Bertha slapped me. “Pull yourself together,” she said. “We don’t have time for you to pass out every five minutes.”
I shook my head. Things snapped back into focus. Kindred dropped a stack of clothes at my feet. Among them was a new skirt—and a blond wig. She hadn’t been kidding.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” I said. “Really sorry. It’s—it’s just a lot to take in.”
The Feds thought I was a Lost Boy. If they found me, they’d torture and kill me. There had to be a way out of this. A way to clear my name and turn in the real terrorists—or thieves, or whatever they were.
And then a thought struck me: if the Feds thought I was one of the Lost Boys, what had they done to Charlie? I’d tried to swim to her; they must know she was with me. Did they think she was a Lost Boy, too?
“What happened to Charlie?” I asked.
Bertha snickered. “They’re all terrorists, Charlie!”
“Your friend?” said Mila. I nodded. “Feds got her. Wouldn’t worry about her now. No use. She’s a goner.”
The Feds got her. The baddies, as Kindred called them. But she was still alive, at least. There was hope. She hadn’t drowned, and the sharks hadn’t gotten to her. There was still a chance I could save her.
Friendship was a powerful thing. In an age where families weren’t forever, friendships were our only buoyancy. I had to save Charlie, no matter what the cost.
But there’d be no saving Charlie until I left New Texas, and there was no escaping New Texas without the Lost Boys’ help. Not when I was a wanted criminal. So it looked like I’d have to stick with the Lost Boys, at least temporarily.
My breath caught in my throat. What had the Feds done to Mom? She’d been at home when the accident on the Tube had happened. Had they arrested her, too? Maybe the Lost Boys knew. “And my mom?” I asked quietly.
The group fell silent. Mila stared at the ground, and Phoenix shook his head. “I’m afraid they got her too. She’s gone.”
“The Feds have her, like Charlie?”
Phoenix rubbed his jaw. “Unfortunately, no. She resisted arrest when the Feds stormed your home.”
My heart beat faster. “What happened? What’d they do to her?”
He put a hand to his mouth. “I’m sorry, Kai. She—she’s dead.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks like rain. Mila tightened her jaw.
Kindred, however, fixed me with an odd look and shook her head ever so slightly. She mouthed a silent “no”. I was the only one who saw.
Kindred was telling me that Phoenix was lying. I didn’t understand why, but at that moment I didn’t care: my mom was still alive, somewhere. The Feds hadn’t killed her. I could find her. Save her and Charlie both.
But for some reason Phoenix wanted me to think she was dead. I couldn’t let him know I knew the truth.
I buried my face in my hands. Kindred rubbed my back.
“I’m sorry, Kai,” Phoenix said again.
The liar. Two could play his game.
“I—I can’t talk about it,” I said. “I’m not ready. I have to pretend. I can’t think about it right now.”
He nodded. Probably figured denial was the first stage of grief. After a while, I picked up a skirt from the pile. “I have to wear this?”
“It’s the only way, dear,” said Kindred.
“We leave for Newla this afternoon,” said Phoenix. He stared at the skirt in my hands. “That’s your uniform. It’s essential to our mission. We can’t move forward without someone—you—wearing it.”
What kind of mission were they running? And why were they throwing me into the field so soon after I’d tried to kill them? There had to be an ulterior motive. Maybe it had to do with why he’d lied about Mom…
Well, Newla wouldn’t be so bad. And if the Feds really did have Charlie, that’s where she’d be. For now, I decided it was best to just go along with the plan, and not ask too many questions. Phoenix wouldn’t have given me honest answers anyway.
“And what if we get caught?” I said.
Phoenix’s face went grim. “Then we’ll be tortured and killed.”
I shuddered. Was that what the Feds were doing to Mom and Charlie? I felt sick to my stomach. I had to save them, and soon.
“No funny business out there,” added Phoenix. “Not like what happened out on the beach. If you try to kill us again, then we’ll kill you. That’s a promise. Or we’ll let the Feds do it, and that’d be worse. You’ll follow our commands—without question—and you’ll stay alive.”
I nodded. I’d underestimated them on the beach. They weren’t idiots. They knew what they were doing, and with or without my help, they were going to do it. It was only a question of whether I wanted to live or die. And if I was dead, I couldn’t save Mom and Charlie. I’d work with Phoenix. And I’d stay alive. For now, at least.
Phoenix turned to Kindred. “Did you get the pills?”
Kindred gave him a blank look.
“The ones we talked about earlier,” he said. “In the cupboard? Meels, you remember the pills, don’t you? The ones we talked about.”
Mila nodded, left the room, then quickly returned with two blue pills, which she placed in my hand.
Great, they intended to drug me. Drug me and take me to largest city in the world. In a skirt.
Kindred saw the pills and laughed. “Those,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were talking about—”
“The Indigo pills,” said Mila. “We were talking about the Indigo pills.”
“It’s in lieu of a vaccination,” explained Phoenix. “Little doses of Indigo. If you take two a month, you’ll be fine. We’re the only ones who have them. A creation courtesy of Bertha. And if you run from us in the city… well—then I’m afraid you won’t have much time. If the Feds don’t find you, the Carcinogens will. The Indigo pills work just like the real vaccines, but are only temporary. In time, perhaps we’ll consider a vaccination—but those come at an incredible cost. Each vaccine we administer is one we can’t sell, and we need the money. An island of trash doesn’t pay for itself.”
So that was why Mila’s eyes weren’t blue. She took the pills every month, too, instead of receiving the vaccine. The smaller doses taken orally must’ve prevented her eyes from turning blue. I wondered if she, too, was working to earn a vaccine. As an enemy of the state, I guessed sticking with Phoenix was really her only option to get one.
I swallowed the pills without hesitation. “Thanks,” I said. “So about the skirt—”
“It’s for Nancy Perkins,” said Kindred.
Bertha grinned. “Which is gonna be you, sweetheart.”
Kindred pushed me into a chair before I could say anything else. She spread a layer of powder across my face like icing on a cake. “Close your eyes, dear. You’re going to look lovely.”
“What about Phoenix?” I asked. “Is he wearing a skirt too?”
I heard him and Mila snicker as they left the room.
“Not possible,” said Kindred. “He’s six-foot-two and built like a god. He’d never pass as a forty-nine-year-old woman. Chin down, dear. Stop flinching.”
“A forty-nine-year-old woman?”
Kindred pulled a card from my bag and read it aloud. “Nancy Perkins, forty-nine years old. Former executive assistant to the president of Renzo Enterprises. Resident of the Maui province. Visiting Newla to celebrate the last night of her life in Club 49.” She paused. “The three of you will collect her identification cards and proceed to Club 49 this evening.”
Dove smashed the blond wig on my head and traced its edges along my scalp before adding glue. “Can’t have it flying off your head on the dance floor,” he said. “It’d blow your cover.”