She peers at him, not sure she believes him, then she heads to her apartment and slams the door.
“I bet that felt really good,” my mother says to me.
“Yes, and it’s not going to go unanswered. We may need to find somewhere else to sleep tonight,” my father says. “I’ll make some calls. Maybe some of the guys have an extra room.”
When we enter our apartment, we find Terrance Lir sitting on our couch.
“How did you get in here?” my father whispers as he closes the door.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Terrance says, keeping his voice down as well. “Summer, Lyric says you aren’t leaving.”
“I can’t,” she says.
“You have to, and as quickly as you can.”
“My family might need me. I know they’re in the next wave—”
“Summer, there is no second wave. They’re gone.”
“Who’s gone?”
“Everyone—all of them. The entire Alpha civilization is gone. The last survivors are on the beach,” he says.
“They’re dead? That’s impossible. There are millions of us,” my mother says.
“I wish there were.” Terrance shakes his head.
“You’re a liar!” my mother cries.
“I don’t know what happened. No one will tell me. But there’s no one left, Summer. Take the family you have and run as far from here as you can.”
“Why the urgency, Terrance?” my father says suspiciously.
Terrance runs his hand over his tired face. “I don’t know for certain. They won’t tell me anything.”
“You’re the prime’s voice.”
“Yes, and what a lofty station. I am worse than a Rusalka to them. They look at me with disgust. They say I have human stink on me for marrying Rochelle. They won’t even let her and Samuel into the camp. They call him half-breed trash. I’ve heard that the prime intends to kill me when my usefulness is over. Don’t look at me like that. It’s true, Summer.”
“You did your job. You stayed at the beach,” my mother argues.
“I have committed a far more serious crime then betraying the Alpha. I prevent them from forgetting their failure.”
“What failure, Terrance? You aren’t making sense,” my mother cries.
“Really, Summer? You haven’t figured this out yet? Why do you think they sent us to the shore?”
“So we could learn about humanity. So if the Alpha needed to, we could live on the surface.”
Terrance shakes his head sadly. “Are you really that naive? We weren’t sent here to learn how to live with humans. We were sent to spy on them so when the Alpha attacked the shore, the humans would be easily conquered.”
“That’s crazy, Terrance,” my mother cries.
“We’re scouts for an invasion.”
“Mom, did you know that?”
She shakes her head.
“Only something went wrong. Instead of unleashing war on the surface, they staggered onto the beach to hide. They’re refugees, Summer.”
“Hiding from what?” my father says.
“No one will tell me. All I know is they are preparing for something, maybe a campaign to go back home, somehow seize the hunting grounds from whatever threw them out. But I fear it’s something worse. The prime—he talks to us like he’s preparing us for the original plan.”
“You mean he still wants to try to conquer us?” my father cries. “That’s ridiculous.”
Terrance nods, wearily. “He’s insane, Leonard. Maybe all that death was too much for his mind, maybe the stress of ruling over the end of our people has done something to him, but he’s not the man I knew twenty years ago. He rambles to himself day and night, laughing and conspiring with people who are not there. His wife—she encourages it. She tells him the voices he hears are from the Great Abyss. She’s convinced him that he’s been given a divine mission. So, would he launch an attack? Absolutely. You’ve seen our people scavenging in the night. There are mountains of scrap metal on the beach. They melt it down and make weapons. He won’t let them stop.”
“Terrance is telling the truth. I saw them doing it,” I say.
“It’s not going to end well, Summer. If you think things are bad now, wait until armed Alpha start butchering people in the streets.”
Terrance stands and walks to my mother, taking her hands in his own, making her trembling eyes meet his. “And don’t forget that you are the last of the originals. Angela and her family were just arrested. How much longer do you think you can hide before they come for you? Believe me, you don’t want to go where they take us.”
“The camp?” she whispers.