He rubbed her neck. You do what you need to.
Thank you, Ricky, she’d said, and disappeared the next day. No note, no goodbye. One day she was there, and the next she wasn’t.
He reaches for me. “Don’t block the screen, baby. Here, sit—”
“Watch your show, Dad.” I bolt into my bedroom and lock the door. I dump the colorkits on the bed and lock myself in the bathroom. It’s tiny, with a box shower and scuffed white tiles, though larger than the half bath off the living room. But the real difference between them is the mirror. Yonni splurged on the mirror. It stretches from wall to ceiling, rimmed in woven tube lights that glow orange.
I’m orange. Cheek swollen. Lip puffed but not quite busted. Hair frizzed, shirt sweat-streaked and a little askew. I might have been in a fight, or three. But under it all, despite the mess and the tangles, I’m still Mom.
Heart-edged jaw, sharp nose, jet hair. Mom was never unkempt, never not perfect, and still—still, I’m her.
No wonder the Prime wanted to map me. Except he didn’t. Maybe he thinks it too risky, that my brain would break before he extracted whatever he thinks I know.
Tell me about the Accounting.
Vengeance. Simple as that.
The late Lord Galton gutted the independent planets. Seized, evacuated, and/or killed every living soul there in order to split the planet and suck energy from its core. They never stood a chance, not against the force of our House. He destroyed their homes to fuel ours.
Mom was from one of those independents, born and raised there until she was seven or nine. She wasn’t the only survivor, and she’d meet with the others at night sometimes, when I was in bed or supposed to be. They had two refrains: Galton must be held to Account and They will know our loss.
I tug my hair out of its ponytail and comb my fingers through. It falls to my elbows, unremittent black. Just like hers.
“‘Unless we understand how to start afresh,’” I quote, soft, “‘we’ll never be effective. Unless we begin as if we’ve never existed before, we’ll never exist afterward.’”
I stare at the Mom in the mirror.
“You don’t exist, but I will.”
The colorkit doesn’t do anything.
The guy on the front of Sunset Luminescence beckons from under vibrant mahogany, but my black hair is still black. The mirror fogs as I lean close, my scalp a ropy, damp mass. Maybe a bit orange, but in these lights everything’s orange.
I sort through the colorkit’s used gloves and tubes for the included digisheet—a thin, flimsy screen smeared from my fingerprints. Its glossy text reads, after thirty minutes, rinse the color and prepare for the new you.
“I don’t get it,” I say, but disposable digisheets aren’t programmed to answer questions.
Perhaps my hair is too dark for this. I need something lighter.
I retrieve Mrs. Divs’s box from the bed and dig through shades of red and blonde. One girl’s head is pure white, skin nearly light enough to match. Ghostfire—a dye and lightening treatment. Sounds right. I dump the contents on the counter, unscrew the tube labeled #1 and dump the contents on my head. Cold, slimy goo slinks everywhere—in my ear, down my neck, on my shirt. I tap the digisheet for the process time.
One hour. I have to stand here and drip for an hour. I screw up Yonni’s bedroom carpet and she’ll return from the grave to gut me.
Nothing else for it. I strip out of my clothes, fill the sink with water, and soak my shirt. Might as well salvage something. Then I slide back the opaque glass door to the shower and step inside. It’s tiny—I have to pull my knees up to my chin in order to sit—but safe. Even I can’t ruin EverClean tile. This stuff would stand up to acid.
I close my eyes and wait.
Buzzzit, buzzzit.
The flipcom won’t stop. High vibrations with cracked ends. My neck cramps, my back hurts, and my butt sticks to the tile.
Shower tile. I fell asleep.
The flipcom falls silent for three full seconds, then starts again.
No one ever calls twice in a row—unless Greg’s got himself in city lockup. He has this thing about not asking Dee to bail him out, something about pride, which somehow doesn’t extend to me.
Buzzzit.
I de-stick myself from the floor and crawl out of the shower. Dig through my discarded clothes for the flipcom, and press it to my ear. “What?”
“Franks?” asks the phone voice, confused but fast on the ball.
Not Greg, then.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Jallon Remmings.” My former boss, official head of the Gilken Museum.
The man who fired me.
I grab my shirt and cover myself up. “Mr. Remmings.”
He coughs, clears his throat. The silence stretches and he coughs again. I don’t know what he’s hoping for, but I’m not about to fill in.
“We’ve missed you on the rotation,” he says.
“I thought I was a detriment.”
That’s what he’d said, a detriment. The daughter of a murderer. You understand why I can’t keep you on.
“No, no,” Mr. Remmings says. “Not you, yourself, merely your connections.”