“Don’t worry about me. Did they hurt you?” she asked breathlessly, turning to scan me for obvious injury.
“Who are they?” I asked. You could hear the emphasis when she said it, communicating a single malicious entity made up of multiple parts. But it had been just Ariane and me out there.
She shook her head. “This must be really confusing for you right now, and I’m sorry that I can’t explain everything. But right now, I really need you to go to the basement.”
I gaped at her. Was it even possible for someone to lose their shit so completely in eighteen months?
Her eyes were too bright, and her cheeks were flushed with the exertion and anxiety. She appeared too thin, bony almost, and older, as if she’d aged decades in the time she’d been gone. The wrinkles on her forehead were deep grooves now, and the gray near her temples had spread through the rest of her dark hair, like silvery spider threads. Even though I’d surpassed her in height a couple years ago, she wasn’t short—five feet ten, the same as my dad. But now she seemed shrunken and frail.
It was as if something had been eating away at her, taking little pieces of the person I knew with every bite.
“Okay,” I said slowly, eyeing her as a stranger with my mother’s face. “Why the basement?”
“Because they’ve probably got the back covered,” she said, tugging at my arm. “But they don’t know about the other exit. Leads to the unit next door.” She gave me a grim smile that looked more like a baring of teeth.
Crap. Making tinfoil hats couldn’t be far behind. What had happened to the calm, stable person who’d weathered my dad’s shifting moods and short temper with the relatively serene disposition of someone confronted with a raging storm? Nothing to be done except endure. Just make it through.
“Mom—” I began.
Her hand tightened around my wrist like a claw. “Move.” She yanked on my arm with surprising strength, pulling me through the bare-walled entryway, past a staircase leading up, and over the threshold into a small kitchen. With her free hand, she pulled a cell phone from her bathrobe pocket and pressed a button.
“Whoa, Mom. There’s no need to call anybody.” I envisioned police officers, angry after weeks of paranoid calls from this address, showing up at the door. I doubted that GTX or my dad had filed any kind of report on either Ariane or me, but it wasn’t worth taking the chance.
I lurched for the phone, but my mom twisted out of my reach.
Shit. Ariane! A little help!
“Get him for me,” my mom said into the phone. Oh God, was there even a person on the other end of that call? Was she that far gone?
“Mom,” I begged. “Please listen to me.” Her nails were digging into my wrist, and she didn’t seem to notice. She was still pulling.
In the hallway, I heard the locks disengaging, one at a time, and felt a rush of relief. Ariane was coming.
I probably should have been worrying about what my mom would say when she realized Ariane had gotten in. But then again, if my mom thought the mysterious “they” could penetrate locked doors, maybe Ariane’s sudden appearance inside wouldn’t strike her as too odd.
“I don’t care if he’s busy. You get Dr. Laughlin on the phone now. It’s Mara.”
Laughlin. I froze. That was one of the names mentioned in Ariane’s letter from her father. “David Laughlin?” I asked. “How do you know that name?”
My mom frowned at me, moving the phone away from her mouth. “Where did you hear it? Did they mention him to you?”
Again with the “they.”
Before I could respond, the front door opened, the undone chains clacking against the back of it.
“Run!” My mom, wide-eyed with panic, let go of my arm and tried to shove me toward a closed door on the opposite side of the room, but I planted my feet and refused to move.
Ariane appeared a moment later at the threshold to the hall. She spared my mother a quick glance and then focused her attention on me, assessing me with those too-dark eyes hidden behind blue lenses. “Are you all right?”
She could have left, but she didn’t. That was the only thought echoing in my head, and the sudden swell of gratitude made my throat feel tight. “I’m okay.”
She nodded, a strand of her pale hair falling across her face.
I turned to my mom, who was watching us with a strange expression on her face, the phone in her hand seemingly forgotten. “Mom, this is my—”
“107?” my mom asked faintly.
My heart stopped beating for a second. 107. That was Ariane’s GTX designation, the number on the tattoo on her shoulder. I’d never heard anyone but Dr. Jacobs refer to her that way.
Ariane, though, seemed completely unsurprised by this development. She gave my mother a nod.
My mom sagged back against the counter in relief and started laughing, albeit with a hysterical edge. Then she lifted her phone up and ended the call with a definitive press of the button.
I looked back and forth between the two of them, but no answers appeared forthcoming. “All right,” I said, frustrated. “I guess I’ll be the stupid one and ask. What the hell is going on?”
Ariane spoke up with obvious reluctance. “Mara was a lab tech at GTX for a while. As for the rest…I don’t know.”
Hearing her use my mom’s name sent a jolt through me. I was pretty sure I’d never mentioned it to Ariane before.
A sick feeling grew in my gut. “Is that true?” I asked my mom. “Did you work in the lab at GTX? Did you do that…stuff to Ariane? Tests and experiments?” As far as I’d known, my mom had been an office assistant during her few years at GTX.
When she wouldn’t meet my gaze, my heart fell. I looked to Ariane.
Ariane hesitated. “No. It wasn’t like that. She tried to help. She—”
“Yes,” my mother said flatly. “I did.”
I stared at her, seeing not just an altered version of the person I’d known but maybe someone I hadn’t known at all.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said to Ariane, her voice cracking.
Ariane nodded and glanced away, clearly uncomfortable.
“But I don’t understand,” my mom said with a frown. “How are you here? Where’s Mark?”
Mark Tucker, Ariane’s adoptive father. So my mom had known about that too?
I waved my arms, signaling a time-out before Ariane could answer. “Wait, let’s go back to the part where you worked on a secret project involving extraterrestrial DNA and human experimentation.”
My mom flinched as if I’d hit her, but I ignored it.
“When was this?” I asked. “And if you know her, then why were you acting all crazy? Talking about ‘them’ and—”
The phone rang in my mom’s hand, startling all of us. She stared down at it as if she’d completely forgotten she held it, and I remembered what we’d been talking about before Ariane had walked in.
“It’s Laughlin,” I said to Ariane quickly. “She knows Laughlin somehow.”
“I thought you were one of his,” my mom said to Ariane. “They’re not supposed to come here anymore but—”
“One of his what?” I asked, baffled.
Ariane cocked her head to one side, a posture I recognized as her listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear. “Mara thought I was one of his hybrids. Ford,” Ariane said suddenly with the air of someone solving a mystery that had troubled her. “It’s a name.”
I frowned. Ford was a weird name for a girl. Unless…wait, Nixon and Carter, that’s what my mom had shouted out the door earlier. Three sequential president names. Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Some kind of naming scheme Laughlin had used instead of numbers? If so, that would mean there were three hybrids.
My mom nodded. “You look just like her, but Ford is…” A faint sheen of sweat appeared on her face. “She’s different.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If she’s a hybrid, how can she just be wandering around like—”
“If I don’t answer, they
’ll know something is wrong,” my mom said as the phone entered its third ring. “They may send someone.” She spoke to the room at large, but then she looked to Ariane, with deference and perhaps a hint of fear, for permission.
Ariane nodded. “Answer it. But be careful, please.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a warning. And I had no idea how to feel about it either way. This was my mom, after all. Then again, I wasn’t sure the person I’d thought of as my mom actually existed. I’d felt guilty about the way I’d behaved toward her before she left—and I still did—but I couldn’t make all that compute with these new secrets revealed, with this new side of her. What she’d done to Ariane was horrible. So, was it wrong to still feel bad for not being better to her?
I shook my head. It was so messed up and confusing.
But my mom just nodded at Ariane, as though she’d expected nothing less, and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said. “Dr. Laughlin?” Her panicked breathing was loud enough to be just as audible to him as it was to us.
She was going to give us away without saying another word. He’d have to be an idiot not to realize something was wrong.
I must not have been the only one thinking along those lines, because Ariane started toward my mom with her hand out.
But my mom backed away, setting her chin in determination. “I just wanted to tell you that it’s not necessary for you to send your little drones to spy on me while I’m shopping,” she said in a steadier voice, one threaded with indignation. “I don’t think they really need to know whether I prefer frozen broccoli or asparagus.”
She paused, listening to him on the other end, her anger spreading fresh color over her pale and sunken cheeks.
“What difference does it make to you when I go to the store?” she demanded. “Maybe it is early for a grocery run, but it’s not as if I’m sleeping much anyway.” She gave a bitter laugh.
Another pause, and her mouth tightened at whatever he was saying. I knew that expression. She was getting pissed. I’d seen that face plenty of times when Quinn and I were arguing over toys or the TV remote or who drank the last of the orange juice.
“I don’t care if you say they’re still at the facility. I know what I saw,” she said. “I’ve kept my end of the agreement, you better keep yours.” Then without waiting for a response, she ended the call, dropped the phone on the counter with a clatter, as if she couldn’t stand to touch it for a second longer, and covered her face with her hands.
I edged closer to Ariane, giving my mom a wide berth—well, as much as possible in this small kitchen. I felt as if I didn’t know what my mom would do, how she would react—a wildly unpredictable variable in an already difficult situation. Weirdly enough, in this room with the woman who gave birth to me, Ariane was my source for familiar.
“Did he believe it?” I asked Ariane quietly, resisting the urge to pull her closer, tuck her under one arm like I needed the stability. But the tension in her shoulders and the tight set of her jaw told me she was on guard. She was in war mode, or whatever she called it, and probably wouldn’t appreciate me hampering her ability to respond.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t read thoughts over the phone. And unless he’s in the neighborhood, his mind is outside my range.”
“He believed it,” my mom said, looking up, her cheeks damp. “He thinks I’m scared and paranoid, which is exactly what he wants.” She smiled, tears overflowing again. “The worst part is, he’s right. I was telling the truth. I got so used to looking for them around every corner, I thought I caught a glimpse of Ford at the store last week. Watching me from the end of the frozen-food aisle.” She laughed, an awful, choked sound. “It’s not possible. Laughlin says he restricted them to the main facility a few months ago, except for when they’re in school, so I don’t know, maybe I really am going crazy.”
Ariane frowned and looked to me.
I shook my head. I had no idea what was going on, how much of it was real and what percentage might be in her head. But there were some coincidences that couldn’t be overlooked. Like the fact that she and Ariane knew each other and that the name Laughlin was being tossed around.
“Mom,” I began.
“I’m fine,” my mom said, straightening up and wiping under her eyes. “But you need to leave. He may have someone check up on me, and he cannot find you here. I won’t make it that easy for him.” She made a shooing gesture at me. “Go now.”
I stared at her. “You must be crazy if you think I’m leaving here without answers.”
“Zane,” she said in that exaggeratedly patient Mom tone, “I don’t have time to explain everything, so you’re just going to have to—”
“Fine, forget all of that,” I snapped. “How about what you’re doing here? Why you lied to me? Why you left in the middle of the night and never came back?”
She squared her shoulders, as if preparing for a fight. “You don’t understand. I was trying to—”
“What is your arrangement with Dr. Laughlin and his company?” Ariane spoke up next to me. “Did you seek him out to continue your…career?”
Oddly enough, that question—or maybe the fact that it came from Ariane—seemed to break through my mom’s resistance.
She slumped back against the counter with a defeated air. “Of course not,” she said. “When I took this job and moved here, I swear to you, I thought it was the office job I applied for. Laughlin Integrated has so many subsidiaries and branches, I didn’t even know it was his company.”
“That doesn’t explain GTX,” I pointed out. And Ariane. That, to me, was the most difficult part to wrap my brain around—that my mom had bundled me off to kindergarten with a kiss on the forehead and then gone to work where she’d stood on the other side of that glass wall and watched Ariane suffer or, worse, actively participated in the experiments and tests on her. Just the thought made me feel ill.
“I had the best of intentions, I promise you,” she said, but she couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “I didn’t know the extent of the project when I signed on. We needed the money, and your father was thrilled that I was working at GTX.”
Of course he was.
“I did the best I could, and I thought it was for a good cause,” she said, looking down at her hands, her fingers laced together.
“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” I muttered. That was pretty much the same excuse Ariane’s adoptive father had given for his role in everything. He’d done it to save other human children from cancer. Well, how could you argue with that? Except after seeing Ariane trapped in the small cell, miserable and alone, I couldn’t imagine anyone not arguing with it. “She’s not a freaking lab rat.”
Ariane cleared her throat. “It’s okay. She was kind to me.”
“Compared to what?” I demanded.
“Zane,” my mom protested weakly.
“If I am willing to accept her apology for what she did to me, then you need to as well,” Ariane said in that calm way of hers.
“That’s bull,” I said. “There is no apology to cover what they did to you.”
“Maybe not, but it’s more than any of the others have ever offered,” she pointed out. Then in a deliberate effort to change the topic, she turned her attention to my mother. “How does Laughlin come into this?”
I exhaled loudly. Trust Ariane to keep on point.
“He wanted someone who knew what GTX was doing with their…with you,” she said. “When I started applying for jobs—”
“So you were planning to leave?” I asked stiffly. I’d suspected that, of course, but hearing it was something different. Somehow, if she’d just, I don’t know, snapped and left on the spur of the moment, I could have handled that better than the fact that she’d made preparations for weeks or even months in advance. A thousand opportunities to tell me or even hint at it, and she’d said nothing. That made every moment I’d spent in her presence during that time a complete and utter lie.
“Oh, honey.??
? She reached for me.
I stepped back, and Ariane touched my arm, staying my retreat, her fingers cool, light, and reassuring against my skin, like a washcloth on your forehead when you have a fever.
My mom frowned, and Ariane dropped her hand.
“Things weren’t good at home,” my mom said. “You know that. We’d agreed to stay together until you were both out of high school, but with Quinn graduating, it was only getting worse.”
Much like this conversation. The fact that my parents hadn’t had the best relationship was not news to me. Learning that they’d had some kind of cold, factual agreement, with a timeline and everything, was.
“It was as if once he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, it only made him angrier that he was in the tunnel in the first place,” she said. “I was going to take you with me, but you were so determined to follow in Quinn’s footsteps and your father wasn’t going to give up without a fight.…”
“So you’re saying it was my fault,” I said, fighting a swell of fury and hurt, even though I’d suspected that same thing all along.
“No!” she said, shocked. “I didn’t want to take you from your home, to make you miserable.” She paused. “And I didn’t want to make you hate me more than you already did.”
She had a point; back then, that was exactly what I would have done: hated her and done my best to make her regret taking me away from my chance to make my dad proud of me. It was only after she’d left that I’d realized the absolute futility of that quest.
“How did Dr. Laughlin find you?” Ariane asked, once more redirecting the conversation. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or frustrated.
“I had GTX on my resume, but it was just the regular assistant job that I’d been told to use as a cover when I started working there. But Dr. Laughlin…he knew somehow. They all spy on each other.” She shuddered.
“What about Emerson St. John? The third competitor? You’ve met him,” Ariane said.
My mom shook her head. “No. Laughlin isn’t interested in his approach. He’s trying to use some kind of viral delivery system to effect changes within a human system.”