We all did.
I wonder how Keane is sitting. What his chair looks like. How he moves his hands. Apparently he’s done with me, though. He says, “I’m looking into the disturbance. It isn’t your concern.”
“If it involves my sister, it is. You know no one can see her like I do. Are you really going to risk losing her?”
He won’t. I know he won’t. Of all of us, he’s put the most time into her. With what she did two years ago, any of the rest of us would have been dead. Immediately. No questions. Fia got a pass.
“The name we have is Lerner. Whether that is a person or the entire group we don’t know yet. They aren’t playing on the same field as we are; however, they’re getting close. We believe we have a few pictures of their people, but those won’t do you any good, now, will they?”
I bristle. I think I hear a ghost of a laugh.
“Rest assured that I have nothing but your sister’s best interests at heart, as I do with all my girls. And you know that your best interest is to keep your sister working.”
“How could I forget. I’ll look for anything with Lerner.”
“Give your sister my regards.”
I turn and walk out, knowing exactly how many steps will take me away from that monster. Once again wishing I were Fia, Fia who could have killed him with her bare hands.
Fia who is impossibly broken because she can do just that.
Back at my own table, a mug of tea between my hands, I can finally breathe again. I know where I am in space. It’s not where I want to be, but at least I know it.
I bring the mug to my face to blink in the steam. Lerner. I’ll bet anything they were there for Adam. No one could track Fia’s movements that well. Not even Clarice could have.
It’s so wrong that I miss her sometimes. I know it’s wrong. I can’t help it.
I breathe in again, deeper, and light bursts in front of my eyes. I can see! The familiar euphoria fills me like the steam from my tea, expanding in my lungs. And then I process what I’m seeing.
A guy sitting at a table under a bright light. He has the long arms and long legs and nice eyes that Fia told me about.
He can only be Adam Denting. She was right. I do like him. I ordered him dead, but I like him. I like his messy hair and kind eyes. I even like his ears.
He’s fidgeting, looking down and up and over his shoulder. He’s scared. Someone is talking to him. He’s nervously answering questions about who he is and what his research is, questions about who Sofia Rosen is and exactly what she told him about herself.
And a woman’s voice, from somewhere I can’t see, reassures him that he’s safe now that he’s with Lerner.
ANNIE
Two Years Ago
FIA’S IN MY ROOM. SHE’S BEEN AVOIDING ME FOR SO long, but lately she’s here all the time. It makes me happy.
And sad. Because it’s different. She’s quiet. She never laughs. I wish she could laugh and that it could be easy between us, that Eden could still come over when Fia’s here and we could all three just hang out.
I’m using the braille display on my new laptop. I’ve had speech-to-text technology for a while, but this way I can read everything instead of waiting for the computer to read it for me. This is one of the things I tried to get the public school system to bring in, but they never had the budget to aid one blind student. Now all I have to do is find the products and technology I want to try, tell Clarice about them, and within a week they’re here.
My fingers fly through websites for research on my senior project, an examination of adaptations of the Cassandra myth from ancient Greece. “This display is freaky cool, Fia.”
“Mmmm hmmm.”
“You doing homework?”
“Nope.”
“What are you doing?”
“Wondering if a fourteen-year-old who is an accessory to murder can be tried as an adult.”
My fingers stop midword. “What? Why would you wonder about that?”
“Just something to think about. It seems like for most crimes you won’t get tried as an adult, but murder they push the age pretty low.”
I frown. “Is this for a class?” Only Eden is left from her age group. Girls leave the school a lot for other programs run by the foundation or get kicked out because the curriculum isn’t working for them. I’m so relieved it’s never happened to us. Aunt Ellen hasn’t even written in two years. I worry about Fia getting kicked out—I literally have no idea what we’d do.
“Oh, I never go to class. Why would I go to class?”
I knock the braille display over as I whip around to face her. “You aren’t going to class?”
“Class comes to me. I read a lot. I sleep a lot. Nobody cares.”