She points down the hall where we left Yong.
“When we got here, it was all lit up, like someone had turned on the lights. There were kids wandering around. We went down the hall until it ended at another melted door, so we think we’ve found all the kids we can. We were about to head back to our coffin room when we heard you coming.”
The first girl we saw walks up to me. Her legs are skinny. She has the bony knees I thought I had when I woke up.
She reaches out and takes my free hand in hers. She stares up.
There is a jagged circle on her forehead. The black symbol complements her dark brown skin and eyes. There are a few dust smudges on her shirt, but no blood, no grease, no sweat stains and no dirt. She hasn’t fought. She hasn’t feared. She hasn’t killed. She is clean, unblemished in any way.
She is what we were all supposed to be.
I squat slightly so I can look her in the eye.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She smiles. “Zubiri. I think. That’s what it said on my bed.”
To her, it wasn’t a coffin, it wasn’t a cradle, it was just a bed.
“That’s a nice name,” I say.
My friends and I woke up before her. We’re larger, physically older, but after what Matilda told me I think I know how this works.
“Zubiri, how old are you?”
“I’m twelve,” she says, perking up instantly. “Today is my birthday.”
I can’t help but smile.
“Happy birthday.” I look at the other clean faces staring my way. “Happy birthday to you all.”
Once again, everything has changed. My friends and I thought we were twelve years old. We’re not, not after what we’ve been through. But these kids are, at least as far as they know. Twelve-year-old minds in twelve-year-old bodies.
Brewer entrusted these kids to us. He felt we could get them to the planet below. I still don’t know his story. I don’t know why he fought Matilda. I don’t know who was in the right and who was in the wrong. I will probably never know. But Brewer seems to understand me—I think he knew I wouldn’t be able to leave these children behind.
They were made to walk on Omeyocan.
They are coming with us.
If anyone gets in our way, they will learn that the Birthday Children—together, as one people—are extremely dangerous.
The kids are already wandering around the hall. My stomach churns when I see that two of the boys are giggling while they throw chunks of dried blood-slush at each other.
I turn to Bishop. His dust-caked face seems calm, as if he’s waiting for orders.
“Bishop, can you get these kids organized? We have to move fast.”
He glances at O’Malley with cold eyes. Is he jealous of the way O’Malley hugged me, the way I was jealous when I thought Bishop was looking at Spingate? Part of me hopes he’s not, and another part hopes he is. Both parts, though, can wait—we all have important work ahead of us.
Bishop nods. “I can,” he says. “Do you want me to do it my way?”
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”
The gray-caked mouth twitches with the slightest of smiles. He draws himself up to his full height and starts yelling.
“New kids! Form two lines, right arm straight, right hand on the right shoulder of the person in front of you. Don’t make me ask twice!”
The wide-eyed children practically fall all over themselves scrambling to comply. In seconds, the mob forms two neat lines. Without a word, Bawden and Visca take up positions behind them. The twins take their usual place out front.
Bishop smiles at me. “What now, Em?”
“Back to the coffin room,” I say. “As fast as we can go.”
His chest swells as he draws in a huge breath.
“You will all follow El-Saffani! Match the pace of the person in front of you, and if you fall behind, you’ll have to answer to me. Understand?”
Twenty-odd heads nod rapidly. I wouldn’t want to answer to Bishop, either.
“Good,” Bishop says. “El-Saffani, move out!”
The kids and the circle-stars take off, moving as a single unit. I’ll say one thing for Bishop: he’s great at getting people to march.
Gaston and Aramovsky run along behind them, as do Smith and Beckett.
That leaves me standing alone with O’Malley.
“The kids are a problem,” he says quietly. “We have maybe fifty in the coffin room. If Coyotl found as many in his direction as we found here, there might be a hundred, total. Maybe more. If the monsters come, how are we going to defend that many people?”
A memory bubbles up through the mud, a memory of a man’s face. Pieces of it, anyway, vague images. A black mustache. Soft, loving eyes, eyes that could also be hard, separated by deep furrows and a flaring nose.
That voice in my head…it belongs to him.
He is my father.
And yet he is not. Those vague memories are a lie. That was Matilda’s father, not mine. I don’t have parents, because I wasn’t born—I was created.
I was hatched.
The man is not my father, yet his words bounce around inside my brain. His words are the only real connection to my past.