“Answer my question,” I say to Bello. “How did you escape?”
I see tears in her wide hazel eyes—quick to cry, just like the Bello I knew.
Bishop shakes his head slightly. He can’t process this. He and I were gutted that we had to leave her behind. The guilt has been with us every moment since, shaping us like strong hands forming wet clay. Now he is free of that guilt and the relief blinds him.
Bawden continues to scan the surrounding buildings, as if none of this matters to her.
Coyotl shifts from foot to foot, looking at Bello, looking at me.
Muller has no idea what to do. He looks from me, to Bello, to Bishop and back again.
I remember the black hand grabbing Bello’s mouth, the black arm wrapping around her waist, yanking her backward into the greenery. I remember that look of terror in her eyes. I remember not being able to save her.
I remember abandoning her.
“How did you escape?”
“Brewer helped me,” she says. The tears are coming fast now, wet trails glistening in the light of two moons. “The Grownups who grabbed me put me in a cell. There was a fight between the Grownups.”
“About what?” I say. “What were they fighting about?
She slowly shakes her head.
“I don’t know. I heard some explosions, some screams, then this Grownup opened my cell, said his name was Brewer. He took me to this ship.”
It can’t be that simple. It can’t.
“They had you for days,” I say. “Your brain would have been overwritten.”
Her hands go to her shoulders…she’s hugging herself, just like she did back on the Xolotl when she got upset.
“They tried,” she says. “They put me in a coffin, put this thing on my head, but their machine didn’t work.” She closes her eyes, rubs hard at her temples. “I thought I was going to die. It hurt so bad, and it messed up my brain a little. I still recognize faces, but a lot of the stuff that happened since we came out of the coffins is gone. It’s okay, though, because when the pain stopped, I was still myself. Did you hear what I said, Em? Their overwriting machine failed.”
“That doesn’t explain how you escaped,” I say. “You don’t know how to fly, Bello. You’re just a circle.”
“I didn’t fly the ship. Brewer told me to get in, that he’d handle the rest.”
Brewer controlled so many things on the Xolotl. Is it possible he could have sent the ship down, guided it to this crash landing?
“Brewer told me there was only one shuttle left,” I say. “How do you explain that?”
“Look at it.” She gestures to the lumpy ship. “It’s not a shuttle. It was used to repair the outside of the Xolotl. Something like that, I think…I don’t remember his exact words, I was so scared.”
Wouldn’t Brewer have told me there was a second ship capable of reaching Omeyocan? But if he held back that bit of information, then Bello’s story is believable. At the same time, if she really is a Grownup, I imagine she can lie without the slightest effort. I need Spingate and Gaston to take a look at her. And Smith—maybe there’s a physical way to tell the difference between our Bello and whatever happens when we’re overwritten.
Or…maybe I can remember something Bello and I talked about, something the Grownup Bello wouldn’t know. We weren’t together long, we didn’t really talk about that much. Except for one thing…
“On the Xolotl, before we met Bishop’s group,” I say. “We all talked about our favorite desserts. What was Aramovsky’s?”
Please say cupcakes, please say cupcakes…
Bello licks her lips. She’s not looking at me, she’s staring down the barrel of the gun.
“I…I told you, my memories are scrambled. Em, please…it’s me.”
She doesn’t know. Did the overwrite process damage her memories? Or is that the perfect lie—if she can’t remember anything, there’s nothing we can do to prove she is not who she says she is.
Bello clasps her hands together in front of her chest.
“Please,” she says. “Please don’t kill me.”
Bishop steps in front of her.
“That’s enough,” he says. “Put down the weapon.”
I stand there for a second, confused, until I realize my shaking hands could accidentally pull the trigger and shoot Bishop.
I lower the musket.
Dammit, Bishop…
Maybe I had the will to pull the trigger, but now I’ll never know. That moment has passed—I can’t bring myself to do it again.
“Let’s get back to the shuttle,” I say. “Bello, you come up here with Coyotl and me. The rest of you, run back on foot.”
Coyotl guides her to the spider, helps her up. She finds a place to stand that is as far away from me as she can get.
Bawden finally slings her musket.