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“I hope to find out,” Malik said. “When we have time, I’m going back. If Francis is cool with it.”
“I worry about you doing that.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous, duh.”
“No, but why do you worry about me, specifically?” He rolled toward her and reached under the blanket.
“Well, you’re a valuable member of the team.”
“Uh-huh. And?”
“Mmmmm. What? Oh, well, what you’re doing . . . right now . . . that’s part of it.”
“And?”
“Really, Malik? I have to say it again?”
“Yes. You do.”
“I love you, Malik. Even when I was pretending not to, I did.”
“All right, then. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Um, I don’t think so. You started something, you finish it.”
CHAPTER 13
Parenting Fails
“DADDY IS DEAD.”
Simone, fully human again, limply accepted her mother’s hug. Her mother, Annette Belevance—she’d reclaimed her maiden name—held her out at arm’s length, searching her face.
“It’s true,” Simone said. “We were both hit by bits of the rock. They rounded up a bunch of us and drove us to the Pine Barrens. Then they shot us, Mom. They shot us down.”
Simone’s affect was blank, her mind doing all it could to protect her from what she had seen. She needed to keep the emotions tamped down, way down inside, because the reality was too big, too horrible to absorb. Her father had been gunned down. She had nearly been gunned down. Men and women and kids who’d done nothing wrong had been machine-gunned by people working for some part of their own government.
“But . . . but you’re okay, you’re not shot. Baby love, this last day has been so stressful and scary, it’s no surprise you’d . . .”
Simone had started to morph. It was easier than wasting time trying to convince her mother. Her clothing receded, exposing flesh already turning the blue of a clear evening sky. Lines appeared as if drawn by an invisible pen, lines detailing a pattern of tiny diamond shapes covering every inch of her save for her face. Her skin roughened as the diamond pattern resolved into thousands of tiny wings.
Then Simone took a deep breath and silently commanded her wings to beat. She rose from the floor, floated up to the ceiling, then settled back down.
“I’m not having a stress reaction,” Simone said flatly. “I’m one of those rock people. A mutant.”
Her mother fainted, eyes rolling up, neck allowing her head to loll, knees buckling. Simone made a grab for her, mostly caught her, and managed to deposit her in a breakfast-nook chair. She brought water and dribbled a bit into her mother’s mouth as she knelt beside her.
“Listen, Mom, I’m ninety percent sure Daddy is dead. I know you’re divorced and hate each other, but, still . . .”
Her mother nodded, eyes welling with tears.
“And I guess . . .” Simone looked around the familiar kitchen, suddenly overwhelmed by what she’d told her mother, and what she had still to tell her. “Look, maybe nothing else will happen, but they have my name, and if they realize I’m not dead, they’ll come here looking for me.”
“I’m calling Shepp!”
Shepp was the family lawyer. “This is way beyond lawyers, Mom. This is . . . Normal has been left-swiped. Normal is done. I can fly. None of this is anything a lawyer can help with. I have to hide. I have to disappear until we can get a grip on . . . on . . .” She waved her hand, encompassing the world. “I need money. Cash. I know Daddy has . . . had . . . some in his safe, so I’m heading there next before the cops take the place apart.” She took her mother’s hands. Annette Belevance had never been a strong woman, never forceful, very much unlike her ex-husband. Or her daughter. “Listen, I can’t have a phone; they can track phones. If Mary calls . . . just tell her I love her.”
