Chapter 10: VIII: THIS IS FIDEL CASTRO!

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CAIN

MAYA ZAMAN DOES NOT LIVE in the nicest part of town.

Her apartment complex is tucked into the edge of the city, located smack-dab in the middle of the nasty little section of crossroads rich assholes pass on their way to work and turn their noses up at. The building itself is dilapidated, covered in graffiti and held up through boarded-up windows, half-tucked under an old highway-bridge, half-out melting under the sun. Outside of it is a small plastic playground where several children play, unbothered by the grimy sidewalk they dance over, oblivious to the oil leaking through the cracks in the bridge. Across the street is a shantytown of tents and cardboard boxes.

It reminds me of my own neighborhood, of Warwick. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing my home until I'm face-to-face with a place so similar to it.

We drop Maya and Silas off at her apartment complex—in her drunken state, she'd forgotten her wheelchair—and head to an empty parking garage about a mile away from her house. We easily break past the flimsy barriers and leave the cop car parked cheekily on the roof of the building, then spent the next half-hour making the trek back to her apartment. We find her and Silas waiting for us outside the building, Maya sitting confidently in her chair.

Maya's sobered up a bit. She warmly greets us, then leads us inside to a sketchy-ass elevator. We ride to the top floor, and when we reach it, Maya heads deeper into the building, to a door at the end of the hall. She uses a key to unlock it, and shoves us inside. We crowd into a dark, musty hall rank with the scent of Ramen, weed, and burning incense.

Maya steps in behind us and flips a switch. Light floods the hall.

I still don't know whether I trust her or not. She seems deadly as a coin: heads, and she's a sweet pothead, a teenaged grandmother with wide, innocent eyes; tails, and she's a hawk with her claws spread, feasting on your exposed flesh. She's dangerous, sure, but is she dangerous to me? The trouble with her comes from not knowing when she's going to flip and when her claws are going to dig into your still pulsing heart.

She offers me her hand with a warm smile. "So, you know my name's Maya. What's your's?"

"Cain," I say. "Though some call me Daddy."

"Nobody calls him that," Atlas cuts in.

Maya makes a disgusted face. "You better not expect me to, 'cause I'm a whole-ass lesbian."

"Perfect! I'm gay."

"It works out!" Maya grins and looks like she's about to hug me, then thinks better of herself. She turns, instead, to Atlas. "You?"

Atlas, as usual, seems horribly confused. "I'm pansexual."

"What's your name?" Maya clarifies, then, under her breath, mumbles a single word: "Idiot."

"The name's Villa. Atlas Villa." He decides to one-up me and tell his life story. "I'm, uh, I'm seventeen I guess. And I like dogs and comic books and—"

I can't let this whole-ass fool be better acquainted with our new friend than I am. "Me," I interrupt. "He likes me. I'm sixteen and the only reason I haven't killed myself is because of reality TV."

"Interesting." Maya nods and turns her attention to Meredith. "Who's this fine piece of meat over here?"

Silas looks horribly uncomfortable.

Meredith squeals. "So. Um. Meredith. I'm Meredith. I'm sixteen. I like alcohol. Thank you all for coming." She gets this funny little smirk on her face like she just told the funniest joke in the whole world.

"Me too!" Maya looks Meredith up and down, and it's the funniest thing. "You're looking like a snack."

"You're looking like a full-course meal," Meredith counters, loving it.

"And you're looking like a dessert, girl, gotdayum!"

"And sweet as one, too," Meredith replies, jokingly slapping her ass.

I decide it's important to add my input. "Oh, man, if I was straight . . . "

"Cain," Atlas softly adds. "Don't say that. You look like a snack to me."

Listening to Meredith and this strange, cryptic girl going at it melts the fear in my heart like a popsicle on hot cement. How could I ever have been afraid of Maya? She's just some totally normal rando drunk. She's not a hawk. She just has a major case of RBF, but her smile is completely contagious, and her laugh so musical . . .

I blow a kiss to Atlas. "Thanks, babe."

Maya, bored with Meredith, turns to Silas. "You," she says. "Tell me about yourself."

"I'm Silas," says Silas, his voice soft and uncertain. "I'm seventeen and I don't really have anything interesting to say about myself."

"Oh, please." Meredith rolls her eyes in a show of dramatics. "You're the most interesting person I've ever met, Silas Darling. Spill your fucking tea."

"Well . . . "

"Come on!" Maya eggs him on, pounding her fists into her thighs.

I start chanting his name, and, moments later, everybody but the big man himself's joined in.

"My sisters forced me to watch the Angry Birds movie and I actually really enjoyed it," Silas blurts out.

There's a beat. Maya wheels herself into the kitchen. The four of us obediently follow. She parks herself at the sink, where above hangs a dusty window. A dying daisy sits in a plastic cup on the windowsill, surrounded in potted succulents and cacti; this flower is where Maya focuses her attention.

"Seriously." Silas is frantically trying to make this better for himself, as if his social status can ever recover. "It was really funny, and it had some deep themes about capitalism and imperialism and the common people and—"

Maya, God bless her heart, institutes a change in subject. "So are you guys criminals or what?"

By his indignant—yet sad—expression, I can tell Silas has more to say on the topic of the Angry Birds movie. Nevertheless, he decides to spare us his elaborate fan theories. I send a silent thank you to God.

"We stole tampons," Meredith admits.

"What the fuck?" Maya hides a laugh behind her hand. "Why? You can cop those bitches for, like, 99¢ in Target's restrooms. Girl, how broke are you that you'd be willing to go to prison for 99¢?"

"Very." Meredith answers, turning her pockets inside out to prove her point. Out tumbles a bobby-pin, a stick of ABC gum, and enough lint to make a bunny army. She doesn't have so much as a single penny on her.

"May I remind you," Atlas cuts in, shooting an accusatory glance Maya's way, "that you stole a fucking cop car?"

Maya hiccups so badly she knocks her wheelchair back almost a foot. "I'm drunking fuck, I have an excuse!"

"What were you even thinking?" Atlas is asking her like he's her mom—not like he's angry at her, not at all. Like he's so worried about her he'd be willing to murder her to keep her out of any trouble. "We could have spent maybe a night in jail, tops, for tampon theft. You, on the other hand, could have gotten your ass arrested! You would have been sent to a federal fucking prison!"

"Fuck the police." Maya shrugs, casual. So indifferent to his shouting at her it's almost scary. "They're cowards, every one of them. Cowards and bigots. Let 'em try and arrest me. I ain't afraid of no white man with a gun! Us women of color are the real badasses here." She flexes her arm muscles, grinning, taunting the police to come at her. "So, back to my question: tampons?"

"I needed one. We didn't have any money, so we stole some." Meredith shrugs. "That's not why they were arresting us, though. This one"—she jams her thumb into my face—"had a bunch of unregistered guns in his bag."

"At least they were actually doing something about it." Maya looks me up and down, scrutinizing me. I feel uncomfortably exposed with her vulture eyes picking me apart like a rotting corpse. "Why'd you have a bunch of guns? You're not a Republican, are you?"

"Absolutely not! I'm not anti-human-rights. And, anyways, I only had one gun," I protest weakly. "The rest were knives."

Maya arches an eyebrow. She's got this look on her face, like I just told her I jerk off to Sonic porn.

"They were very big knives," I clarify.

"And why the fuck did you have them? You're not a murderer, are you?"

"My dad's a butcher."

Usually, lying comes as natural to me as does homosexuality. But something about Maya's vulture-like stare makes me feel . . . well, it makes me feel horribly exposed. I can tell she can see right through my bullshit. Nothing escapes those eyes, dark as blackholes.

"Right." She shakes her head, focusing back on Meredith. "So y'all got in all this trouble because you couldn't afford a tampon?"

"Yeah." Meredith then starts rapping as bad as Iggy Azalea herself: "No money, no tampons, sixteen in the middle of Miami."

"Oh, honey. That's so fucked up." Maya's started scooting her chair closer and closer to Meredith, who seems horribly uncomfortable. Maya's eyes have melted, the cool, calculated glare of a vulture collapsing into the stare of a wide-eyed girl. It's almost more unnerving. "Listen, I've got some tampons you can use, and clean clothes if you need them. You need to shower? I can get your shit ready while you do. And some Advil and heating pads, if you need them. Oh! I've got an endless supply of Ben and Jerry's and chick-flicks. What do you guys say to snuggling on the couch and stuffing our faces while sobbing over Me Before You? I've watched it seventeen times in the past two weeks."

"Oh, my God." Meredith grasps Maya's hands. "You're a literal dream."

"I get that a lot." Maya grins ear to ear. "C'mon, I'll show you where—"

From somewhere deep inside Maya's apartment, a door creaks open. A fast-paced showtune spills out, and so does a little Latina girl, dancing along and singing at the top of her lungs. She's carrying a grumpy ginger cat in her arms. While her feminine, squeaky voice clashes horrendously with Hercules Mulligan's Yorktown solo, her dancing is graceful, elegant, practiced and precise. It's like she's a whole-ass ballerina, like she's practiced this routine before. She even adds a perfect little pirouette for flair, her wool socks sliding on the wood floor and her long hair whipping at her skin. She jetés into the kitchen, where she proceeds to break-dance in Maya's face. How, you must be wondering, is her break-dancing, compared to her pirouettes and jetés? Well, it's obvious she's a practiced ballerina. I wouldn't be surprised if she learned her break-dancing from a group of white kids at a Catholic middle school dance.

"Hamilton!" Atlas happily exclaims.

Something about this dancing girl is horribly familiar, but she doesn't stand still for long enough for me to put my finger on it. Her stringy brown hair, her curious dark eyes, her brown skin and tiny stature . . . it's all giving me déjà vu, but it's clouded in uncertainty. Who does she remind me of? I couldn't tell you. Her physicality is familiar, yes, but the easy way she carries herself ruins it. Her confidence, her joy, her liveliness . . . it's like watching a character in a play and then meeting their actor in real life, only to discover that the two are as different as fish and peanut butter.

"I hope y'all don't mind my roomie," Maya says. "Rent ain't cheap."

"Oh, so that's what you're calling us, now? Roommates?" The girl stops dancing for long enough to regard us with a joking sort of distaste, her chest heaving. "Look what the cat dragged in!" She grins and offers me her hand. "Hi. I'm Callie." Then she offers me her cat. "This is Fidel Castro."

It's only then, when she speaks and doesn't sing, and her voice is gentle and soft but carries the power of someone strong enough to save the whole goddamn world, that I recognize her.

I don't take her hand. I can only stare at it. I'm frozen in place, a deer caught in headlights. This has to be some sick joke, because I'm watching a ghost come back from the dead, and she's holding Fidel Castro like he's a ragdoll.

Her showtune comes to an end, and I see a red curtain falling on the Thea I'd thought I'd known, the Thea of my world. I see a red curtain fall on myself, too. All that's left onstage is this girl, this Callie—this imposter, illuminated by a single, watery blue spotlight.

The cat, temporarily unwanted by his owner and permanently unwanted by the poor soul she offered him up to, leaps to the ground. Fidel Castro flits off, grumpy and meowing.

"What's your last name?" I ask her, sticking my toe in the water.

She makes this funny little face of skepticism. "Uh, Mendoza . . . why? What's your's?"

My lips tremble so hard, my name comes out in a horribly thick accent. "Terranova."

Something dark crosses over her intelligent eyes—a veil of understanding. She recognizes me, too. She gulps and takes a step back. "I thought you were dead."

But I thought she was dead—at least, she was dead in my dimension. I watched Thea Mendoza die. This girl is both Thea and not-Thea. Dead and alive.

"No way!" I exclaim, maybe a little too peppy. "Samesies! I thought you were dead!"

She shakes her head, grabbing hold of her hair and bunching it up in the back of her head like she's going to put it into a ponytail—a nervous habit, or something of the sorts. "If we're both dead, then who's driving the car?"

"Jesus take the wheel," sings Maya, interrupting our little exchange.

Callie ignores her and grabs my hand. "We need to talk outside." Without giving me any choice in the matter, she drags me into the apartment's living room and grabs two big, fluffy white blankets off the couch. "It gets cold out here. Warmth fights off seasonal depression. So does sunlight." Folding one blanket over her arms and handing the other to me, she lets go of my hand and crosses the room. She unlocks one of the windows, pushing it open. There's no screen on it. It leads directly out to the rickety old fire escape. "But it's nice to come sit out here, you know? Even when it's cold. It's very therapeutic."

On that note, she steps through the window, ducking over so she can fit through it. She stands on the landing, her arms leaned over the railing and her ankles crossed, wrapping the blanket loosely around her shoulders. Standing out there, she looks as regal as a proud queen surveying her kingdom. I join her, having to duck way lower than she had. She reaches back to shut the window behind me. I stand beside her and pull the blanket around me. It feels like I'm encompassed in a warm-ass cocoon.

The view from the fire escape isn't much, just the bridge and the tops of some buildings. I can see the mountains off in the distance. It is therapeutic, just sitting out here in the quiet of night.

Fidel Castro has discovered us out here. He jumps out onto the fire escape, and Callie scoops him up, cradling him tight to her chest.

"Why don't you go by Thea?" I ask her.

"What do you mean?"

What do I mean? It's a simple question. "Your name. Why don't you go by it anymore?"

"My name is Callie." She gives me an oddly guilty look. "I mean, it's actually Caroline, but nobody calls me that."

I shrug it off. Okay. Weird, but sure. What if it's the butterfly effect? What if the entire reason that the Thea of this dimension survived the fact that her name is Callie, not Thea?

Callie props her chin up with her fist, squinting at me. "So, like, you're not dead?"

"Not legally."

"Bullshit." She shakes her head, her hair whipping into her eyes with a sudden gust of wind. "Bullshit. I watched you die, Mo, you absolute idiot—"

"Uh, my name isn't Mo." I give her a weird look. "I mean, if you're trying to call me a homo, you're right."

"No!" Her face burns bright red. "You're Mo. Your name is Mo." Then, just like she did with her own name, she clarifies: "I mean, it's actually Morpheus, but nobody calls you that." Her voice is so poignant I want to tell her that I'm actively committing identify fraud and my name really is Mo, if only it would make her happy.

"It literally isn't. My name's Cain."

"Ugh." She shakes her head, squeezing her fists. Her jaw sets like the sun. "You know, I don't think you're the person I thought you were. I'm sorry."

"Who'd you think I was?"

"Mo, but . . . " Her voice breaks. "Well, he's dead. You just look a lot like him . . . maybe you guys were related. You said your last name's Terranova? God, you must be one of their kids."

I feel as completely and utterly lost as if I'd suddenly been dropped in an AP class. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, Luca and Marieka Terranova?" Callie makes this duh face like I'm stupid for not knowing what she's talking about. "Are you one of their kids?"

"Zhou," I correct her. My mouth, all of a sudden, feels full of cotton. I can't remember the last time I talked about my mom without having to use words like murder and drug bust and prison. "Luca Terranova and Marieka Zhou. My parents never married."

"Sure they did. My momma was a groomswoman in their wedding. 'Course, that was before your dad went fucking crazy and my parents stopped speaking to him." Callie laughs, like it's a memory worth laughing at. "They're definitely married. They have, like, seven kids. They just keep on poppin' out."

For some reason, the prospect of my parents actually getting married makes me physically ill. It's been so long since I last saw my mom, I don't even remember what her voice sounded like. "No . . . you know what? I have a question for you. Callie, how much do you know about the Mendoza Institute?"

She blankly stares at me.

"You know, the Mendoza Institute? Dreamscapes, Maras?"

"Do you mean the Terranova Institute?"

"The what?"

"The Terranova Institute. The place they study Dreamscapes and Maras. I have an internship there."

"You have an internship there? They tried to kill you!"

"Of course I do, but don't tell my mom!" Callie says, suddenly defensive. "I've gotta get a leg up on the competition if I want to even think about getting a job after med school. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, you know?"

"Okay, whatever." I'm about as interested in this girl's med school drama as I am in straight porn. "So, I'm kind of not from this dimension, you know?"

"You're from a Dreamscape?"

I nod. "One where your name was Thea, and the Mendoza Institute you prisoner for the first eighteen years of your life so they could illegally perform human experimentation on you."

"And I died in it," she realizes, her voice the consistency of oobleck.

"Yeah . . . "

"How?"

"To save the world." I can feel myself beginning to tear up. "We didn't have a way to stop the rift when it collapsed. You used your power to stop it, but it killed you."

"Wow." Callie smiles sadly, her nervous habit popping back up—she grabs all her hair up on top of her head like she's putting it in a ponytail. "Sounds badass."

"Do you still have a power, here?" I ask her.

She nods. "Yeah. I'm what your dad calls a CDR—a creatore della realtà. Mo"—she adds, quietly—"was a CDF."

A creator of reality. Huh.

"What does the F stand for? Fuck?"

"Fuoco."

"Fire," I translate. "Like me."

"If you think I'm alternate universe Thea, then . . . " Callie intently studies me, her warm brown eyes crackling like, well, fuoco. "Do you think you're alternate universe Mo?"

"Maybe. What was he like?"

"Like your Thea, from what you've told me about her. His parents—your parents—had him as some experiment. They exposed Marieka to millions of Maras while she was pregnant, and he was the result. A dangerous, fucked-up little boy with the power to create fire. I first met him when he was twelve and I was fourteen, and he was a complete fucking asshole. The kid was totally mute. He wouldn't say a word to me at first—I thought they cut off his tongue. He'd have these complete mental breakdowns, like a little kid throwing a tantrum while in the possession of a flame-thrower. Honestly, he was scary as hell." She pauses. "Have you heard of that girl Genie? The wild child that lived in complete isolation until she was thirteen? He reminded me a lot of her. Terrifying, overbearingly quiet, but there was something completely endearing about him. I guess I felt bad for him. I don't know. I felt very strongly about him. I'm an only child, but it always felt like he was my annoying little brother."

I suddenly feel overwhelmingly lucky that I was the result of an unplanned and unwanted teenage pregnancy. Had my parents been married when they had me, would I have turned out like Callie's Mo?

"And how did he die?" I ask.

"Like how Thea did. Saving the world. When the rift collapsed, nobody was ready. Nobody had anything strong enough to set the bomb off. Mo set it on fire, and . . . well, you know how nuclear bombs work. He was killed instantly, burned past recognition. He was only fourteen. Kind of ironic, isn't it? That he could control fire, and yet he was burned to death?"

And kind of sad, too, I think. No public execution, no glitter, no national media coverage . . . just him and a nuclear bomb. Gone in a puff of smoke. Wait, hold up—why did they need a nuclear bomb?

"What's with the nuclear bomb?"

"The Terranova Institute is all about radiation. They think it's the cure to everything. Nukes keep the rift from collapsing, radiation cures hosts." To my confused expression, she adds: "Basically, if they give the Maras cancer, it kills them. Usually without injuring the hosts. I haven't went through treatment yet—that's why I'm still a CDR. I kind of like having power. I'm waiting until this thing starts to kill me to kill it."

"Radiation actually cures them?" I ask.

"It has like a ninety-something percent success rate, and it's only found to be a carcinogen in, like, 10% of patients."

"Huh. Well, I'll be darned." In my head, I'm making a mental note to relay this information to a certain Bianca Mendoza when I get home—if I ever get home. "So he didn't even get a public execution? What a bummer!"

"Why would you even want a public execution?"

"It's always been a dream of mine."

"Your dreams are weird."

"Don't kinkshame me!"

"I'm literally kinkshaming you so hard right now." Callie dangles her arms over the railing. "So where did Thea come from?"

"You see, Callie, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much—"

"No!" Callie's face, once again, turns red. "I meant the name. It sounds so white. And if you hadn't noticed, I'm very not white."

"Oh. It was short for Pasithea. I think it had something to do with Greek mythology?"

"No way!" Callie's eyes are as wide as the Atlantic, like this is the most exciting news she's ever heard. "I think I told you how Mo was short for Morpheus, right? You know, the god of dreams in Greek mythology? But thank God I wasn't named Pasithea. I think I'd have to kill myself."

"I called her Pasta."

"That's cute." Callie tilts her head. "You said it was the Mendoza Institute, right? Do my parents run it?"

"Well, your mom did."

"Past tense?"

"I burned it down."

"Elaborate, please."

"There was a lot of unlawful human experimentation. On me, on you, on others . . . a lot of fucked up shit went on there. Thea was born for the same reason Mo was—to study the effects that Maras had on pregnancy and on a developing child. They never let her have any contact with the outside world, they starved her and beat her, she didn't even know what a fucking selfie was until she met me. And after my friends and I broke her out, I kind of . . . I don't know, snapped. I wanted revenge."

Callie sighs. "Gah, I can't imagine my mom running that hellhole . . . " She laughs, shaking her head at the thought of it. "Seriously. My mom, working for the government? Why would a pig want to work for the slaughterhouse?"

"My parents run it here," I guess. "Don't they?"

"Your dad did. I think your mom's some kind of lawyer." She shrugs. "But when the wall went up, he passed it off to some rich white guy and ran for mayor. They still do a lot for it, though."

I know my dad, and I know he'd rather murder Cerberus than go into politics. (I know he tried to run for president once. But I don't think he really knew what the president actually was.) And the thought of my mom—although I'll admit that I don't know all that much about her—as a fucking lawyer sounds about as ridiculous as me going into law enforcement.

"Talk about a pig working for the slaughterhouse." I snort. "Did he win?"

"By a landslide."

A new fear strikes my heart. "Wait, hold up. He's still a Democrat here, isn't he?"

"Please!" Callie laughs so hard she just about falls off the fire escape. "He's a big-ass gun-toting Republican. He was totally in favor of the wall!"

I feel physically ill. "No. Wait, what is the wall?"

"Do you guys not have one?"

"Only Trump's."

"Who's Trump?"

"God, I wish I were you."

"So, anyways. Two years ago, when the rift almost collapsed, the government built a wall around Warwick. They did so for two reasons. One: to contain the damage from the rift if another collapse would occur, and to keep the Mara virus from spreading. Two: to keep radioactive particles from spreading when they bombed it. They claim it's tall enough that no radiation or Mara's can get passed, but I'm on the inside with TI, and I know it's a load of absolute horseshit." Callie's eyes melt together like warm chocolate. She digs her fingernails into the lattice design of the ledge. "The entire thing is a load of horseshit. When the wall went up, they left the people that couldn't afford to buy new homes in there to die."

Two years ago? Well, time really must be an illusion. In our world, it didn't even happen a year ago. It hardly happened six months ago. And they just left the people that couldn't afford new housing to die? Seriously, that's so fucked up. Warwick is a poor community. I'm considered middle class. If you had to pay your way out of the wall, well . . . let's just say that their cage would quickly turn into a mass grave.

"You guys!" Maya's shoved the window open, her grinning face juxtaposing the conversation me and Thea—sorry, Callie—had been having. "I'm ordering pizza. Y'all want breadsticks?"

"If I ever say no to breadsticks," I tell her, deadly serious, "I'm giving you my express permission to kill me."

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ok since all the main characters have been #Officially introduced a while back i was bored and made some moodboards for them so y'all here they are:

for my bby callie

and mayaaaaaaaa

rachey-loo

si-si

my gorl meredith

bby boy atlas

and this Asshole cain