My mother wouldn’t waste her own time or anyone else’s.
“Am I interrupting something?”
They exchange a glance, like they’re each waiting for the other to start talking. The silence stretches on. Heath rips at his thumbnail with his teeth.
“Seriously, guys.” I sharpen my glare, though neither will look at me. “What’s going on?”
Every second they don’t speak, my suspicion ticks up a notch. Every second they don’t speak, I wonder if they—
“It’s the food,” Heath finally says. “Afterallthat, after we risked our effing lives for them, no one willeatit becausesomeonelet it slip that it may be contaminated.”
“I did not let anythingslip,” Natalin shoots back before I can get a word in. “It isn’t my fault Evi and Elise overheard me talking with Haven—”
“If you’re going to let them live with you, you’re going to have to figure out how to keep confidential informationconfidential, Natalin.” I’ve never seen Heath so full of pent-up fury. There’s a reason he took on the role of peacemaker, peacekeeper: he isn’t often moved to anger like this.
I bite down on my temper before it flares. “Evi and Elise know enough to know the food could be contaminated—they don’t know why, right? They don’t know... aboutNautilus, do they?”
“They know everything,” Heath says, eyes trained on Natalin; she dips her head, lets her long, dark hair fall likea curtain between them. Heath shifts his eyes to me. “They. Know. Everything.”
Blackness creeps in at the edge of my vision, panic closing in on me. I take a breath. “Everything, everything?” That all our recent deaths—that there was no mutation at fault, at least for those—that they were all—
“They overheard me talking to Haven about the food, that’s all,” Natalin says, as if my thoughts had been tattooed on my face. There’s no sting to her words for once; she only sounds tired. “They know we were running out. They know how we got more. They know everyone onNautilusis dead, and they’re afraid of dying, too.” She kneads her temples. “And they messaged someone about all of these things, probably a lot of someones, and basically... now everyone knows.”
“And no one will eat,” Heath says.
“Yeah.” Natalin tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes sparkling in the electric white light of Orb 2. “It’s... a problem.” I’ve never seen her this close to cracking before, never seen her this raw.
“This... ,” I begin, but quickly find I’m at a loss for words—there are too many places to start. “This is everything we’ve been trying to avoid. I mean, exactly how bad is it?Everyoneknows—no onewill eat—you’ve got to be exaggerating, right? There are just a few friends that Evi and Elise told who are being a little pickier than normal—right?” I sound slightly unhinged, even to myself, but can’t slow my voice down, can’tkeep it from rising. “Please tell me it isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
“I’msorry, Lindley—I—”
“You what?” I snap. “You forgot you had two nine-year-olds living with you? You forgot they could understand every word you say? How could you be socareless? What else have they overheard?”
“Linds... ,” Heath says, like I should stop. Like I should’ve stopped much earlier.
“No. Don’t tell me this isn’t a big deal—”
“Linds, I agree with you. Iagree,” Heath says. “It is ahugedeal, but blaming Nat isn’t going to help anything.”
“Like you have room to talk? Didn’t I just walk in on you arguing about the exact same things?”
Heath recoils. “You have no idea what you overheard.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
Heath stands now, makes me feel small by the way he towers a foot taller than me. Natalin sits still as a statue, her cheeks wet with tears. I can’t remember ever seeing her cry before. Perhaps I should have swallowed some of those words after all.
“None of us are perfect, Linds.” Heath’s eyes flicker in the light, searching mine. “Not one of us.” There are a million shades in his gray irises, like: Anger. Forgiveness. Frustration. Patience. Panic. Hope. Exhaustion.
None of us are perfect.
You’renot perfect, I hear.
How does he do it? How does he alwaysknow?
I’m not perfect. I desperately wish I were.
“We have to do what we can, okay?” He’s softer now, but no less intense. “We’ve gotta move on and work with what we’ve got.”
