I hurl the metal end at the window and it breaks, too easily. An alarm wails—wah-wah-wah—so loud, I want to stopper my ears. With a firm grasp on the windowsill, I hoist myself up, but when I push my body through, the jagged shards from the window frame dig into me.
“Oh god,” I yelp, gasping. I yank a bloodied triangle of glass out of my forearm.
The vibrating alarm is still wailing. One more push, and I drag myself through the window despite the consequences. Glass teeth scrape against my belly as I wiggle through.
“Gotcha!” Behind me, a hand grasps my ankle. I kick frantically, and my foot makes hard contact with something fleshy. The hand lets go.
“Ow! Fuuuuu—”
Two more scrambles and I’m through. The brightness of a sun I haven’t seen in ten months pierces my eyes as I stumble forward. The agriplane is a dazzling expanse of waving golden plants that stand up in walls, separated by evenly spaced narrow rows.
I dash straight ahead, leaving behind the half sphere covering the stairwell. A beeping sounds from behind me, and when I glance back I see the four-armed boy burst out the door, rubbing his chin.
“Hey! Stop!”
Panting, I run as fast as I can, straight into the nearest row between the seven-foot-high stalks. The stringy leaves whip my face and neck. The crunches and thuds of my pursuer grow louder and louder.
I should have listened to Dad. I should have been more careful. Where am I going? I keep running, gulping down as much air as possible, but I know the distance between us is shrinking. Through the bits of open rows ahead, a translucent, glowing blue wall looms in the distance, blending in with the sky. I hadn’t noticed it before; now that it’s closer, I see it’s like a fence, too high to climb. As I head toward it, a white bird gets spooked out of the crops. I hear a fluttering of wings above me as I run wildly forward.
It heads straight for the blue wall, hits it with a weird, electric buzz, and drops into the yellow plants.
“You won’t get past the plasma fence,” the boy yells. He must have seen the bird too. It hasn’t recovered to fly away. It must still be on the ground somewhere, injured, or dead. Possibly fried.
Exhausted, I slow down against my will. My leg muscles are on fire from lactic acid building up, because I’m not getting enough oxygen. My stupid, wretched, small body. I can’t outrun this thing, this guy, whatever it is. I just can’t. Can’t. Can’t.
My mantra of defeat works. To crown a final moment of utter failure, I trip on a root sticking out of the row and fall, face-first, onto the dirt.
“It’s about time,” the boy says. He’s not even breathing hard.
I wipe my mouth with my sleeve, tasting blood. My arm is striped red from the window shards. Squinting up at the brightness of the sky, I see the guy’s not standing above me, but sitting down next to me. He leans back on two arms, while the other two cross his chest. Two dark eyes crinkle in the bright sun, and I notice that his black hair is buzzed neatly on his head. A straight-laced brand of monster.
“It’s okay. Hey, if I saw me for the first time, I’d run too.” He smiles at me for a second before turning to stare at the horizon. “I’m glad you fell. I don’t have four legs, and you probably would’ve outrun me.” He pats his flat belly. “’Cause I ate too many pancakes for brekkie today.”
His attitude is so non-hostile that I’m thrown a bit. I wipe more dirt off my face and just concentrate on breathing.
“Look,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking. We’re not going to eat you for our next meal.” He cocks his head thoughtfully. “You’re only big enough for an appetizer, anyhow. Or, perhaps, an amuse-bouche.”
My eyes must bulge out of their sockets, because he lifts all four hands up in protest.
“I’m just kidding! I swear!” He grins again, and extends one of his right hands. “I’m Hex. Your new . . .” He wiggles his head in an effort to find the right word, and then blinks hard. “Your new brother.”
I hesitate. Hex gets a hurt look when I don’t shake his hand, then wipes it on his pants instead.
“Zelia,” I whisper.
“Nice to meet you.” He puts his hand back down on the ground, and a different one comes up to rub his sore chin thoughtfully. “So, you know, just ask.”
“Ask what?”
“What you’re dying to ask me.” He lifts up all four arms in what can only be described as a pose fit for a Hindu god. He wiggles all twenty fingers. Even the best Broadway performer from last century couldn’t do jazz fingers like this kid.
“Okay.” I swallow, my throat so dry, I almost choke. “Did it . . . hurt when they did that to you?”
The boy throws his head back with a hearty laugh. “Do this to me? Nothing here gets done to you. Nah, I was born like this. My parents took one look at me on the ultrasound and signed me up for New Horizons when I was one minute old.” There isn’t a trace of anger or resentment in his face. I am duly impressed.
“So . . . all of you guys were just born like . . . that?”
“Yep. Just like your sister was born the way she was.”
Whoa. Do all the members of Carus House know my life situation? I decide to feign stupidity.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she’s gifted. Like we all are. Well, maybe not you, but you’re an exception. A rarity, shall we say, for Chez Freak.” He springs off the ground like a jumping spider, brushes the soil off his hands, and extends the cleanest one to me.
My legs shake from the recent sprint, and the cuts on my arms awaken with fresh agony. I take his hand, and it’s soft and strong and warm. I’m surprised. I guess I thought it would feel less human.
“Thanks,” I say.
He points the way back to the stairwell. When I still don’t move, he pats my back with short little taps, like I’m a puppy. His arms are strong, so every little pat sends me scooting forward.
“Look, Carus is a decent place. And Marka is a real sweetheart, you’ll see. The other kids are pretty harmless.”
I give him a suspicious look.
“Okay, well. They’re irritating, occasionally. Maybe most of the time. But basically harmless.” At the door, he keys the pad and it swings open for us. The alarm is no longer wailing. Inside the dome, we walk down one flight of circular stairs to a door invisibly set into the wall.
“It’s Hex, open up,” he says to the door.
“Password,” a boy’s voice intones.
“Just open the door, you rectum.”
“That’s not protocol!” the voice complains.
“I’ll show you four fistfuls of protocol if you don’t open the goddamn door,” he bellows. My face must be blanching white, because he coughs and sweetens his tone. “Our new guest is waiting, turd.”
The entrance slides open, but I don’t cross the threshold. I just stand there. Ahead is a dark hallway, lit with oval medallions on the doors glowing an eerie blue. I know that when I take that step inside, I’m agreeing to something, but to what, I’m not sure. Somewhere in there might be answers about Dyl, about how to get her back.
Hex steps inside, waiting. He shrugs, which, for a four-armed boy, looks like his whole body is expanding upward for a moment.
“Come on inside, Zelia.”
I feel the air entering me and leaving, my body ticking down to a decision. Hex leans in closer, and his eyes are kind.
“It’s what your dad wanted.”
I freeze. Dad and Carus don’t exist in the same universe. How could they? He smiles when I step forward. The door slips shut behind me.
“How could you know something like that?”