Chapter 14: XII: GOLLY GEE!

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CALLIE

(tw: brief mention of self harm)

IT'S SEVEN IN THE MORNING and Maya is making pancakes.

She's gone all out. The pancakes are her original recipe, sugary, thiccer than a bowl of oatmeal, and dyed hot pink with red food dye. She even has a bar of toppings ready on their island: syrup, butter, whipped cream, milk and white chocolate chips, blueberries, fresh strawberries. The smell is addictive, the sound of the batter cooking and Maya's spatula scraping the pan enticing, and yet no one's excited. Callie's not excited. It's seven in the morning.

Maya's a morning person. Callie would be, too, if mornings happened around 3 PM. Callie doesn't even know why she's bothered making such an elaborate meal. The sun's already risen, so it's not like Maya can eat it.

Aside from Maya, everyone's spread out at the kitchen table. The blonde, Meredith, and the knife guy, Cain, have both fallen back asleep, leaning into each other. Luca, Cain's dad, has his head in his arms, and Atlas, the short one, seems to be in a terminal state of yawn. Silas, the pretty black boy, is sitting up, at least, but he looks dog-tired. Callie's sitting beside her mom and her mom from a different dimension. She feels like she's in a shitty movie.

No one's saying much of anything. Maya's happily humming some Spice Girls song while she flips pancakes. Callie rests her chin in the crook of her arm, watching her. In the early morning light, Maya looks glowy and dewy, like she's made of sunshine, radiating warmth and light. Callie thinks she loves her the most in moments like this.

Not that she's forgiven her for waking her up at seven in the fucking morning. It's a Saturday, for God's sake! Their one day to sleep in!

"Y'all like pancakes?" Maya asks, still humming.

Cain's suddenly jolted into consciousness, sitting straight up in his seat, his arm raised like he's Hermione Granger answering a question in class. "I am NOT a Confederate soldier!" he declares before falling backwards in his chair and slamming his head into the ground. He groans, starts to sit up, then decides to stay there on the ground.

"Good to know," Maya says to herself. "Doesn't the Confederacy like waffles?"

"I like waffles," mumbles AU Dr. Terranova, Luca, half-asleep.

It's weird having him here, real weird. Especially considering how different this man is from the one she's known for so many years. She knows that if she locked them in a room together, they'd end up nuking each other. And this AU version of her mom . . . she's so different from her actual mom, Callie hardly even recognizes her.

But the weirdest part of all of it is the fact that she's almost certain that Luca and her Mom From Another Dimension are fucking. Because the real versions of the two of them, Callie's actual mom and the real Dr. Terranova, hate each other's guts. Her mom thinks he's a fascist. He thinks she's a feminist bitch. His choice words for her carry the same weight to him as fascist does.

"Please don't tell me you own a Confederate flag," Maya begs, jokingly crossing herself. "Pancakes still good? I've got a waffle maker if you want some of those bad boys."

"They'll suffice," he decides.

"So." Callie's Mom From Another Dimension interrupts. "Um, Maya and Callie, we, er, had a question for you girls."

"Is it about our skin-care routine?" Maya asks. "Witch hazel has personally saved my skin, and I would be dead if it wasn't for black African soap. Also, every day I drink my body weight in water and eat enough McDonald's French fries to fuel a small army. What about you, Cal?"

"I don't know," Callie answers, unenthusiastic. "I use that soap bar you gave me."

"That's black African soap, babe."

"Love her!" adds Cain, chiming in with his thoughts on the matter of skin care.

Maya slides the last couple of pancakes onto a plate. "Pancakes ready! Come and get 'em! Lose your McFreakin' minds at the toppings bar! Be free!"

No one moves.

"The pancakes are fucking ready," Maya growls. "Eat them or starve, you ungrateful pieces of shit."

Callie and her mom both push their chairs in and grab themselves a plate. Her mom just gets butter and syrup, and Callie adds a couple blueberries to her's. Maya, being the person that she is, just stands there, watching the two of them and rubbing her hands together like she's some evil genius. It takes the two of them sitting back down and digging into their pancakes to rouse the rest of the crowd.

"So." Callie's Mom From Another Dimension has a thing for that word. "Surprisingly, my question wasn't about skin-care."

"What was it, then?" Maya asks, looking at her like she couldn't possibly think of anything else she'd want to ask her.

"Cain." Callie's Mom From Another Dimension looks at the boy like a mother scolding a foolish child. "Why don't you ask her?"

He looks horribly confused. "So what is there to do around here for fun?"

Callie's Mom From Another Dimension shakes her head. "No. Tell them why you came here."

"Oh! I know that one!" He shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth. "To find my sister who simultaneously is and isn't dead."

Callie, personally, is very into theoretics. She suddenly finds herself very intrigued. "Why, is she in a box?"

"Missing would be the word a normal person would use to describe it," Callie's Mom From Another Dimension explains. "She fell into the rift when it collapsed."

Which, Callie thinks, isn't quite as fun. But the fact that she's missing because of the rift . . . ooooh, her science nerd side is practically nutting at the possibilities. Taking into account, of course, the physics of the rift itself, and the rate by which energy—

She feels herself mentally slam into a brick wall. She doesn't just lose her train of thought; it flies completely off the tracks. She can't think like that. That . . . that's a person she's thinking about. A person with a name and a face and hopes and dreams of her own. She can't think of her like she's some theoretical science experiment.

"What's her name?" Callie asks. "Your sister."

"Rachel." Cain says softly.

Rachel.

"And Avani," Silas suddenly cuts in. "Avani Nagarkar. She's missing, too."

"We need you to help us look for her—for them," Luca finishes.

"Oooooh!" exclaims Cain, like he suddenly gets it.

"Well, golly gee," Callie mumbles, looking to her mom, her real mom, to see what her response is, but her face doesn't betray her feelings, and Callie ends up feeling even more lost than before. "I'll admit I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"Your dad's a cop, Cal," Maya reminds her.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Callie asks, wincing at the accusatory tone in Maya's voice.

"Doesn't he have like, access to secret files or whatever? I don't know. Maybe he has some report of this girl."

"Already tried the second one when we were looking for Cain," Luca adds. "They had nothing on him, I doubt they'd have anything on the girls."

"There's always the possibility that they're behind the wall," Callie's real mom chimes in.

Callie hadn't thought of that, but she suddenly feels horribly guilty. If they were behind the wall, wouldn't that make this an actual example of Schrödinger's cat? Would the girls simultaneously be alive and dead? They could still be alive, but if they were . . . their deaths would be inevitable. It's a purgatory. Trapped between life and death, with no one on the outside knowing if they were dead or alive.

"What is the wall?" Callie's Mom From Another Dimension asks.

"D'ya not have it in your dimension?" Maya asks.

"Trump's wall?" Luca tilts his head. "You think they're in Mexico?"

"I told you about it, Cain," Callie adds, quickly. "About how before the bombs went off they—"

"Hold up." Atlas holds his hands up, gesturing for her to take it slower. "The bombs?"

"To keep the rift from collapsing, the fuckers at TI nuked it," Maya grumbles. She pauses, looking at the flabbergasted faces of everyone around her, then continues on as if she's trying to justify herself. "What? They're sucking the US government's cock as we speak, d'y'all really think they would've thought to try literally anything else?"

Callie's Mom From Another Dimension drops her fork. It clatters against the wooden table. Her pancakes remain uneaten, only a couple bites taken out of them. "I wonder if you guys actually did keep it from collapsing," she mumbles, her eyes fixed at a point several feet above Maya's head. "And I wonder if our efforts even mattered."

"'Our efforts'?" Cain arches an eyebrow. "Really, you're gonna say 'our efforts' like you actually did shit? It was all Thea! She literally fucking died to save us, and you're gonna try to take credit for it?"

Callie's Mom From Another Dimension's eyes suddenly find focus as they fall on him. "May I remind you that she wouldn't have died if you hadn't tried to interfere? We would have been prepared, but instead . . . "

Cain goes quiet, real quiet. Callie hasn't even known the boy a full day, but she can tell quiet isn't an adjective someone would likely to use to describe him. He's one of those kids that talks just to hear his own voice, but he's entertaining to listen to. Maybe it's the Italian in him, but he seems to talk with his entire body. Theatrical, almost over-the-top facial expressions, hand gestures bigger than he is.

"Or maybe what we did here was useless," Callie offers. "Maybe it was all you guys."

Callie's Mom From Another Dimension grins like she finds the idea amusing. "Or maybe it was all of us, all the people in the different dimensions out there. Maybe we all worked together, without even knowing it, to keep the world from ending."

"So if one world out there hadn't done their part, the entire universe would have collapsed in on itself?" Callie asks. "That's, like . . . that's freaky." Hey, she's not an English major. Cut her some slack.

"But if the universe truly is infinite, there has to be uninhabited worlds out there, right?" Atlas poses. "Maybe it wasn't a combined group effort. Maybe each world had to save itself, and those that didn't . . . "

"You think they just ended?" Callie's mom—her actual mom—wonders.

"Can we get back to the wall?" Luca asks.

"So, like I said, they built it just before they dropped the bombs. Warwick was—well, is—extremely unsafe. They tried to get people to move out, but you know how poor that place is. Nobody could afford to move, but they were still interacting with the outside world, spreading radiation even further than it had to be. And the Mara's . . . man, there was an epidemic." Absently, Callie twirls a strand of dark hair around her finger. "And there wasn't just the residents, there was also all these daredevils and dumb teenagers traveling out there just to see that place, and it was just, like, really bad. So TI built the wall, both to keep the general public out and the impoverished residents in. They didn't even offer to pay for their new homes outside the city or anything. They said they either had to pay to move out or stay inside the wall. They just left those poor people to die. Some of my friends, people I'd known my entire life . . . I just feel so bad about it."

Cain adds his expert opinion on the matter. "That's, like, so fucked up."

"And the nukes, they worked?" Callie's Mom From Another Dimension asks.

"Hm-mh." Callie nods. "They saved a lot of lives. TI kind of has a thing for radiation. They even use it to cure the Mara virus."

Callie's Mom From Another Dimension digs her elbows into the kitchen table, folding her hands together. "How?"

"Well, if you give the Mara's cancer, they die," Callie explains.

"Huh," her Mom From Another Dimension mumbles. "I never would have thought of that . . . "

"You'll have to talk to Dr. Terranova." Callie takes a bite out of her pancakes. "You run the institute in your dimension, don't you?"

"Well, ran," she corrects.

"And they really just left them inside the wall with all that radiation?" Luca asks. "God, I've never wanted to punch myself in the face more than I do right now. What a complete asshole I am in this dimension."

"My family's in there," Maya suddenly mumbles.

"What?" Callie asks. Maya's from Georgia; her family still lives here. She moved here during high school to live with her rich Aunt Jalila. How could they be trapped in there when they're a two-day drive away in some buttfuck-Egypt Georgia town? "You told me they were with the racists in Georgia."

"I lied," Maya blurts, her face turning the color of velvet. "I didn't want you to look at me differently."

"Maya, I wouldn't have—"

Maya cuts her off. "I was born in Warwick, just like you were. The only reason they sent me to live with Jalila was because she was the only one of us that could afford to get out of that shithole town before the wall went up." She pauses. "She only had room for one. My parents wanted to send me, and I didn't . . . I didn't protest."

And before Callie gets a chance to react, Maya pushes her chair out from underneath the table and wheels herself out the room. A beat later, the front door opens and slams shut, and Callie follows after her.

Death, Callie knows, speaks in honeyed words. She's all too familiar with her desperate blandishments, with her deception wrapped up in a pretty bow of flattery. She wraps you in faulty promises, with heaven and Elysium and kingdoms dripping in golden-yellow light, with words like warm and sweet and inviting and peaceful and quick.

The reality of Death is simple: the walls of a coffin aren't gold. They're black. She is a wicked thing clothed in a mask of purity and holiness. Death is not godly; Death is as mortal as red blood.

Mo was the first person Callie had ever known that died. She'd known him for the past six months and his death had completely destroyed her. She dropped out of her dance program and flunked out of her honors classes. She started sleeping around, started drinking and smoking. A little before her fifteenth birthday, she started seeing a psychiatrist, and he put her on Zoloft.

The antidepressants really helped. So did having someone to talk to. That summer, her mom sent her to a Rejuvenating Jewish Retreat for Troubled Youngsters in Vermont. Slowly, things started going back to normal, but it took years for her to even start to feel okay again. She's still not completely over his death. Every time something starts to poke at her scar, she bleeds. She's still on Zoloft, albeit a significantly lower dosage. She still drinks herself sick every weekend. During her Depressive Episode, she'd shaved her head, and her hair had never grown back quite right. She'd also burned herself, trying to make herself understand how Mo would have felt when he died, consumed by his own flames, and she still has burn scars running up and down her arms. When she's at dance or in class, surrounded by all those privileged kids with normal happy lives that didn't have to watch their friend slowly die in front of their own eyes, she feels like she's living a lie. They have no idea what she's gone through; they think she's one of them.

Her scars are a constant reminder of a past she'd rather forget.

And that was all with only having known him for six months. Thinking about how greatly Maya must be suffering, what with losing her entire family, and how she hasn't been there for her, not at all, makes her feel sick to her stomach.

Why didn't she tell me until now? Why tell me at all, after hiding it for so long? Why here? Why now?

Callie's steps echo down the hall as she runs barefoot after her girlfriend. She throws the door open, letting it slam behind her. Maya's resting in front of the elevator, waiting on it to reach their floor, her head in her hands. Her shoulders shake with each breath. Callie stops herself just behind her.

Maya doesn't turn to look at her, but she does stop herself in the middle of the elevator's entrance, catching the sliding doors before they shut. "What do you want?"

"Maya," Callie says, taking a step forwards. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're not the one that killed them."

She very well might have been. She's been interning at TI since before she even met Mo, since before the rift nearly collapsed, since before the wall went up. Her pajama shirt suddenly feels way too tight. "Are you sure . . . ?" She doesn't want to elaborate. She can't bring herself to ask her if she's sure that her family's dead. "There are still people living in there today. There's a chance they could still be alive."

"That's bullshit!" Maya tries to laugh, but it just comes out a frustrated sob. She wheels herself completely out of the elevator, making Callie step back a couple feet, spinning herself around to face her. She lifts her head out of her hands, and her face is red and puffy her foundation smeared from her tears. "That's bullshit. What, ninety-something percent of them died, and you think my family wouldn't be a part of them? This isn't some sappy Hallmark movie. Real life just doesn't work out like that."

"I'm just trying to tell you that there's still a chance." Callie wants to comfort her and protect her from the pain of death, but she feels rooted in place. She can't move closer to her; she can't touch her. She stays completely still other than her hands, which keep bunching her hair up into a ponytail and then undoing it. "You need to have hope."

"Hope gets you killed," snarls Maya, who isn't exactly a glass-half-full kind of girl. "In this world, you let yourself believe in chances, in hope or optimism or whatever hippy-bullshit you're talking about, and it gets you killed. Nihilism saves you."

"But how will thinking that there's a chance they're still alive hurt you?"

"Because if I think they're alive, and I hang onto that hope, and then I find out that they aren't, it will kill me. It's better to think that they're dead and be right than to think that they're alive and be wrong, you know? Isn't there some saying about that? Better a surprised pessimist than a disheartened optimist?" Maya tucks her arms against her chest. "Besides, it's not like I'm ever gonna see them again, even if they are alive. So isn't it better for me to think that they're dead?"

Sometimes, Callie knows, it can be better to prepare yourself for the worse so you're able to protect yourself when it happens. Maybe she does understand Maya's logic after all.

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CAIN

AFTER MAYA AND CALLIE LEAVE, things return to normal. We don't discuss what just happened between the lovebirds. The adults and Silas remain in the kitchen to discuss the ethics of nuclear bombs. Meredith, Atlas, and I sit out on the fire escape and play fuck, marry, or kill. Because that's what you do.

"'Kay, so." Meredith's whisper-yelling directly into my ear. "Fuck, marry, kill: Maya, Callie, and that guy whose house we burned down."

I don't even have to think about it. "Kill Maya. Probably marry Callie 'cause she's a sweetheart, even though I'd rather die than be forced into a heterosexual marriage. And fuck the house guy. Did you see the man? He's like a motherfucking powdered donut, and—"

Meredith motions for me to stop, even though we all know that's impossible. "Slow down, casanova. I don't wanna hear about your sexual encounters with older men."

"What? I'd be down to have him as a sugar daddy if it means I'd get to shop at Nordstrom. And to be a bachelor of that age, you know my mans has gotta be experienced."

Meredith shakes her head. "That's literally the lowest standard I've ever heard."

"I don't want to be a part of this conversation," Atlas mumbles.

"Why? Is someone jeaaaaaalous?" Meredith teases, poking him in the side.

"Don't worry, babe. I wouldn't give you up for all the money in the world."

Okay, so maybe that's a lie and I'd sell his soul to the devil for fifty bucks and a ring pop. But that stays between you and me.

Atlas turns beat red and buries his face in my arm. "I genuinely think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Awwwwh, you two are so cute." Meredith squeals. "So, Atlas. Time to make some decisions as hard as your dick is for Cain. Fuck, marry, kill: me, Silas, and Cain."

"I refuse to take part in this childish game of favorites," Atlas insists.

"Oh, Silas!" Meredith screams into the apartment. "SILAS! GET YOUR BUTT OUT HERE!"

Meredith's sitting across from me and Atlas with her legs crossed, a stupid grin on her face. A couple seconds go by, and Silas climbs out onto the fire escape.

"What?" he asks.

Meredith motions him over, scooting over so there's room for four, and he sits down beside her. We're so cramped out here, he practically has to sit on top of her.

She bops him on the nose. "We're playing fuck, marry, kill, and Atlas is choosing between you, me, and Cain."

"Is there an option where I get to kill myself?" Silas asks.

Meredith bursts out laughing and bops him again. "Oh, Silas. You're so innocent. I love it. Now, Attie, baby-boo, answer the fucking question."

"Well, obviously I'm gonna kill Cain," Atlas casually replies, because, like, obviously. Duh. Can you imagine him picking me to marry? Or, hear this out: imagine him picking me to fuck! What a crazy idea. "And I'll probably fuck Mer-Bear and marry Silas."

Meredith winks at him and licks her lips.

"What the fuck," I say, because this is blatant disrespect. "Why wouldn't you fuck, marry, and kill me? You know that's what I want."

"In what order?" Atlas asks.

"Obviously, you need to marry me first. I'm saving myself for marriage. Then, you'd kill me, and at my funeral, in front of all of my friends and family, you'd fuck my dead body."

Silas looks horrified, and so does Atlas. But Meredith's just sitting there, clutching her gut and laughing and crying that she's about to shit her pants.

"Bull-fucking-shit. You and I both know you aren't saving yourself for marriage." Atlas then commences to do what I think is his impression of a Catholic nun.

"Right?" says Meredith, who finally seems to be able to form coherent sentences. "If Cain's still a virgin, Silas is a world-class whore."

"Oh," says Silas.

"What about you, Mer?" Atlas asks. "Fuck—"

"Atlas, how dare you!" Meredith cuts him. "Are you asking me if I'm a virgin?"

"I was actually just trying to continue the game but go off I guess."

"Virginity is a social concept designed to police women's behavior and rob them of their sexual freedom."

"Based on that response alone," I say, "I'd bet a hundred bucks you're still a virgin."

"I'm literally not." Meredith leans back, smirking. "Lily Schultz, sophomore year. Remember when we dated for like a month? That's ten years in sophomore time. I went camping with her and her family, and we hooked up in a tent. Atlas, are you still a virgin?"

Atlas looks at her like she just told him she thinks the earth is flat. "I'm dating Cain, what do you think?"

Meredith makes a disgusted face and slaps his arm. "Gross! That's like telling me you had sex with my brother."

"Meredith," Silas adds, "you don't have a brother."

"You guys are like my brothers!"

"Ha, ha," says Silas, unenthusiastically.

"So, back to the game," Atlas instructs. "Meredith, fuck, marry, kill: Maya, Callie, and Silas."

"Kill me," Silas begs, which is relatable. But his cheeks have turned bright red.

"Hmmmmm." Meredith drums her fingers against her knees, deep in thought. "I'll marry Silas, and I'm definitely gonna fuck Maya, because gotdamn, that girl is fine! She's such a badass, it's so hot. I love her. Which means I'll have to kill Callie."

"I'm a badass, too," Atlas mumbles. "Why don't you love me?"

"Because you literally aren't a badass. You cried during the series finale of Jessie," Meredith reminds him.

"Because it was sad, okay?" Atlas retorts, looking like he's gonna start tearing up again. "It was really fucking sad."

"Did you really?" I ask.

Atlas hangs his head in shame.

"I have to pee," I announce.

"Bring me back a souvenir!" Meredith requests.

"Will do." I wink at her, shoot off a pair of finger guns, and climb back in through the window.

Here's the thing: I haven't actually talked to my dad since what happened last night. I don't want to. However, to get to this apartment's only bathroom, I have to walk through the kitchen . . . where he is, discussing ethics and bombs and other Adult Things. But I have to pee so bad I'm gonna piss myself if I don't go.

I head into the kitchen, and the conversation stalls when I walk in. I feel like Cady Heron walking into the auditorium at the end of Mean Girls. Were they talking about me? When Silas left, did they actually stop talking about nuclear bombs, and instead start talking about me? They had to have, right? God, they were talking about me.

I mean, I get it. I am more important than most nuclear bombs. But, for real? They start talking shit about me the second my friend leaves the room? Like, I get that I'm sixteen and they're adults and everything, but they need to grow the fuck up.

"Cain," says my sire, who we are not discussing at this moment of time.

Like the respectful son I am, I flip him off and hurry out of the kitchen into the promised land of the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

Like the fucking creep he is, he follows me. I can see his shoes underneath the door.

He knocks. "Can I talk to you?"

"What the fuck?" I ask. "I literally have to pee."

He sighs. "Please just hear me out, okay?"

"You hear THIS OUT!" I yell at him, and then, because I'm classy, I pee and flush and take my sweet-ass time washing my hands.

Unfortunately, when I open the door, he's still out there, leaning against the doorframe, his arms pressed against his chest and one ankle crossed over the other like he thinks he's some kind of badass.

"I don't appreciate you talking to me like that," he says.

"Yeah? Well, I don't appreciate you pretending like Rachel never fucking existed!" I yell. "And what about Thea? You said she was like a daughter to you! What, does that mean nothing to you anymore 'cause she's dead? You don't just get to call backsies on your children!"

"Don't you use that tone with me, young man!" he yells back. "You're going to sit here, and you're going to listen to what the fuck I have to say like you actually give a shit, okay? You're not the only one who lost someone! I lost both of my daughters!"

"Then fucking act like it!" I scream. "You think I don't give a shit? You're wrong. I give so many shits, they call me Diarrhea Boy. You're the one that doesn't give any shits."

I've really had enough of this. I try to shove past him back into the kitchen, but he grabs my arm, forcing me to stay still and face him.

"Cain—"

"Let go of me!" I yell, panicking. I don't want to have this conversation. I don't want to hear whatever bullshit excuse he has. I don't want him anywhere near me. "LET GO OF ME!"

He finally does let go, and I finally shove him out of my way. I step back into the bathroom and slam the door shut so hard the wall shakes, locking it so he cant barge in.

Dramatically, like a Disney princess, I throw myself into the bathtub and sob.

I calm down after a while, and I sit up in the bathtub, but I don't leave the safety of it.

I hear someone knock on the door.

"It's me," says the disembodied voice of my disembodied sire.

"Oh, fuck off," I say.

He doesn't. I hear the click of the lock as he picks it, and I watch as the knob spins and the door shoves open. He takes a tentative step inside.

I guess that's what I get for having a criminal mastermind for a father. I can't even cry in peace.

I stare at him. I feel like I'm a million miles away, watching our conversation from outer space. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, Cain. I'm so sorry. Please let me try to explain." I don't say anything else, and he takes that as me telling him to go on. He sits down on the edge of the bathtub. "As a parent, your sole responsibility is to keep your children safe. And I thought that that was what I was doing—letting you do your own thing, letting you do whatever you wanted just to keep you happy. Because before any of this happened, the world seemed like it was a safe place. And I guess I thought happiness and safety were the same thing.

"But then—but then everything happened, and all of a sudden, the world wasn't such a safe place anymore. And I . . . and . . . Cain, you don't know what it's like to lose a child. It's like they're this whole little galaxy, full of suns and stars and planets bursting with life, and then one day they just—they just boom. Zapped out of existence like they were swallowed by a blackhole."

For a second, I let myself picture it. Thea, a blue star. Rachel, an astronaut on Mars. The thought of it is almost comforting. I know it would make both of them so happy. If Rachel's really dead like he thinks she is, I hope she's among the stars. I hope Thea is too.

"And it made me start to think . . . what happened that day turned our world into something dangerous and cruel. But maybe that's how it's always been. And even though there's hope that Rachel still might be alive, I can't let myself get so worked up over that that I let something happen to you. And there's all these new dangers I have to protect you from, and I just . . . look, I just want the best for you, okay? I don't want you to have a life like this, where you have to worry that everyday might be your last. I want you to go to college, Cain, and I want you to get a real job. I don't want you to be a murderer for the rest of your life."

"Okay, and?" I gesture for him to go on. "That's not why I'm mad at you."

"You're mad at me because of what I said about Rachel," he realizes. "Not because of the Villa. Look, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean that I think you're my only child. It's just—it's what I just said. Even though there's a possibility she's still alive, I can't let myself get so worked up over that hope that I let something happen to you. And I think—I think sometimes it was easier to think that she was dead than to think that she was in trouble and there was nothing I could do to help her."

I trace patterns in the porcelain tub in front of me and let my silence speak. Then I pull the pin out of the grenade. "Do you love her?"

His mouth drops, and so do his eyes. "What?"

"Rachel. Do you love her?"

"Of course I do. Why?"

"She told me she doesn't think you do."

"God . . . " he leans back, running his hands over his face. "Fuck. Fuck! What the fuck, Cain? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

I spilled the tea; let him drink it. "Would it have changed anything?"

"Fuck, I don't know!" He stands up, his knees cracking. "We're leaving this place tomorrow."

"Why?" I ask. "Do you not want to find her?"

Without saying a word, he exits the bathroom.

"Papà," I mumble, jumping to my feet and out of the tub "Papà. Dad! Wait!"

"What?" he asks, stopping just outside the bathroom door, his voice probably harsher than he intended for it to be.

"I'm sorry. For everything." Mainly for being such a shitty son, but I'm a Leo. It's not my fault I'm like this.

There's a beat, and then he slowly turns to face me. "You are?"

Not to be overdramatic or anything, but I start sobbing. Everything hits me all at once. Losing Rachel, then losing Thea. Everything that happened at the Mendoza Institute. All of the mistakes I've made. Coming here, willingly entering the rift without parental consent. Burning the poor dead man's house down. Getting mad at my dad even though he's trying his hardest. Atlas. The Villa. And a couple (hundred) murders. It's all so overwhelming, I can't help it. I throw my arms around him, burying my head in his chest.

"I just miss her so much," I whimper. "I miss them both so much."

"I know." He hugs me back, and he's tall enough to rest his chin on the top of my head. He rubs circles into my back as if he's trying to comfort me. "I do too."

"Rachel's gonna be so pissed when we find her," I say, laughing between sobs. "Like, What took you idiots so long?"

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if she's already found her way home and when we get there she's sitting in her room, reading a book like nothing ever happened."

I laugh. "And she'll ask us where we've been!"

He decides that it's the perfect time to change the subject. "By the way, when we get home, you're grounded. Until after the first week of break."

Me? Grounded? It's unheard of. I once shot a hole through our neighbor's window with a paintball gun, and do you know what my dad told me? He said I need to work on my aim so I'd be able to hit the neighbor next.

"And, um, what, exactly, does that entail?" I ask.

"No phone, no computer, no TV, and no leaving the house unless it's with me or Bianca," he decides as if he's pulling it out of his ass. "Stop looking at me like that, Cain. You're the one that snuck out and went to another dimension without even bothering to ask me about your curfew!"

[ ━━ ❝ ✧˚⋆｡☾✩˚⋆｡࿐❞ ━━ ]

"GOOD NEWS: Dr. Terranova called me!" announces Fake Bianca as she shoves her way into the apartment.

"How is that good news?" asks Maya.

"How does he have your number?" asks Callie.

It's almost noon. Everyone, aside from Fake Bianca, is spread out in the living room catching up on the sleep we missed when Maya woke us up at assfuck in the morning. It seems like everyone jolts awake when she barges in. Well, everyone excepts for Meredith, who'd slept through Callie accidentally setting the fire alarm off when she lit a double-wicked candle an hour ago.

"Apparently he stopped being such a asshat for long enough to check his security footage inside the wall, and . . . well, look here, he sent me a video of it." Fake Bianca pulls her phone out of her pocket, brandishing it for all the world to see. An iPhone X quality video of a grainy, black-and-white security tape plays: two girls taking a walk through a park, casual. The taller one, dark-haired and pale-skinned, walks with her hands in her pockets. The other, obviously younger, dark-skinned and darker-haired, spins as she walks, her pigtails flying out from around her.

"Rachel," my dad says. "Oh, my God . . . "

"And Avani!" Silas cries.

"Wait a minute," Callie interrupts. "You said that the tapes are from inside the wall."

Maya smiles, somewhere between mischievous and malicious. "I can get you inside, but it's kind of illegal."

I burst out laughing. "You seriously think we're concerned with legality?"