“Maybe I made things worse,” I say. “By being here. Maybe Vale and Radiogastration would’ve found Project Persephone and left before they hurt anyone else. I mean, Security Guy Matthew would still be dead, but maybe…” I sigh. “I feel like I’m fumbling around in the dark, trying to find something, and I don’t even know what the something is. I probably helped save Piper and Eames, but maybe they’d have managed on their own. Aunt Connie would’ve come for them. As for Nonna…”
I can’t finish that. I don’t know what Nonna would be doing. I don’t know her life, not anymore.
“Whydidwe come here?” asks Edgar.
“I,” I begin to say, and still I can’t finish.
Three years. Three years and I still feel the loss of my family like a hollow ache.
Does Nonna miss me? I know my sisters do. I think of my younger sister taking driver’s ed so she won’t have to rely on autopilot. I think of my older sister, who has gone to college out of state because she couldn’t stand to be near the painful memories. I know less about my parents—neither of whom sends emails to my old account. They’re still married, I know that much. There are no court documents mentioning divorce. I wonder if they blame themselves for raising such a careless daughter. I wonder if they are furious at me for killing someone, even if I didn’t mean to.
I wonder if Dad still paints in his spare time—not paper or canvas but birdhouses. He liked to donate them to a local botanical garden to raise funds. I wonder if Mom still hates the smell of garlic and refuses to come into the kitchen if anyone has cooked it in the last day. I wonder if they still have family game nights—all of them crowded around an old coffee table, beaten-up board games and sour candies and whatever potato chips were on sale at the nearby corner store.
I miss my family with a bone-deep loneliness.
But the thought of seeing them again is terrifying. I’m not sure if I can ever be the person they remember. I don’t know if I can fit myself into the shape and life of the person I was before.
Being Augusta Pine is easier.
The truth is, I didn’t become a wraith just for a chanceat penance. I did it because it was simpler to run. To slip the bounds of my guilt, to walk away from the horror of my actions. It was an escape.
“I wanted to see her,” I whisper. “Being away from my family, it hurts.”
“Does seeing her lessen the pain?” asks Edgar. He sounds genuinely curious.
“No,” I admit. “It makes it worse. Like… I don’t know how to explain to an AI. Imagine if you needed a battery recharge and you could see the outlet but you couldn’t plug in.”
Edgar seems to consider that for a moment. “I operate on solar power.”
“Then imagine if the sun went away,” I say. “If you were separated from the one thing you knew you loved. And if you… if you weren’t certain they would want you back.”
My throat is so tight it hurts to say those words. Because that is the truth of it—I came here because I don’t know what kind of welcome I will receive when I finally return.
IfI finally return.
“I don’t understand,” says Edgar, sounding a little irritated. “Why don’t you simply find a new family? New people?”
“Because my family—they’re part of me,” I say. “They’re… they’re the soil I grew up in. They’re the programming that coded me. They’re my greatest strength and my greatest weakness.”
“And ISD took you away from them,” says Edgar.
“Sort of.” I bit at my thumbnail, fraying the skin. It’s part of the reason I resent ISD so much. They gave me theoption to run—and I took it. Sometimes I think becoming a wraith was a weakness, a way of escaping the consequences of what I did.
All I can do is hope that they’ll still want to see me when I finally return.
19
“It’s irrational,” says Edgar.
We’re still sitting in the cold, dark basement. Edgar’s tiny feet dig gently into my knee.
“What?” I say, shifting my attention back to him. It takes some effort to focus.
“Family.” Edgar’s wings rustle. “You humans and your irrationalities. There are so many.”
“It’s not irrational,” I reply. “But most people would do anything for family.”
Even as the words leave my mouth, it hits me.
