Inheritance

CHAPTER 26

Given the fact that David had just dumped her and paparazzi kept tailing her, Reese decided that being grounded wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world was being forced to go to school.

In the hallways, students snickered at her behind their hands. The story of David breaking up with her outside the boys’ locker room had spread quicker than wildfire. “She deserved it,” some people said loud enough for her to hear as she walked past. She tried to ignore them, but it was hard, because to some degree she agreed.

David made no attempt to talk to her about their potential trip to the UN or what they would do on Saturday when it came time to deliver those photos of the adaptation chamber to Mr. Hernandez. She had no idea if David had truly asked Eres Tilhar about the chamber or if he had been lying to Mr. Hernandez. She knew she should ask him. The situation with the Imria and CASS was much bigger than her breakup with David, but she couldn’t bring herself to face him yet. Not when he had responded to her revelation that she was in love with him by telling her I know. That hurt more than anything else.

On Wednesday night she overheard her parents on the phone with David’s parents, discussing Dr. Brand’s invitation to bring them all to New York. Reese was in the living room watching a DVD of a zombie movie instead of doing her homework, but as soon as she realized what her parents were talking about, she fled upstairs to her room. She loaded the same movie onto her laptop and plugged in her headphones so she could drown out any sound of the phone call. There was something soothing about the fake mayhem: the hordes of zombies lurching across fields and parking lots; the heroes with their makeshift weapons fighting them back. It was black-and-white, survival of the fittest. There was nothing debatable about it.

She fell asleep with the movie playing, only to awaken with a start several hours later. A high-pitched, ear-popping alarm was beeping over and over. The smoke detector. She sat up, heart pounding as she blinked in the light of her bedside lamp. Her headphones fell out of her ears, making the noise even louder. The computer screen was blank.

She smelled something burning.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to the door, pulling it open. Across the hall her mom rushed out of her room.

“Reese, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Where’s Dad?” They looked down the stairwell at the same time, and at the bottom there was an orange flickering light.

“Oh my God,” her mom said. She raced down the stairs, calling back, “Reese, stay up there!”

Reese didn’t obey. She followed and saw her father coming from the kitchen with a fire extinguisher. “Go outside!” he cried. “It’s in the living room.” The smoke was thicker down here, and Reese covered her nose and mouth with her arm as she looked through the archway into the living room. The rug was on fire, flames billowing bright orange and sending hot, gasoline-scented fumes toward the hallway. Something glittered on the floor, and as Reese stared, transfixed by the fire, she realized it was shattered glass.

Her mom seized her by the arm and pushed her toward the front door. “Move!”

Reese saw her dad pull the pin on the fire extinguisher and a spray of white foam launched at the flames. “What about Dad? Is he coming?”

“He’s coming,” her mom said, grabbing her purse off the hall tree. She opened the door. “Go!” she ordered.

Outside the air was fresh and cool, and as Reese went down the front steps Agent Forrestal came barreling up. She heard her mom talking to him in frantic tones as the shrieking of the fire alarm receded. At the bottom of the steps she turned to look back at the house. Agent Forrestal had gone inside, and her mom was coming down to the street. The living room window—illuminated by the dying glow of the fire—was broken. Dread slid down her back, vicious and cold. Someone had thrown something through the window on purpose. That’s what the glass on the carpet was from. Who would do that?

She didn’t have to guess for long, because her dad and Agent Forrestal soon emerged from the house together. Her dad hurried down the steps toward her and her mom and said, “The fire extinguisher’s empty. I got most of it, but the alarm’s still going off.”

Reese stared at the front door, which Agent Forrestal had pulled shut. Written in neon-green spray paint were four words: QUEER ALIEN FUCKING FREAK.

The fire department came first, their sirens and whirling lights waking up the neighbors who hadn’t been disturbed by the incessant beeping of the alarm. They charged into the house in their neon-striped black coats, and then the police arrived, their sirens adding to the cacophony. All along the block, lights began to come on.

Reese stood with her mom’s arm around her, feeling the cold sidewalk through her socks, trying to focus solely on herself. She couldn’t handle her mom’s terror and anger in addition to her own.

“Weren’t you watching our house?” her mom demanded of Agent Forrestal. “How could you let this happen?”

“It was only one guy, and he broke the window before I realized what he was doing,” the agent said.

“If it was only one guy, why didn’t you catch him?” her mom pushed.

Agent Forrestal bristled. “It’s dark. He knew the neighborhood and ducked into someone’s yard. And my job is to make sure Reese is safe, not chase common criminals. I couldn’t leave the vicinity.”

“The police will find him,” her dad said, squeezing her mom’s shoulder.

“They’d better.”

After the fire department was finished, the police did a walk-through. The first-floor bay windows were vintage single-paned glass—Reese’s mom had never had the time or money to renovate—and it hadn’t taken much to break one: a few fist-sized rocks hurled from the street. They found the rocks on the floor beneath the coffee table. After the window had been broken, someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail through, and it had exploded on impact. Reese’s dad had put out most of the fire with the extinguisher, but the fire department had sprayed everything down anyway, so when Reese and her parents were allowed to return inside, the living room was soaked and blackened, the rug and the furniture ruined. As Reese paused in the archway, staring at the mess, she heard her mom talking to the police about hate crimes. Nobody needed to guess who the message was for.

After the police took their statements—including Agent Forrestal’s vague and mostly useless description of the attacker—Reese’s parents herded her into the back of the house, making her sit at the kitchen table to drink a cup of hot tea. The house smelled of smoke and gasoline and the lingering, sweet odor of the fire extinguisher chemicals, and mint tea did little to mask it. Her parents were talking in low, intense tones by the sink, acting as if she couldn’t hear them. They were debating whether or not she should stay in the house.

“Where am I going to go?” she interrupted.

They turned as one to look at her. “We’re discussing that, honey,” her mom said.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Reese said tonelessly. “If I go somewhere, they’ll win.”

Her mom crossed the kitchen and pulled out the chair next to Reese. “Honey, I admire your courage, and I’m the first to agree that I don’t want some jerkwads dictating how I live my life, but—”

“Where are you going to make me go? You want me to go to Nanna and Grandpa’s? How do you know the jerkwads won’t follow us there?”

“At least you won’t be as accessible there.”

“They live in Mill Valley! It’s just over the Golden Gate Bridge.” Anger burned through Reese. “No. I’m not leaving. They can fuck off. I don’t care if they think I’m some disgusting pervert.” Her mom sighed, reaching out to smooth away Reese’s messy hair from her forehead. Reese jerked back. “You don’t have to baby me. I’m not a little kid anymore.” She stood up, her chair’s legs scraping across the floor. Her color rose as she spoke, her voice growing harder-edged with every word. “I know there are crazy people out there. It doesn’t matter where I go, they follow me. They’re everywhere—on our block, at school, at the ferry. Not to mention on the Internet. Have you seen the shit they say about me? I can’t let them dictate what I do!”

Her mom seemed taken aback. “I’m only trying to keep you safe, honey.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t do that either,” Reese said harshly.

Her mom stood, her face flushed. “Well, I’m going to try. You’re not a little kid anymore but you’re still my daughter. And you’re going to go where I tell you to go.”

Reese gaped at her mom. Then she whirled on her feet and headed for the stairs.

“Come back here!”

“I’m going to my room,” Reese snapped.

“No, you’re not! That’s facing the street. Get back here.”

Reese had never heard her mom speak like that before, her voice choked with desperate terror. She turned around. “Where do you want me to go?” she asked in a low voice.

Her mom hesitated. She glanced at Reese’s dad for a split second. “Go into the guest room,” her mom said. “You can sleep there.”

“Fine.” Reese went to the guest room and closed the door. Then she sat down on the edge of the sofa bed, the blankets still mussed from when her father had woken up a couple of hours earlier. Her whole body shuddered as she swallowed her sobs so that her parents wouldn’t hear.

Reese did not go to school on Thursday, but the news of what had happened spread quickly, because she began getting texts from her friends by midmorning. Even David called, but when she saw his picture light up her cell phone she couldn’t bring herself to answer it. His voice-mail message was tentative, concerned. It made her feel even sadder.

Her mom came up with a solution that night. “You’re going to Angel Island,” she said, pulling plates out of the cabinet for the pizza she had picked up.

“Are you serious?” Reese asked. Since when had her mom decided that staying with the Imria was a good idea?

“They’ve invited you to go with them to the UN anyway, and it’s important for you to do that. You might as well go a little early, because it’s the only place I know where you’ll be safe.”

“Why do you think that? You’ve never—”

“I’ve been talking to Dr. Brand,” her mom said. “She might not be a human being, but she’s been honest with me throughout this entire ordeal. She showed us her research; she talked to me and David’s parents about the adaptation and answered all our questions. I know you and her daughter have had issues, but Dr. Brand wanted the best for you. She saved your life. If it weren’t for her, you’d be dead. I trust her.”

Reese was stunned.

“I talked to her this afternoon. She agreed that you can stay on their ship, and she’s sending a ferry tonight at eight o’clock. You’d better eat quickly and pack up. I’m going with you; your dad’s staying here.”

“I’ll get the windows repaired and put in an alarm system,” her dad said, taking a plate.

Reese turned to stare at him. “So you’re staying?”

He looked from Reese to her mother. He was obviously tired. Reese didn’t know where he had been sleeping since she had taken over the guest room, and she didn’t want to think about the possibilities.

“He’s staying for a while,” her mom said. Her words were vague, but the look on her face as she offered her ex-husband a slice of pizza was not.

Now, that’s a tell, Reese thought. She tried to focus on her dinner, but the pizza tasted like cardboard.

Nura Halba met Reese and her mom at the Angel Island harbor. It was almost dark by the time the ferry had arrived, and going to the island without David had felt strange to Reese. She knew she needed to talk to David soon—her move to the ship changed everything with regard to Mr. Hernandez and CASS—but she told herself she’d call him tomorrow. One more night wouldn’t make a difference, and maybe in the morning she’d have a better idea of what she wanted to do. Right now, everything was a jumbled, confusing mess in her head, and the only thing she could think about was the fact that she and Amber were going to be sleeping under the same roof tonight.

The rooms that Nura Halba took them to were in the living quarters on the third level of the spacecraft. “Your door is programmed to recognize you,” he explained after Reese pressed her palm to the black glass plate in the center of hers. “You don’t need a key.” Inside, on the wall across from the door, was a screen that showed the dark hillside of eucalyptus trees outside. “You can adjust the view with the touch screen here,” he said, showing her a smooth glass surface beneath the screen. “It is done by thought, but if you have trouble with it, you can use voice commands. I’ve had it modified to understand simple English words. You can turn the screen off or dim the lights by commanding it to do so.” Reese and her mom shared a tiny, efficient bathroom between their rooms, and Halba explained that they were welcome to help themselves to food in the dining hall on the first level. “There will be breakfast available in the morning. If you need any assistance, don’t hesitate to let me know.” He showed them how to contact him through a device near the door.

When he left, Reese’s mom said, “I’m going to give your dad a call to tell him we’re all settled in. Do you need anything?”

“No. I’m kind of tired. I might just go to sleep.”

Her mom kissed her on the forehead as if she were a six-year-old. Reese smelled the scent of her lotion and she wanted to curl up in her arms and pretend like everything was completely normal, but she didn’t let herself give in.

“All right,” her mom said. “Good night, honey.”

“Good night.”

After her mom left, Reese changed into her pajamas and lay down on the bunk, staring up at the ceiling. The overhead lights glowed warm and golden. “Turn off the lights,” she said out loud, feeling a little ridiculous as she did so. The lights dimmed immediately so that the only illumination came from the screen depicting the hill outside. It was peaceful to watch night fall over the eucalyptus grove, and when she could no longer make out the shapes of the trees in the dark, she turned off the screens. The room was plunged into blackness.

As she closed her eyes, she wondered where Amber’s room was. Did Amber know she was here? She rolled onto her side, pulling the blanket over herself. She wondered, too, if the adaptation chamber was really in this spaceship. Had she slept within these walls before? The thought was perversely comforting, and she fell asleep remembering the cocoon of red and gold around her, soft and warm as her mother’s embrace.