“We lost people too,” he told Hannah. “We’re just trying to figure out why they died. And why we didn’t.”
Hannah could finally see a hint of strain behind the boy’s handsome face. She figured she could live to be a hundred and still not understand the way men handled their emotions.
Amanda and Mia returned eight minutes later, their faces raw from crying. Mia brushed her bangs over her puffy eyes and stared down at her half-eaten dinner.
“I have four brothers,” she announced, with matter-of-fact aloofness. “I know for a fact that they’re my biological siblings and I’m all but sure they didn’t get bracelets.”
The room fell into bleak silence. Zack placed a hand on Mia’s wrist.
“I have an older brother back in New York. Josh. We’re about as different as two siblings can be, but we get along.” He gestured at Amanda and Hannah. “When I found out these two were sisters, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest because it made me think that maybe he got a bracelet too. Who knows? With all the crazy things that happened today, maybe we both have a brother out there.”
Mia raised her head to look at him. “I don’t know. I hope you’re right.”
By the time Czerny came back to check on them, the clock on the wall had reached 8 P.M. The food had grown cold and the conversation had settled back to mundane mutterings, increasingly hindered by gaping yawns.
Czerny suggested, with droll understatement, that perhaps it was time to call it a day.
—
In a sleepy drove, the group—which Zack took great pleasure in calling the Sterling Quintet—climbed the stairs to the third floor. Zack and David disappeared into their chosen suites without so much as a good-night. Never had a sentiment seemed so pointless.
Amanda urged Mia to share a room with her and Hannah, just for warmth and company. Though tempted, Mia politely declined. She expected to do a lot more crying between now and dawn. She didn’t want to muffle herself out of some misguided sense of courtesy.
After three restless hours, she regretted her decision. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get comfortable in her room. When the lights were off, the darkness pulled her straight back to her morning grave. She could feel the dirt in her hair again, the creepy-crawly bugs on her skin. When the lamp was on, she couldn’t stop thinking about the scientists who watched her every move.
Just as her eyelids finally fluttered on the cusp of sleep, a soft and tiny glow seized her attention. It hovered directly above her, like a distant moon or a penlight. The radiant circle spit a small object onto her nose, then disappeared in a blink.
Baffled, Mia sat up in bed and retrieved the item from her pillow. It was a small scrap of paper, tightly rolled into a stick. She turned on the lamp and unfurled the note.
You just survived the worst day of your life. I won’t say it’s all candy and roses from here, but it does get better. Hang in there. Put your faith in Amanda, Zack, and the others. They’re your family now.
The note was punctuated with a U-shaped arrow, a symbol Mia herself often used to indicate more content. She flipped the note over.
Yeah, that includes Hannah. Cut her some slack. She’s a really good person. She even saves your life.
Mia read the words over and over, her heart thumping with agitation. She remembered the curvy feminine letters of her first note, the one that had encouraged her to keep digging for air. Not only did the penmanship on this message match her memory of the original, it triggered a new and disturbing sense of familiarity.
She climbed out of bed and flipped on the desk lamp, transcribing a snippet of her note onto a blank sheet of stationery.
After comparing the two handwriting samples side by side, Mia choked back a gasp. She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry at the true scope of her weirdness. She wasn’t speeding or blanching. She wasn’t hearing voices or losing artwork. She was simply getting notes. Notes of prescient knowledge. Notes in her very own pen.
Mia lay awake for hours in furious bother. By the time her eyes finally closed, the darkness had given way to pink morning light. Her second day on Earth had already begun.
NINE
There were nine Silvers at the start.
Though Sterling Quint’s physicists had monitored all nine arrivals in progress, only six of the refugees made it to the Pelletier compound in Terra Vista. The remaining three signals led the Salgados to a dead woman, a dead man, and a cracked and empty bracelet.
Quint was upset to learn that he’d lost a third of his future case studies, but his benefactor strangely didn’t seem to mind. Azral assured Quint that the three fallen subjects were expendable in the grand scheme.
But what of the missing one? Quint had texted. I assume the owner of the empty bracelet is still at large.
An hour later, while Quint sat in the conference room with his new guests, the handphone on his desk lit up with a curt new message.
You’re better without him.