Page 75 of The Dysasters

That had been the way the rich Mr. Tibadeau had lured young women into his marital bed. He’d wrap them in satiny words and silky promises. Who cared if he got caught?

Money made everything go away.

Everything except Bastien’s mother.

Money kept her glued in place with foul liquid in her glass and hate stitched to her lips. But Mr. Tibadeau could hardly notice. He’d sweep in and out, sweet nothings spilling into his wife’s outstretched hands. And then, like a dream, like a nightmare, he’d be gone again, returning coated in glitter and smelling of vanilla, of sweetness, of lust and secrets. And the silence would cloak their home in its funeral shroud.

This family is dead.

May they rest in pieces.

Belly pressed against the glowing phoenix, Bastien paddled toward the break and its barreling waves. He gripped the edge of his board and, withsurprising ease, punched through the rippling, tourmaline blue, glass-like center of the wave. He took a deep breath and he cut under as another wave surged overhead.

It has to calm if I’m going to see them,he thought, taking a quick inhale before another wave could crash against him. But it didn’t come. The ocean mellowed, absorbing the treacherous conditions as if a whole day had passed while Bastien was busy blinking. He sat up, wiggling his toes in the water as his legs draped over the sides of his board.

They would be here soon to ground him, reassure him that although he was of his father, he wasnothis father.

Bastien felt them before he saw them. The water cooled and thickened, but only for a moment as three majestic, shadowy creatures rose from the depths to greet him. They should have scared him, giant beasts surging close to the surface, their huge, whale-like bodies encircling him as he sat alone, on a surfboard, bobbing in the Gulf. It was the beginning of so many shark attack movies, but he could never bring himself to leave. He’d first seen them on one of their family trips to the Gulf, sitting, much like he was now, on a paddleboard atop the ocean while his parents snorkeled around him. He’d asked if they could see them, feel the cold thickness of the water, but they’d laughed and splashed and told him to stop trying to scare them, for the ocean was a vast and frightening place.

But that had been in the before.

Before the slick and the silence.

And Bastien didn’t like to linger in the past.

Although, he’d never really understood what they meant about the vastness or the scariness ofthe sea. As he got older, it became more and more apparent that this was a real thing, thalassophobia, fear of the sea. Dickie had even said that he didn’t like to go out too far without a boat. That the ocean was like Jupiter or Saturn, “a whole ’nother planet that we’ll never completely explore or understand.” It had been the smartest thing that Dickie’d ever said. But if that was the case, if the ocean was like an unexplored planet, then Bastien was Neil Armstrong.

Submerged, he could feel all the slopes and edges, caves and lightless depths, ebbs and flows.

The ocean was not unknown. It was misunderstood.

The water cooled again as another creature appeared and joined its brethren as they continued to circle Bastien.

“Tell me,” he dipped his fingers into the water, “how to wash clean ofmon père.” My father.

They were always silent, his creatures, and, for the first time, Bastien wondered if someone out there could hear them.

22

FOSTER

Foster was going to kill the chickens. All of them. Dead. With a groan she rolled onto her belly and covered her head with her pillow. It felt like all she’d done was collapse into bed, close her eyes, take a deep breath, and then it was morning. And she knew it was morning not because of the sun. Oh, no. Foster had blackout curtains to keep that early-rising bastard firmly on theoutsideof the house. She knew it was morning because of the squawking, or crowing, or whatever word described the god-awful noise that had woken her up.

“Fucking chickens,” she moaned, tossing her pillow onto the floor and sitting up. With a yawn, she stretched her arms overhead and squinted at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock. Eight twenty-three. It wasn’tthatearly. At least, not now that she’d adjusted her schedule so that she and Sabine could hang out before Sabine went off to class while Finn fed the menagerie, which would be in about thirty minutes.

Foster flipped off her alarm clock before it started blaring at her, and shuffled out her door and around the corner to her bathroom. She squirted a blob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, weighing whether or not thirty minutes was enough time to get rid of toothpaste mouth. Toothpaste mouth ruined vegan scones, and they were really the best part of Sabine coming over nearly every morning.

No, she wasn’t being honest.Sabinewas the best part of Sabine coming over. She liked their new routine. It pushed her one step closer to feeling like she was truly at home and part of a family. And that’s all she wanted. It was simple, really, just wanting to belong. But so much time had passed and so many bad things had happened since she’d truly felt at home on her rooftop or having s’more nights with Cora that Foster had begun to wonder if it had all been an illusion. That maybe she’d made the feeling up. Maybe she’d only convinced herself that she belonged. But all the days at Strawberry Fields with Tate and now Sabine and Finn had brought with them that fuzzy warm rush of comfort and home, like she’d just been on a long trip and was only a few miles away from her front door.

Foster stuck the toothbrush into her mouth.

September was a month of Foster firsts: first best friend, who she refused to call bestie no matter how many times Sabine insisted; first “boyfriend-ish dating guy” type person; first time float flying; first time living without someone over the age of twenty-one; and first time having to possibly save the lives of two people who were also mutant freaks and who had some kind of water ability.

She spit, gargled, and then spit again.

She’d leave that last first until the very final possible moment. Those two wouldn’t be eighteen for another two days, and maybe there wouldn’t be any freak water event and there would be no reason to go around saving two fellow teenagers. Yep, she’d let it go. Remove it from her mind. Poof. Gone. A problem for Future Foster.

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that Present Foster couldn’t wait half an hour for vegan scones.