bathroom, but my father’s voice rings in my head, keeping me from telling her so. Smile, look respectful, make her believe it. So I do, and the cop smiles.
“So what do you think?” Bex asks.
“About?”
“The new kids. I got really close to the big one. He has spikes on his shoulders,” Bex says.
“He’s a Selkie,” I tell her.
“Selkie, huh? Did you see the little one?”
“Which one? The Nix or the Ceto?”
“Nix, maybe? How do you know the difference?” she asks.
“They’ve been on TV every day for three years, Bex,” I whisper. I know a lot more than what they tell us on TV, but I’m supposed to be playing dumb. Play dumb, Lyric! Okay, Dad.
“Is the Nix the one with all the teeth?” she asks.
The cop chuckles. “Rows and rows of them. Sharp and pointy.”
Bex squeals and hops around like she’s trying to avoid stepping in dog poo.
“Two of the girls are very pretty,” Bex says as she steals the lip gloss from my purse.
“For talking fish,” the cop says.
“One of the boys is pretty too, and he’s a prince,” Bex says. “I call dibs. I’m going to marry him and have a million little fish babies.”
The guard clears her throat and gives us both the kind of hard stare my father gives to murderers and my boyfriends. “That’s sick, kid. Those things aren’t people.”
“It was just a joke,” Bex says defensively.
The cop’s lips curl into a snarl. “Joking about lying with animals isn’t funny. I’m supposed to report stuff like that.”
“I really think it was innocent,” I say, trying to quell the argument, but they both dismiss me.
“You need to watch your mouth, girl. A lot of people might think you were serious,” the guard continues.
“A lot of morons, maybe,” Bex says, standing her ground.