“I heard you talking last night. Before I fell asleep.” Anya’s gaze was uncomfortably direct. “He offered to keep Mikoz.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about a lot of things.”
“Including staying here.”
It wasn’t a question. She wanted to deny it, wanted to insist that of course they were going home, that this was just a temporary detour before they returned to Earth and normalcy. But she’d promised Anya honesty, and the girl deserved that much.
“Maybe,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“Because of him.”
“Because of a lot of things.” She turned to face Anya fully. “But you’re my priority. You and Mikoz. If going home is what’s best for you, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Even if you don’t want to?”
“Even then.”
Anya studied her for a long moment, her expression cycling through emotions too complex for Corinne to read. Finally, she spoke.
“What if I don’t want to go back?”
She blinked. “What?”
“To Earth. What if I don’t want to go back?”
“Anya, you have your whole life ahead of you. School and friends and?—”
“I don’t have friends.” The words came out flat and matter-of-fact. “I’m the weird girl who’s too smart for my own good.” She shrugged. “I just have a few people I sit with at lunch sometimes.”
“But your education?—”
“Can probably happen anywhere that has books and teachers.” Anya picked at the blanket. “I’m not stupid. I know we can’t really go back. Even if we made it to Earth, even if everything somehow worked out, people would ask questions. They’d want to know what happened to us, where we’ve been. And we can’t exactly tell them we were abducted by aliens and sold to slavers.”
“We could lie. Say we were in an accident, lost our memories?—”
“For more than a month?” Anya shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. There’d be investigations and social services and people poking into our lives. And they’d take me away from you, even though there’s no one else to take me in.”
The blunt assessment hurt because it was true. David’s parents were dead, and he’d been an only child. Her own family was limited to a sister she hadn’t spoken to in five years after a spectacular falling out over their mother’s estate. Anya would end up in foster care, shuttled between homes, waiting for some stranger to decide she was worth keeping.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” she said fiercely. “I’d fight for custody?—”
“As my stepmother who I’ve known for less than three years? Who can’t explain what happened to us?” Anya shook her head. “Be realistic. They’d separate us and put me in the system. Heck, they might even put you in jail. Or we could stay here.”
The words hung between them, impossible and tempting in equal measure.
“Anya…”
“I’m just saying,” the girl said carefully, like she was testing the waters. “Maybe Earth isn’t the only option. Maybe we could find somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”
“With Selik?”
“He did offer to help. And he seems… I don’t know. Less terrible than the alternatives.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement.”
