Книга - MILA 2.0

MILA 2.0
Debra Driza


No one suspects what she’s made of…After the sudden death of her father, Mila’s at a new school, trying to fit in and falling for mysterious sexy Hunter. But her world slams upside down in a heartbeat when a car accident reveals a secret she never knew; a secret about herself.Mila is devastated to learn that her memories are just chimeras, her dreams untrue. She can’t even rely on her emotions to tell her who she is. So how can she grieve for her father or feel the way she does about Hunter? And why is her mom running scared?Worse still, who are the creepy stalkers so desperate to get their hands on her…?


















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For Mom and Dad, and for Scott—who believed even when I didn’t


Contents

Dedication (#ulink_fba76457-4a2c-5d52-a14e-22d417fe9b5f)



Part One (#ulink_0d80289b-2844-5ec5-94c5-5f9c44983f99)

One (#ulink_6d31c0ef-436e-5563-9d3b-516eef1353f5)

Two (#ulink_c9f5d6a8-3b4d-55c9-952a-efa548f9461d)

Three (#ulink_d1a740d3-5159-56a3-a58f-2177b22f471e)

Four (#ulink_e9c1ebed-99b3-5fc5-a8c5-53245a361580)

Five (#ulink_abc05650-d500-5e4b-a92a-3802098eec22)

Six (#ulink_4cc6b1c5-ab79-5c92-a089-00f9570feb04)

Seven (#ulink_eadedf64-4a14-553b-8852-a2a0bf232c52)

Eight (#ulink_17726f6c-c564-563e-8c1c-4e9c220b114f)

Nine (#ulink_9f755cd5-89de-5595-b6d0-b663be9461a9)

Ten (#ulink_0349c548-e288-5685-9231-4f5e44804825)

Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)



Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)



Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)



Part Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Forty (#litres_trial_promo)



Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)



Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher





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eyond the eastern border of Greenwood Ranch, orange poured across the sky, edging the clouds like flames.

Flames.

I clenched handfuls of Bliss’s silky-thick mane and squeezed my eyes shut, searching my memories for the black haze of smoke. For the smell of burning wood and plastic, of smoldering Phillies shirts and baby photos. For sirens and screams. For anything at all that hinted at fire.

For Dad.

Beneath me, the horse snorted. I sighed, relaxed my grip, and smoothed her mane back into place. Nothing. Once again all I’d conjured up was a big fat bunch of nothing. Over four weeks since the accident that had ended my father’s life, and the memories still resisted my every attempt to unlock them.

I opened my eyes, just as something flashed in my mind.

White walls, white lights. A white lab coat. The searing aroma of bleach.

My skin prickled. From the hospital I’d been taken to, maybe? After the fire? It was the closest I’d come to remembering anything so far.

I grasped at the images, tried to drag them into view, but they vanished as fast as they’d appeared.

Now that my eyes were open, what wouldn’t disappear was the picket fence blocking our path, its white posts stabbing upward and bisecting an unrelenting sprawl of green, green, green.

The other thing that wouldn’t disappear, as much as I dreamed otherwise? Good old Clearwater, Minnesota—my new home as of thirty days ago. Land of grass, trees, dirt, of scattered old ranch-style houses tucked between plots of farmland. Home of work trucks and the thick, earthy stench of manure. A town so tiny, it didn’t even have its own movie theater. Or a McDonald’s. A place where, according to Kaylee, the sole listing under Yelp’s Arts and Entertainment section was Mount’em Taxidermy.

Nothing said good times like a stuffed mammal.

Bliss snorted and yanked her head away from the fence, back in the direction of the stables. I couldn’t blame her. The fields and lakes and quiet that Mom accepted so readily held nothing for me, either. They couldn’t. Not when every good memory had been created back in Philly.

At least the ones I could still remember.

I rubbed my cheek against green-and-tan flannel—Dad’s shirt collar—seeking comfort in the soft fabric. Dad had worn this shirt as he guided me through throngs of Phillies fans inside Citizens Park, his hand gentle on my elbow while the aroma of popcorn and hot dogs and overheated bodies surrounded us.

The hollow widened in my chest. How was it that some memories played so vividly behind my eyes, like DVDs complete with sounds and smells, while others, not at all?

Mom said anxiety following a traumatic death was normal, that it did odd things to our brains. A nice way of saying I wasn’t crazy, just because I could recall the exact layout of our old house and the way Dad pumped one arm in the air when he cheered for his favorite team, yet couldn’t remember something as simple as my favorite brand of jeans. Or if I liked to go on bike rides. Or if I’d ever been in love.

Mom assured me it would all come back. Eventually.

My dad never would.

I dug my nails into the leather reins and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Everything, burned to ashes along with our old house.

Everything except for one pathetic shirt.

Bliss pawed the ground, kicking up a clump of grass. She whinnied in anticipation of escape.

I knew exactly how she felt.

I steered Bliss away from the fence before nudging her into a trot, her body swaying rhythmically beneath me. A chilly breeze brushed over my face. I threw back my head and allowed the grassy-sweet gusts to grab at my hair, my shirt, the painful ache that lived where my heart should be. If only the breeze could pick me up and carry me back in time.

The ache behind my lungs grew, like it was trying to metastasize to the rest of my body.

“Let’s go!” I dug my heels into Bliss’s sides.

The mare didn’t need to be asked twice. All fifteen hundred pounds of horse surged forward at once. Power roared up from her legs and slammed into me, and I leaned lower, pressing my body as close to the mare’s as possible, relishing the snap of her mane whipping into my face.

The faster we went, the more the ache in my chest seemed to subside, as if my pounding heart and each one of Bliss’s hoof strikes hammered the pain into a smaller and smaller ball.

I urged Bliss even faster.

As we raced back for the stables, boulders rose before us, part of the decorative wall that meandered through a small portion of the twenty-five-acre property. I was already defying Mom by venturing above a speed of painfully dull. Jumping was out of the question. Especially since I’d never done it before.

Or had I?

The rocks grew closer and closer. Either I veered away now or carried out a split-second and idiotic attempt to slam my memory back into gear.

I let the reins slip through my fingers. Idiotic it was.

The mare’s powerful muscles gathered beneath my legs, and our soar into the air felt amazing, like I was part of Bliss and the two of us were flying.

Until the stirrup gave under my right foot. Until the saddle slipped.

I lost balance, slid sideways with the loosened saddle, saw the rocks rush toward me. I pictured my head splattering open like a broken egg while my pulse pounded a terrified drumbeat in my ears.

You’re a goner flashed through my mind.

And then my hands lashed out, quicker than I even knew I could move. I grabbed hold of Bliss’s mane, pulled myself upright with remarkable ease—just as Bliss’s front hooves crashed to the ground.

“Yes!” An exhilarated laugh exploded from my mouth. So I hadn’t conjured up my past, but I did feel more alive than I had in weeks. Like the whole world had burst into high definition.

Plus—I had wicked good reflexes. Maybe one day Mom would tell me if sports featured prominently in those missing chunks of my life.

“Mila!”

Speaking of whom . . .

Busted.

I slowed Bliss to a trot. My stomach clenched as we drew closer to the willowy figure who stood near the gravel driveway.

Of course, the expression on Mom’s heart-shaped face was as poised as ever; not even a single blond hair strayed from her usual neat ponytail. The wiry arms crossed under her chest hinted at annoyance, but that was all the reaction I got. Disappointing, but hardly shocking.

Nothing fazed Nicole Daily, not one of the critically injured horses she tended or an impromptu move to a new state, and certainly not one slightly rebellious, hugely heartbroken daughter.

When I pulled the horse to a stop, Mom’s dark-blue eyes remained neutral behind the square frames of her glasses. “I’m sure I’ve told you not to ride faster than a walk. Was there a point to that?”

I dismounted and patted the blowing horse on the neck. My shoulders hitched back. “No point.”

Her eyebrows arched over her lenses, accentuating her surprise. Then her lipstick-free mouth flattened into a thin line.

The spurt of satisfaction I felt wasn’t nice.

“I see.” An abrupt shake of her head, followed by her slender fingers rubbing the spot between her brows.

With a start, I noticed her hand was shaking when she extended it toward me, palm up. An uncharacteristically pleading gesture. “No, I don’t see. Mila, please, you can’t do this sort of thing. What if you’d had an accident, and then—”

She broke off, but it didn’t matter. The flannel shirt I wore became heavier, burdened with the weight of words left unsaid.

And then—maybe I’d lose you, too.

For the first time since the move, I threw my arms around her and buried my face in the comforting bend of her neck. “I’m sorry,” I said, my words muffled against skin scented with a combination of rosemary and horse liniment. “Only slow rides from now on. Promise.”

When Mom stiffened, I gripped her all the tighter. I wouldn’t let her slip away. Not this time. Her hand patted the spot above my left shoulder blade, so soft, so hesitant, I almost thought I’d imagined it. Like after this past month, she’d forgotten how.

And maybe I did imagine it, because she untangled herself from my grasp a moment later and stepped away. I tried not to let the hurt show on my face while she adjusted the wire-framed glasses that only intensified the intellectual glint in her eyes. People said Mom didn’t look like a stereotypical veterinarian, not at all, not with those acres of blond hair and her petite frame and delicate features. She eschewed makeup as a waste of time, and her bare face only seemed to enhance her natural beauty.

We looked completely different, the two of us. I was shorter, sturdier, with natural muscle like my dad and his brown hair and eyes, too. The quarter horse to her thoroughbred. But I liked to tell myself I had Mom’s heart-shaped face.

And her stubbornness.

“You have to follow the rules, Mila. I need you to be safe.”

She hesitated before tucking my wind-blown hair behind my ears. As her fingers grazed my temples, her eyes closed. A tiny sigh escaped her lips.

I stood frozen in place by the unexpected sweetness of her gesture, afraid that any sudden movement might startle her back into the present. I so, so wanted this version of Mom back, the one who dispensed hugs and kisses and comfort as needed. But up until this moment, I’d been convinced that the old version hadn’t made the trip to Clearwater. That maybe the old version had holed up somewhere in Philly—along with the missing pieces of my memory.

Mom pulled away all too quickly, her right hand flying to the emerald pendant dangling around her neck. My birthstone. A necklace Dad had given her when I was just a baby.

After his death, Mom heaped more affection on the symbolic version of her daughter than she did on the real thing.

Her abrupt swivel kicked up dirt. I watched the dust plume upward in a small, tangible reminder of her rejection, a cloud that thinned and thinned until it finally dissipated into blue sky. What would it be like, to disappear so easily?

“Go walk Bliss out and rub her down. I’m going to check on Maisey,” Mom called over her shoulder, her swift stride already carrying her halfway to the barn.

If only I were as efficient at leaving things behind as she was.

“Oh, and Kaylee called. She wants to pick you up for a Dairy Queen run in half an hour. You can go there and nowhere else, understand?”

“Yes,” I said, barely suppressing an eye roll. Come straight home after school. No going anywhere without approval. Never let anyone besides Kaylee—who’d gone through a rigorous prescreening process—give me a ride. You’d think we lived in the slums of New York City or something.

Not that it mattered. I didn’t have anyone else to go with—or anywhere else to go—anyway.

I leaned my head against Bliss’s lathered body, taking comfort in her warmth, in her musky horse smell, before straightening. “Come on, Bliss. Let’s walk you out.”

She snorted, as if in approval.

I started a slow trek in Mom’s footsteps, letting my eyes wander over the grounds that practically screamed country. Everything here screamed country.

Like the gravel driveway to my right, and the dirt trail that sprouted off and led to the guesthouse ahead. Our new residence was a smaller, more modest replica of the vacant eight-thousand-square-foot, L-shaped main house that sprawled another half mile back. The same white paint with green trim, the same covered porch. No lounge chairs with their wrought-iron backs crafted into the shape of horse heads, but we did have our very own bronze horse-head door knocker.

The dirt path continued from our guesthouse and led to the tall, A-framed building to my right. The stables; part of the reason Mom and I were here. Apparently the owners had a sick relative in England and had to stay indefinitely, so Mom had been hired on as the resident vet and caretaker.

Lucky me.

I supposed some girls would be thrilled to move to a big ranch away from the city, to help care for the horses, to make a fresh start.

I rubbed Bliss’s oh-so-soft muzzle. So far, the horses were the only thing working for me.





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o these colors look right together, Mila?”

Kaylee’s high-pitched voice, so close to my ear, plucked me right out of a memory with Dad—a good one.

He’d been walking through Penn’s Landing, hand in hand with Mom, while I ran up ahead, taking in all the tourists and the skaters, the historic ships and the musty scent of the Delaware River. The air held a chill, in spite of my red-mittened hands, but his bellowing laugh had warmed me.

When I opened my eyes to the brown-and-tan interior of the Clearwater Dairy Queen, loss ripped through me. Back in the memory, I’d felt loved, a sense of belonging. A feeling that was hard to come by in a fast-food restaurant in a strange town.

Kaylee wiggled her alternating Purrrfectly Pink and Purplicious fingernails right under my nose, bouncing the entire booth with her enthusiasm. I forced my fists to unclench and fought back the urge to bat those colorful fingers away.

“They look great, right?” In typical Kaylee fashion, she jumped in and answered her own question before I’d even had a chance to respond.

“They look awesome,” Ella answered from across the table, genuine enthusiasm lighting up her narrow, mousy face.

“Awesome,” I echoed. Actually, I couldn’t summon even a speck of interest over nail polish colors and top coats. “How’d you get that scar on your pinkie?”

Kaylee stopped the finger wiggling. She frowned as she inspected the little fingers on both hands, squinting at the white line I’d noticed, near her first knuckle. “This tiny thing? I have no idea.” She shrugged. “Maybe I pricked it with a needle in my sleep—hoping I’d fall into a coma and wake up somewhere besides Clearwater.”

From across the table, Ella sighed. “Don’t forget the prince and the magic kiss.”

“As if.” Kaylee’s overzealous snort made Ella burst into laughter, and even I couldn’t hold back a smile.

Ever since the day I first met her four weeks ago, Kaylee Daniels had operated at that same breakneck speed. She’d been the first person at school to introduce herself: a leggy, freckled dynamo in high-heeled boots. After latching onto my arm in homeroom, she’d practically dragged me to the desk next to hers.

I remembered the exchange verbatim.

“You’re Mia Daily, right? The one who just moved into the guesthouse at Greenwood Ranch? The one from Philly, which, oh my god, has to be a billion times more exciting than here? I’m Kaylee Daniels, and I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about Clearwater. Which, unfortunately, isn’t much. First and foremost—we need more boys here. More. Boys.”

Once she paused to take a breath, I’d corrected my name—my parents had shortened Mia Lana into Mila as a nickname years ago—and then let her babble flow over me, even welcomed the distraction.

“So, what’s the emergency?” Back in real time, Parker’s Vanilla Skies perfume preceded her clomping, platform-shoed arrival. She carelessly tossed her fringed purse onto the table, almost taking out Ella’s Butterfinger Blizzard before she collapsed into the booth next to her.

Parker? Kaylee had invited Parker? I tried not to groan.

Beside me, Kaylee’s Purrrfectly Pink index nail tapped her Coke float cup. “Um, hello—ice cream?” But out of the corner of my eye, I saw her not-so-subtle head jerk in my direction.

“Ahhh,” Ella said knowingly. Just before a trio of pitying smiles landed on me.

I scuffed my Nike on the sticky floor under the table, wishing I could slide down and join it. Kaylee had tricked me. This trip to Dairy Queen wasn’t really about her satisfying a sudden urge for ice cream. It practically screamed intervention.

Mila Daily, charity case, that was me. Those pitying smiles followed me whenever people found out about Dad, along with awkward silences. As if they were terrified the wrong words would crack me like a broken mirror—and nobody wanted responsibility for picking up the pieces.

My sneaker rubbed the floor again while I tried hard to look uncrackable. Since I wasn’t sure I succeeded, I did the next best thing. I deflected.

“I like your haircut, Parker.”

Parker’s hand flew to the ends of her long, painstakingly flat-ironed blond hair. But instead of the smug preening I expected, she frowned. “Okay, single white female. Leslie only trimmed it a quarter inch.”

Kaylee waved away Parker’s snark. “Oh, whatever. You’d be pissed if no one had noticed,” she said, elbowing me. She pushed a Diet Coke across the table. “Here. You must need the caffeine.”

“You’re a goddess.”

“I know.”

As I watched the exchange, the grateful smile I shot Kaylee for her save faded. What must it be like, to have friends who knew you so well they could order for you? At this point, I could barely order for myself.

“So listen—” Kaylee started.

The squeak of the door interrupted Kaylee. For a moment, the smell of asphalt and manure mingled with frying chicken and grease. Two teenage guys walked in: one blond with a small U-shaped mole on his forehead, the other dark haired with a tiny red stain on his shirt collar.

That made customers ten and eleven since we’d been here.

“Ugh, just look at Tommy . . . those scruffy old work boots?” Kaylee said, scrunching her slightly crooked nose and talking loud enough to be heard over the whir of a blender. “Atrocious. An affront to feet everywhere. And Jackson isn’t much better. Did you know he plans to stick around once we graduate, so he can help his parents run their store? La-ame.”

Ella and Parker nodded in agreement.

“Plus Jackson dresses like he’s the founding member of the Carhartt shirt-of-the-week club,” Kaylee continued in real time, shaking the booth with one of her typically over-the-top shudders. “Logo shirts—also lame.”

I tried to drum up similar disdain for the yellow logo on Jackson’s shirt but instead saw my dad cheering on the Phillies from our old living room. Wearing his red tee with the white, stylized P logo in the top right corner.

I pulled the sleeves of Dad’s flannel shirt over my hands and rubbed the worn fabric between my fingers. The feel of it was so familiar by now, I could probably recognize the shirt blindfolded. He’d been forty-three when he died thirty-five days ago, yet all I had left of him was this and a handful of memories. It wasn’t enough.

An insistent tug on my baggy sleeve made me look over, to find Kaylee staring at me. All of them, staring at me.

“What?”

Kaylee glanced at my shirt-covered hands, cleared her throat in a not-so-delicate ah-hem, and then flashed me her brightest smile. “We brought you out here because we thought you might need to get out a little more.”

Ella nodded while Kaylee continued. “You know, a break from the ranch, your mom . . .”

“That shirt,” Parker muttered under her breath.

I stiffened, but no one else seemed to notice what she’d said.

“. . . things,” Kaylee finished.

Dad dying. Summed up as “things.”

Suddenly the vinyl seat felt like a trap. I’d made a mistake, after all. A mistake in thinking that an outing with Kaylee, with anyone, would help. At least back at the ranch, the horses didn’t think I could be fixed with a Blizzard.

I winced as soon as the thought formed. They were trying, at least. Okay, not so much Parker, but Kaylee. And Ella, in her quiet, don’t-rock-the-boat way.

They were trying. They just didn’t understand.

“Thanks,” I finally murmured. I just wished they’d focus their collective interest on something besides me.

Luckily, the door by the cashier squeaked open. “Who’s that?” I asked, mentally apologizing to the boy, whoever he was, for nominating him as diversion-of-the-minute. He eased into the restaurant, a tall, lean frame topped with a mass of dark, wavy hair.

Kaylee’s brown eyes widened. “Dunno. But day-yum . . . I’d like to.”

Parker feigned a yawn. “You’d say that about any guy who wasn’t local and had a pulse. Actually, nix the pulse part.” But when she craned her head to look over the back of the booth, she puckered her lips and let out a short, off-key whistle. “Not bad.”

Not to be left out, Ella craned her neck to peer at the newcomer, who was now placing his order with the young, pimpled cashier. “Maybe he’s from Annandale?” she said, naming the next closest high school.

I shook my head. “He said he just moved here when he ordered.”

Parker curled a pink-glossed lip at me while she swirled her straw in her Diet Coke. She always made at least three revolutions before each sip. “Right. Like you could catch that from all the way back here.”

“Mila’s quiet. She notices things,” Kaylee said, taking the sting out of Parker’s words. And then she laughed. “But maybe she does have some high-tech hearing aid stashed away in there.” Her fingers reached out to yank playfully at my earlobe, and the sensation triggered a series of images.

White walls. A blurred image of a man in a white lab coat. His fingers reaching out, jabbing deep into my ear.

In my lunge to escape, I jolted the table and knocked over my Blizzard cup. I was out of the booth and on my feet before I even realized I’d moved.

“Jesus, Mila. Don’t be such a spaz,” Parker snapped. “Seriously, someone tell me why we hang out with her?”

“Shut up, Parker—she’s cool. I mean, at least she’s lived somewhere besides this godforsaken place. Where were you born again? Oh, that’s right—Clearwater.”

I stood by our table, dazed. For once, Parker was right—I was acting like a spaz. Based on the stares and giggles from around the restaurant, everyone else thought so, too. Including the new boy. Up by the cashier, he studied me with blue eyes so pale, they looked almost translucent.

A crease formed over Kaylee’s nose as she waved her hands at me, palms out. “I swear, I had no idea you were an ear-o-phobe. No more ear touching, promise—but try not to make us look lame in front of cute boys, okay?”

Forcing a smile, I sank back into the booth. Even if I wanted to explain what had happened, I couldn’t, because I didn’t have the faintest clue. Unless this had something to do with the hospital, post fire. Maybe the doctors had performed a procedure on my ears?

Ella’s giggle rescued me. “Hey, the new guy’s still looking this way.”

“Thanks to Mila, everyone’s still looking this way,” Parker muttered. But of course our heads swiveled toward him.

Old denim, I decided. His eyes were the color of old denim.

His long-sleeved white tee was paired with slim gray pants. And on his feet—checkered gray-and-black Vans.

“No work boots,” I pointed out, for Kaylee’s benefit.

“Duh. That’s the first thing I noticed.”

I bit back a smile. Of course it was. Me, I’d noticed lots of things—as always. The gray along his jawline that hinted at five o’clock shadow. The way he leaned against the counter, poised but standoffish, his hunched shoulders not inviting anyone to chat. The way the left side of his upper lip was slightly higher than the other, saving his mouth from perfection in an intriguing way.

And then a worker handed him a drink, and he was out the door.

Kaylee broke the silence by banging her fist on the table, making our collection of cups jump. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. That’s exactly the kind of fresh blood we need at Clearwater.”

“Too bad Mila scared him off with her booth dive,” Parker sniped.

Kaylee jumped in, pointing out that any attention was better than none at all. While the girls’ chatter went from mystery boys to favorite actors, I burrowed into Dad’s shirt. My gaze found the window, but instead of pastureland, I summoned more memories, pored through images of Mom and Dad smiling and dabbing my nose with tomato sauce while we assembled a homemade pizza. Images of all three of us, curled up on our navy-blue sofa, playing a game of gin rummy.

Kaylee’s fake swoon into my shoulder stole them away. “Oh my god, he was hot in that werewolf movie. But I still liked him better in Tristan James, Underage Soldier.”

I stood up. On purpose, this time.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said. Knowing Mom would probably be upset that I was breaking the rule by walking, and not really caring.

I took off before Kaylee could even finish her startled good-bye or Parker her second eye roll. And then I was outside. Alone. Away from the girls, from the fried food smells, from the strangers and plastic booths and everything that wasn’t Philly.

Away from any interruptions to the memories I continued to parade through my head.





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aylee burst into homeroom the next morning in a bigger frenzy than usual, her brown hair fluttering behind her as she practically sprinted over to my desk. Only after she had smoothed down her homemade black dress—the girl could sew like anyone’s business—adjusted her sparkling aqua tights, and rubbed her index finger across her top teeth to erase phantom lipstick did she collapse into her spot next to me.

“Have you seen him yet?” she hissed, craning her head to check out every corner of the room.

“Him who?”

When I performed my own room inspection, I didn’t see anyone—or anything—out of the ordinary. Same chalkboard spanning the opposite wall, same bulletin board full of colorful flyers advertising SWIM TEAM TRYOUTS! and FREE TUTORS! and YOUTH GROUP CAMPING TRIP TO AJ ACRES! Same twenty desks, lined up in four rows of five across the green industrial carpeting, the color supposedly picked in an administrative spurt of school spirit. Same group of students settling into those desks. Same ammonia-mixed-with-sweaty-feet smell.

Same sense of being stranded in a room filled with strangers. Kaylee assured me that Clearwater High was small compared to tons of schools, but since I’d been homeschooled back in Philly, the words did little to soothe me.

“No fair.” She sighed, letting her backpack slip from her fingers and smack the floor.

I ignored the typical Kaylee drama and pulled a pen from my backpack. “Who are you talking about?”

I heard rather than saw Kaylee stiffen. “Oh my god, Mila, look!” she said, knocking my arm as she whirled in her chair. The pen flew out of my hand . . . and headed straight for the instigator of the “oh my god, Mila, look” comment’s chest.

In a reflexive motion, my hand whipped out, snagging the pen-missile midair. Great save, until the hand connected to the gray shirt knocked into mine as it sought to do the same. The pen sprang loose and clattered to the floor.

Shaggy dark hair. Lean face. Faded blue eyes—the color of Kaylee’s favorite old jeans—that widened briefly. I had just enough time to register the images before the boy from Dairy Queen dropped into a crouch behind my chair.

He didn’t say anything as he extended the pen to me. Kaylee cleared her throat in a totally obvious um-hum, but I ignored her. I was too busy shaking my hair forward to hide what had to be a brilliant display of red spreading across my cheeks.

So I was correct—the Dairy Queen boy didn’t go to Annandale. And, in a spectacular display of idiocy equaled only by my booth dive yesterday, I’d just assaulted him with a writing utensil. Well played.

“Here you go,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice.

After accepting the pen and placing it on my desk, I turned around, an apology on my lips. It died as I watched his broad shoulders retreat. Smart choice. All the safer from the weird girl and her incredible flying Bic.

“Okay, now that’s a voice I could totally wake up to in the morning,” Kaylee whispered, staring unabashedly.

“Kaylee!” I said, half appalled, half amused. Even though I tried not to follow in her ogling footsteps, my peripheral vision had other ideas. I caught the slump of the boy’s six-foot frame into a chair on the far side of the room, the top of his head level with the bottom of a baby-blue BOOK FAIR! poster. Only fifteen feet of space to escape us, and he’d utilized every available inch.

Obviously my attempted stabbing hadn’t amused him.

From across the room, I noted how only four wavy strands of hair actually grazed the top of the olive buttondown that flapped loosely at his sides, jacket style. The same way I wore Dad’s flannel. Once again, his slim-fitting pants—black this time—hinted at skater rather than farmhand. Today’s black-and-yellow Vans—Kaylee would be in heaven—pretty much clinched the nonlocal look. Still, there were all types at our school, even in the middle of rural Minnesota, so he wasn’t completely out of place.

The bell rang to mark the beginning of the period, a prolonged, discordant groan inciting the usual snickers from students.

Mrs. Stegmeyer cleared her throat before slapping the attendance file onto her desk and resting her clasped, multi-ringed fingers on top of it. Four of her rings were the same as always, but I noticed she’d traded the thick silver one on her right index finger for three thin gold bands, stacked one on top of the other.

Once the chatter ceased, her syrupy voice filled the room, a thick drawl that suggested southern roots. “All right, y’all. Before we move on to roll call, we have a new student to introduce. Hunter, please stand and say a few words about yourself.”

Hunter scuffed his Vans against the floor. His hunched posture said giving an impromptu monologue was about the last thing he wanted to do. I could relate. I’d had to deliver my own less than a month ago in this very room. Back when everything had been too new and weird and overwhelming.

Come to think of it, things really hadn’t changed all that much.

Hunter swiped at a strand of hair that covered one of his eyes, the wavy fall of his bangs making him bear a passing resemblance to the neighbors’ dog, a shaggy briard that kept their horses company in the front yard.

I’d always thought the briard was cute, too.

He stuffed his hands into tight pockets and rose to his full height, his gaze skimming past everyone without really sticking. I flashed him a sympathetic smile as it slid over me.

“Yeah. Hey. I’m Hunter Lowe from San Diego,” he said.

After one more ineffectual swipe at the dark waves grazing his eyelashes, he slumped back into his chair.

“Is that all?” Even Mrs. Stegmeyer seemed surprised at the brevity of his speech.

He shrugged, a loose-limbed, eloquent gesture that almost made words unnecessary.

Kaylee leaned toward me. “It’s okay—no one expects him to be a genius when he looks like that,” she whispered.

I remembered back to my introduction—I hadn’t said much either. Was that the assumption then, too? That I was lacking in brain cells?

I could feel my smile wilt around the edges when I glanced back over at Hunter. Not that he could tell. He was staring out the window, a view with which I’d become intimately acquainted over the past month. I let my line of sight follow his, wondered if he was doing what I did. If he stared beyond the football field, beyond the slow country street behind it, and wished himself back into another place and time.

Every so often during homeroom, I’d sneak a peek at Hunter. And each time, his head was turned toward that window.



When the bell rang, Kaylee jumped out of her seat like the sound had triggered an electric shock. Her eyes were glued to the spot under the window.

“Mila, hurry!” she said, flapping her hands at me.

“What’s the emergency?” But I shouldered my backpack and stood anyway. She nabbed my arm and plowed us between the rows of desks, almost tripping over Mary Stanley’s purple peace sign backpack and taking out Brad Zanzibar as he stooped over to tie his shoe.

Her trajectory led us straight to Hunter’s desk.

“Hi! I’m Kaylee, and this is Mila.” I tried to fade into the background, but she grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. “We figured you might want some help finding your next class.”

While Kaylee bounced on her toes and beamed, I froze. We figured? Since when?

My head whipped to the side. I hoped to stare her into a spontaneous confession, but she either didn’t notice or deliberately ignored me.

Hunter stood, hoisting his red North Face backpack over his shoulder before shoving his hands into his pockets. His eyes flitted from Kaylee to me and back again. He shrugged.

Of course that was all the invitation Kaylee needed. “Perfect!” she said, giving two baby claps. “Follow me.” As she scurried ahead, she used her left hand to inconspicuously flatten down the sides of her hair.

I stood there awkwardly, shifting my weight from foot to foot, wondering who was supposed to follow next, since the row was way too narrow for both of us to fit through together. Hunter glanced at me then, his eyes lingering on my face for three excruciatingly long seconds. Seconds in which I realized that in different light, his eyes lost their translucent quality and looked more opaque. Still that sky blue, but a weightier, more substantial version. “You first,” he finally said.

The combination of deep voice, slight smile, and offhanded invitation had a peculiar effect on my lungs, like I’d suddenly released a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.

I hurried after Kaylee and hoped that breathing in the hallway would prove less of a challenge.

Yeah, not so much. Students streamed both ways along the corridor, some rushing to class, others meandering. All of them varying degrees of loud. And with the exception of the few I exchanged hellos with in class, virtually every one of them was a stranger.

Plus there were no windows in this particular hallway, just rows of chipped forest-green lockers and classroom doors. Between the lack of natural light and the narrow space, it felt like we’d been thrust inside a long, narrow trap.

“Where to?” Kaylee said as Hunter emerged. After he told her where his next class was—Room 132, Mr. Chesky—she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and tugged him along like a reluctant pull toy. I followed on her other side as she navigated us down the hall.

“So, you’re from San Diego? What’s it like there? Awesome, I bet. Do you surf?”

I peeked in front of Kaylee and watched Hunter tug his earlobe before responding.

“Yes,” he said solemnly. “If you don’t surf, you don’t graduate.”

Kaylee’s eyes widened. “No way, really?”

A twitch of his lips gave him away. She squealed. “Oh my gosh, you’re evil! Mila, can you believe this guy? He’s barely here for three seconds and he’s already teasing me!”

And now all of Clearwater High knew about it, since Kaylee’s voice echoed down the corridor.

I coughed to cover my laugh. For all her good grades, Kaylee could really act dim-witted around boys, but they usually never called her on it.

Until now.

In her typical babble-a-thon manner, Kaylee managed to quiz Hunter on everything from whether he owned a pet—no—to his favorite singer—Jack Johnson—before we’d even turned the corner. Of course, his monosyllabic answers gave her plenty of time to talk.

Instead of listening to her, I watched him. He walked gracefully, like an athlete. He had a tiny mole on his left cheek, just where a dimple would be, and whenever Kaylee asked him a question that seemed this side of too personal—like did he get along with his parents—he looked down at the ground before responding.

About five doors away from his drop-off spot, she finally abandoned the one-sided questioning and launched into telling him all about us.

“I’m from here, born and raised. Sad, isn’t it? But Mila’s not. Poor thing moved here from Philly a few weeks ago, when her dad died. We’ve been buds ever since,” she said, hooking her arm through mine and resting her head on my shoulder.

“When her dad died . . .”

I stiffened. Great. Unintentional or not, she’d managed to up my pathetic quotient and spew private details of my life, all in a few breezy sentences.

“Right,” I mumbled. Hunter stopped walking, which had a domino effect since Kaylee currently linked the three of us into some kind of crazy human chain. Kaylee jerked to a stop first, then me. I looked up to see Hunter staring at me over the top of her frizzy head.

“Sorry.”

Sorry. That was all he said. It was what he didn’t say that spoke volumes. He didn’t try to change the subject, or make hasty excuses to leave, the way Kaylee’s friends usually did.

For once, I didn’t feel like having a dead parent was contagious. “Thanks.”

The slam of a nearby locker interrupted us.

“Come on, we’re going to be late.” Kaylee’s voice sounded this side of sulky while her hand tugged on us, prompting the human chain back into motion. “Oh, look. There’s Parker and Ella.” If possible, she sounded even less enthusiastic than before, and I watched in surprise as she ducked her head. Too late. The girls saw us.

Hunter’s head whipped up. I had a sudden impression of a deer in the headlights. I guess the idea of two more girls converging on him was too much to bear. Not that I could blame him, I thought, watching Parker flounce over in skinny jeans, while Ella trotted her shorter legs to keep up. It was kind of like watching a pack of piranhas descend on a particularly tasty fish.

“My classroom,” Hunter said before breaking free and loping ahead.

“Hey, will we see you at lunch?” Kaylee called after him.

He mumbled something about “dunno—forms to fill out” before escaping to the sanctuary of Room 132.

The instant he disappeared around the corner, Kaylee turned on the girls with a fierce scowl. “Less obvious next time, okay?”

I blinked. How could they be any more obvious than Kaylee herself?

But I held my tongue as Kaylee launched into a blow-by-blow of our march down the hall, instead following Hunter’s lead and slipping away to my class. Only, unlike with Hunter, I don’t think anyone noticed.

Until Parker pulled away from the group and followed me, a sly smile on her face. While I paused in surprise, she leaned in close, like she wanted to share something special.

Oh, it was special, all right. “See that?” she whispered, wiggling her fingers at someone in greeting. Even when she was talking to me, I didn’t have her full attention. “It’s happening already. Kaylee’s interest in new toys only lasts so long. You got extra mileage because you were from out of town, but now that Hunter’s around . . .”

She straightened, and her smile widened into a careless grin. “Let’s just say I’ll give you a week, tops, before you’re sitting at your own lunch table in the corner. Even less if you keep looking at Hunter like that. Kaylee doesn’t like to share.”

And then, with a satisfied sigh, she whirled and disappeared down the hall.

I shook my head and entered my classroom, wondering for the billionth time what Kaylee saw in her.





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hen the lunch bell rang, I decided to ditch the hordes of ravenous students and head outside. Even on a good day, I hated the cafeteria, with its crowds and fluorescent glare—every time I walked inside, I instantly felt on display. And after Parker’s extreme cattiness earlier, well . . . let’s just say my enthusiasm for group dining had fallen to an all-time low.

I reached the door that led to my escape path, to the lone bench in the completely ignored courtyard. No other kids to deal with there, just a patch of grass, three overgrown trees, and a slightly lopsided rendition of the school’s cartoon lion mascot.

When I pushed open the door, frigid air blasted my cheeks. The news had called for an uncharacteristically dreary fall week, and so far, the weather was cooperating. A bonus for me, since chill and drizzle never bothered me but seemed to lock the rest of the student body inside.

Well, all except for one.

The door clattered shut behind me, a noise that announced my arrival with gunshot subtlety to the lone figure commandeering my spot.

I inspected him from behind drooping tree branches, completely conscious of the curious eyes peering back at me through a kaleidoscope of red-orange-brown. Hunter didn’t sit on the bench like a normal person. Instead he perched on top of the backrest, his feet planted against the blue boards that made up the seat. His jacket hood was pulled up over his head, his elbows balanced on his knees. Cradled between his hands was a battered book. So much for those papers he had to fill out.

Okay . . . now what? I scanned the tiny oval courtyard for potential escape routes, for any other seating destination that wouldn’t make me look like a giant stalker. But there was nothing, unless I fancied sitting on the wet grass or the dirty and equally wet concrete—neither of which were particularly tempting.

Just when I’d decided that waving and then bolting for the door would be my least embarrassing option, Hunter spoke from beneath his black hood.

“Did I steal your spot?”

“Technically, no. I mean, it’s not my spot. It belongs to the school.”

Heat rushed into my cheeks. Wow. Okay, so yes, technically my words were true, but that didn’t mean I had to go all dork and say them.

Hunter’s soft laugh floated through the courtyard, loosening the knot in my stomach. A second later, my laugh joined his. “I come out here to get away sometimes, but obviously you were here first, so I’ll just leave,” I said.

He scooted over to the far edge of the bench, leaving a gaping expanse of blue wood on the side closest to me. “Plenty of room.”

I caught my lower lip with my teeth. Tempting. Especially considering the alternative—the sense of isolation that ironically grew more pronounced in a crowd. “You sure?”

He shrugged, a rise and fall of broad shoulders meant to convey disinterest. Only his fingers gave him away. They drummed against his knee, hinting at whatever lurked beneath his seemingly apathetic exterior. That tiny burst of motion—of lean, restless fingers striking worn denim— somehow demoted him from intimidating to approachable.

I remembered the way he’d stared out the window in homeroom, his quiet contemplation a huge contrast to the loud voices that echoed throughout the hallways.

“Okay.” I ducked under the tree branch and followed the brick-lined path to the bench. No big deal. I’d sit on my edge of the bench, he’d stay on his, and we’d ignore each other.

Great idea in theory. Hard to execute in real life. Because as I positioned myself on my half, I was aware of the steady rate of Hunter’s inhalations and exhalations, the way he smelled like laundry detergent and something spicier—sandalwood—and how he tapped his foot on the bench beside me while he read. Twenty-two times per minute.

I snuggled into Dad’s shirt. My plan had been to let the memories roll through my head, but I don’t know. I felt strangely exposed with Hunter sitting next to me. Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to count the individual drizzle droplets as they landed, feather soft, on my face.

After an unproductive three minutes, Hunter’s book crinkled. “You’re Maya, right?” he asked.

An unexpected disappointment stabbed me. I opened my eyes. “Close. Mila.”

“Sorry. Mi-la.” The way he carefully drew my name out gave it a mellifluous quality I’d never heard before.

He nodded absently, his fingers drumming away on his left knee. I waited for a follow-up question. Instead, he hunched his shoulders and stopped tapping to turn the page on his comic.

I tried to shift my attention back to the courtyard, my shoes, anything besides Hunter, but the six-foot figure of damp, mussed, and brooding boy proved just a little too potent to ignore. I had a sudden craving to hear him say my name again, with that same melodic tone.

Mi-la.

I stifled a groan. Perfect. Kaylee’s boy-crazy ways must be rubbing off on me.

Hunter tilted his head up to the sky, closing his eyes and letting drizzle dampen his cheeks and eyelashes. Any other guy at our school would have looked silly in that position, like he was posing or something. Hunter just looked . . . peaceful. “The rain doesn’t bother you?” he said, seemingly half asleep.

I glanced up at the drifting mass of gray. The clouds blocked out any trace of brightness, casting the entire school in a haze of blah. “It’s actually a relief.”

He shot me a sideways glance, the curious rise of his eyebrows making me want to retract my words. I’d revealed too much. Any second now, and I’d get the pitying look. Any second now . . .

Instead his mouth softened into a smile. “Yeah” was all he said before closing his eyes again.

Just yeah. Nothing more. But that one yeah hinted at more understanding than a whole hour of lunch-table babble with Kaylee’s friends.

That one yeah unburdened me, like maybe I’d finally stumbled upon someone who could accept me as I was. This post-Philly, post-Dad version of me—not some happy, unfettered, whole version that everyone seemed to want. Including Mom.

Maybe here, at last, was someone I could talk to. Only, as luck would have it, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

I fumbled for a suitable conversational topic. Horses came to mind, but I had no idea if he rode or, like Parker, thought they were “smelly giants with big teeth.” No, I needed something he was interested in.

What did I know about him so far? Not much. He was new, he was from San Diego. He smelled a thousand times better than the guy who sat next to me in English. My gaze fell to the book in his lap. Instead of rows of words, it was full of pictures.

“What’s that about?”

“Ghost in the Shell? The usual. Good guys versus bad. Major Motoko versus the Puppeteer.” He coughed, nudged his backpack with his shoe. “I should probably put it away. The rain . . .”

Before he closed the book, I peeked at the graphics. I saw a girl with wild hair and a futuristic outfit, holding a big gun, standing in front of a weird-looking machine. Interesting, and definitely not the usual sort of thing students carted around with them here.

I pulled my knees to my chest and watched him unzip his bag and stuff the book in.

“Are you a fan of manga?”

I hugged my legs tighter and wondered how to respond. “Don’t think so” was what I settled on. Not a total lie, but not an uncomfortable truth, either. “But I do like to read. Did you bring that with you in the move?” I couldn’t imagine he’d picked it up in Clearwater.

“Yeah. We had a great bookstore back in San Diego. They kept a manga collection, special ordered anything they didn’t stock.”

His slow sigh triggered an echoing wistfulness in me. Oddly enough, the knowledge that I wasn’t the only one longing for the past made my loneliness dissipate, just a teensy bit. Even if that longing was only for a bookstore, it served as a reminder. I wasn’t completely alone in this feeling. Hunter had been forced to leave favorite things behind, too.

With one arm still cradling my knees, I pulled the other up to rest against my cheek. To breathe in Dad’s flannel, searching for the minuscule trace of his scent that remained, the smell of sweet, pine-scented cologne. Every day it faded, leaving me terrified of the day the smell would disappear completely and I’d lose that last link.

“Gonna have to trek to Minneapolis to find a decent bookstore.” He paused, then added. “If you ever want to come with . . .”

“Okay,” I murmured past the giant knot clogging my throat. His kindness, losing Dad; my feelings were all blending together into one big explosive concoction. Who knew which emotion would burst free at any given time?

“Hey. You okay?”

I swallowed hard, nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“That your dad’s shirt?”

I nodded again.

“He died . . . recently?”

I cleared my throat, forced air into my lungs. All this time, I’d been complaining about how everyone tiptoed around Dad’s death. Only a hypocrite wouldn’t answer.

“Yeah. In a fire.”

I heard his shoes scrape wood as he shifted positions. “Rough. Were you there?”

Supposedly. I sifted through my memory again, seeking flames, smoke, anything. Like every other time, nothing came.

And then I heard a scream. In my head, a girl’s scream.

The sound made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. But the only images to accompany it were those same white walls, a white lab coat. The smell of bleach.

Still no fire.

“I don’t remember.”

I felt his surprise more than saw it, because as soon as the words came tumbling out, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d said that, and yet . . . instant relief.

The weight of his hand on my shoulder shocked me. “You okay?” he repeated. Softly.

“Yeah. But I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”

When I peeked up between a few loose strands of hair, I was stunned to see that he wasn’t giving me one of those “what’s her deal?” looks, one of Parker’s specialties. “No problem.”

He closed his eyes. This time, the silence felt companionable. If I could have sat out there for the rest of the day, just feeling normal in someone else’s company for a change, I would have done it in a flash. But after a while, the warning bell stuttered its crazy ring, signaling lunch’s end.

Hunter groaned. He stretched his long arms over his head, an act that pulled his shirt tight across his chest and accentuated the fact that muscles existed there. I felt my cheeks flush and looked at my feet, whereas Kaylee would have squealed. Not that I couldn’t appreciate his physical attractiveness, because apparently I could. A lot.

But what was really compelling about him was his sensitivity. Something that none of the other girls even cared enough to discover before deciding he was potential boyfriend material.

That notion made me want to stuff him into my backpack and hide him away.

“Want to trade cell numbers? Just to talk and stuff,” he said.

I ducked my head before he could see my smile widen into an obnoxiously goofy grin. I gave him my number as I pulled my phone out of my bag. “What’s yours?”

My hands vibrated two seconds later.

Our gazes locked while I pushed send and lifted the phone to my mouth. “Hello?”

“Now you’ve got it,” Hunter said. In stereo. He ended the call, tilting his head as he studied my phone. “A Samsung ie80? They still make those? No surfing for you, huh?”

I sighed, glaring at my phone. “No. My mom’s sort of anti-internet. Anti-computers, really. She won’t even let me get a laptop.”

He looked startled; the same look everyone gave when they found out Mom chose to shun modern technology. One girl had even asked if I was Amish. “Parents” was all he finally said, though. With a knowing smile.

We headed up the path leading back into school, side by side.

“What class do you have next?” he asked, just before we reached the door.

“Pre-calc. You?”

“AP chemistry.”

See that? Not even remotely dim. “Cool.”

When we reached the door, he leaned across me to open it. The brush of his arm across my shoulder sent a shiver rushing through me. I stepped into the congested hallway and fumbled to put a name to the strange feeling, just as a familiar voice rang out.

“Hey, Mila, there you are! And . . . you ran into Hunter?”

Kaylee stood a few feet away, arms crossed over her chest, forming a platform-heeled, long-legged obstacle that students veered to avoid hitting. Her emphasis on “ran into” wasn’t lost on me, even in the din of chattering voices and footsteps as kids rushed to their next class.

Her gaze touched on me, lingered longer on Hunter and even longer on the cell phones we still clutched in our hands. I shoved mine into my bag, even though I wasn’t sure why, exactly. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

She stepped closer, her grin flashing fewer teeth than usual. “So what were you guys doing out there? Was Mila helping you fill out your forms?”

Hunter shrugged and shook his hair out of his face. “Something like that,” he said. And then he winked at me before merging into the flow of students and ambling down the hallway.

Kaylee pressed a hand to her chest and watched his retreat. “Mysterious guys are so hot.”

But the second he was out of sight, her playfulness vanished. She whirled on me with her hands on her hips. “Is that why you ditched us at lunch today, so you could get Hunter all to yourself? What, are you some kind of stalker now? Oh my god, Mila, that is so uncool!”

Red blotches erupted on her cheeks, and her voice rose with each question, loud enough to garner sideways looks from the kids passing by. Two girls from our homeroom started whispering, while a trio of boys poked one another and laughed.

“Shhhh!” I said.

“What, am I embarrassing you?” she said in an even louder voice. “About HUNTER?”

More kids turned to look, triggering that trapped feeling again. My muscles tensed. I wanted out of the public eye. Now.

In a quick movement hidden by the position of her body, I grabbed Kaylee’s upper arm. Then I pulled her to the door and yanked it open. My momentum propelled both of us outside, away from the streaming students and their way-too-curious eyes.

“Mila, you’re hurting me!” Kaylee tugged against my grip.

With dawning horror, I looked down to see I was squeezing her upper arm. I released my grip, and her other hand immediately rubbed the spot. “What’s your deal?” she said, her stare all brown-eyed accusation.

I shook my head, dazed, gaping at the way she cradled her arm to her chest. Seriously, what was my deal?

I couldn’t believe I’d just grabbed Kaylee like that, out of nowhere. What a terrible thing to do.

“Kaylee, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. There were all those people, and I just . . . get a little claustrophobic sometimes. I didn’t think.”

Between the jump with Bliss and my booth dive at Dairy Queen, there seemed to be a lot of that going on lately. Too much.

“You’re a nut, you know that?” she said, still clutching her arm.

My chin whipped up and down in my enthusiasm to agree. “I’ll work on it, promise.”

“Do that,” she said, shaking her head before walking off.

I tried to dismiss the incident. Really, I did. But a tiny, niggling worry made it difficult. The truth was, I hadn’t even been trying to grab Kaylee’s arm with any real degree of force. I definitely hadn’t been trying to hurt her.

So how on earth had it happened?





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he worry still niggled at me after dinner that night, when Mom’s yell summoned me from my book.

“Mila, come here!”

With a sigh, I jabbed my bookmark into the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale and rolled off the green-and-gold quilt that came with the room and always smelled faintly of mothballs and lavender. Rain tap-tapped an offbeat rhythm against the window. Figuring she wanted me to check on the horses, I slipped my feet into my discarded Nikes and headed down the hall.

Mom waited by the coat rack, practically drowning in the brown fleece blanket she’d tossed over her shoulder. An unusually wide grin spread across her face. The sight of that smile, aimed at me, melted away any residual craving for Atwood and my bed. That was a smile from the old days. A smile that banished some of my loneliness and promised good things to come.

I almost didn’t want to say anything, in case talking broke the spell, but curiosity won out. “What are we doing?”

She pulled the front door open. “We’re going to watch the storm.”



I swung my legs back and forth against the rickety porch edge. Mom’s suggestion to go outside and experience the storm had sounded crazy at first, not to mention extremely un-Mom-like. But I couldn’t say no. Not when the invitations were so few and far between.

Raindrops splattered against my upturned palms. As usual, Mom was right—there was nothing quite like experiencing a Midwest storm firsthand. The sky’s vivid light show, the thick humidity that made my jeans cling to my legs, the smell of electricity and damp dirt, it enveloped us.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Mom asked.

In a stun of disbelief, I watched her peel off her boots and toss them over her shoulder. They hit the porch with a thud while she wiggled her bare toes under the drizzle. Her sigh was pure bliss. Yep. Decidedly un-Mom-like.

“You should try it.”

My shoes were stripped off before she could realize the storm had addled her brain. Under the dim light and mist, our naked skin glowed a ghostly white.

“Feels great, doesn’t it?”

The tiny drops felt wet more than anything, but her enjoyment was infectious. What really felt great was her acceptance. “Definitely.”

Another diagonal of light cracked the night sky. For a moment, all of Clearwater was illuminated, like someone had switched on a giant spotlight. Just as quickly, the brightness was snatched away and darkness returned, broken only by the glow from our kitchen window.

“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five—” A deep rumble overhead cut off Mom’s strange chant.

“What’s the counting for?”

“Just something . . . we used to do together.”

My legs stopped moving. Mom rarely talked about the past, especially not in the context of things we’d done together. I got the distinct impression that she wanted nothing more than to wipe the slate clean. To start completely fresh here in Clearwater.

Too many questions to name spiraled through my head. In the interest of starting small, I latched onto one of the most innocuous ones.

“Did I use to like nail polish? I mean, before?” I asked, thinking back to Kaylee’s Dairy Queen convo.

I knew I’d made the right decision when even that simple, fluffy inquiry caused her to flinch. I held my breath, half expecting her to ignore me.

“Yes. When you were little. But . . . but only toenail polish, and only if your dad and I would wear it, too.”

She started off hesitantly, but the longer she talked, the more the story gained steam. “In fact, this one time, your dad forgot to take it off, and then he went to the gym . . . well, you can imagine the looks he got.”

She reached out to squeeze my shoulder, laughing. “Can’t you picture it? Your big, manly father . . . sporting pink sparkle nail polish.”

And with her words as my guide, I could picture it. My stout, dark-haired father. Standing in his gym shorts in the locker room and shaking his head at his sparkling toes. I reveled in the image for a moment before pressing on. Her laughter, the shoulder squeeze, had made me bold.

“Did the doctors do anything to my ears, after the fire?”

The second her hand dropped away, I knew I’d made a mistake, pushed too far. But I pressed on. “I have this memory. Of a man, in a white coat. And he did something to my ear. . . .”

It was no use. Even in the dim light, I could see her lips press together. She wrapped her arms around her waist, angled her head away from me, did everything short of slapping duct tape on her mouth and flashing a DON’T ASK sign.

“Why won’t you answer me?” I whispered, even as the familiar weight of rejection settled on my shoulders. “Please. This has been hard for me, too.” I hated the beggarlike quality to my voice, but I couldn’t help it.

Her hand lifted, like she might stroke my cheek, the way she used to in Philly every night before bed, back when her nails weren’t brown from horse grime or pungent with liniment. I caught my breath while seconds built up between us. While my heart pounded out its yearning for a return of that nighttime ritual.

She shoved her hands into her lap and turned back to the storm.

I curled my toes to subdue the building scream. Had my faulty memory erased some terrible thing I’d done—was that it? Was that why Mom couldn’t resurrect even a tiny piece of our old relationship? Why I’d somehow lost both parents when only one had burned in the fire?

Under the cover of my hair, I pressed a trembling hand to my own cheek, half expecting to touch something repugnant. Instead, my skin felt normal. Slightly slick from the moisture-filled air, but warm and soft. Nothing that should scare a mother away.

“Why don’t you love me anymore?” I whispered, to no one, really. Because I knew she wouldn’t answer.

I rose. Though the storm still raged overhead, its allure drained away as surely as the water that dripped from my hem and pooled at my feet.

“The counting gives you an approximation of how far away the lightning really is. Five seconds for every mile.”

Mom’s steady voice paused me after only one step. Was this her deluded attempt at an olive branch? Sorry, Mila, can’t hug you, but I can inundate you with random facts about storms.

Gee, thanks.

I didn’t have to listen to this.

Anger fueled my short walk to the door. I opened it, determined to escape to the safe haven of my room, where Atwood and my smelly quilt awaited.

“The thunder comes after the lightning, but it’s an illusion. It just seems that way because the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound.”

My grip tightened on the doorknob. I’d asked for her love, and instead got the speed of sound? Really?

“Also, the lightning bolt we see doesn’t really originate from the sky. It comes from the ground up.”

That did it. The door slam echoed in the night. I whirled, glaring at the sight of her slender back and that sleek, serene ponytail. “Why are you telling me this?”

I don’t care about the origins of lightning bolts and the speed of sound! I wanted to scream. I care about things that matter. About my missing memory and her missing love, about the wrenching pain in my heart that never went away. Not about some stupid storm in the middle of stupid Minnesota.

Not about—

Another white line forked across the sky. I caught a flash of sagging porch and Mom’s hand clenched around that stupid birthstone necklace before darkness reclaimed them. It couldn’t reclaim my spark of intuition.

“Are you trying to say things aren’t always the way they appear? What, Mom? What isn’t how it appears?”

Boards creaked and thunder rumbled, but there was no reply.

No reply. Right. Just like there was nothing I could say to change anything. Still, I took a grim satisfaction in correcting her. “You don’t even have your facts right. Not everyone sees lightning from the top down. I don’t.”

Before I could head inside, something interrupted my brilliant exit.

I cocked my head. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“A noise. From the barn.” Over the patter of rain, I’d heard it.

Clank.

“There it goes again.”

Mom was on her feet in an instant. Barefoot, she raced for the front door, shoving it open so hard that the bottom smacked the doorstop and bounced back. She darted inside and reemerged seconds later, wielding the giant Maglite she stashed in a kitchen drawer for emergencies. Weapon in hand, she leaped off the porch and ran for the barn.

“Mom?” When she didn’t look back, I sprinted after her, my feet slapping the wet path while muddy water squished between my toes. I rounded the corner of our guesthouse in time to see Mom reach the oversized barn door, to hear the nickers and snorts that burst within at her arrival. Louder than usual.

Someone had left the door ajar.

My neck prickling, I pulled up behind Mom as she yanked the door open.

“Hello?” she called out, flipping on the light.

Her voice echoed back through the rafters, as even-keeled as ever. But in her right hand, the super-long, super-heavy Maglite was clenched and at the ready. Shoulder level, like a baseball bat.

Nothing but silence followed, except for the intermittent raindrops that drummed against the vaulted roof. And then a high-pitched whinny, and straw rustling under restless hooves.

Mom took four careful steps inside, half crouched like some kind of jungle cat. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, that Mom was ultracapable under any circumstance. Still, the transformation from mild-mannered veterinarian to prowling tiger was a little terrifying. Why would a few strange noises make her react this way?

Everything seemed normal. The sweet-sour smell of hay and horse bodies mingled into its familiar musk. The rows of pine stalls on either side of the empty corridor looked as tidy as ever, and the stall doors were all closed, as they should be. Since we tended to leave the green-barred windows open, a few inquisitive horse heads poked out over the tops. Also normal.

And yet . . . there was almost no way Mom had forgotten to latch that door. Not after the minilecture I’d gotten when we first moved here. Plus she was so vigilant about locking the guesthouse, you’d think we stored diamonds in our beds.

Mom peered over her shoulder and spotted me. I could see fear in the wide blue eyes behind her rain-splotched glasses, in the way she stabbed a finger toward the door.

“Outside,” she mouthed.

I clenched my jaw and shook my head, even though squeezing air into my ever-tightening lungs had become tricky. No way was I leaving her here, to deal with . . . whatever . . . on her own.

I must have had my determined face on, because she didn’t bother with a second hopeless attempt to send me fleeing. Instead she motioned me toward the stalls on the right side of the corridor, while she crept to the left.

She leaned her upper body into the open window of the first stall, looking for what, I didn’t know. But her paranoia was contagious. Feeling wound up enough to explode at the slightest sound, I peered into the first stall on my side. Gentle Jim’s quarters. When the big roan gelding saw me, he lumbered over and nosed me in the forehead, hoping I’d slip him a carrot from my pocket. The stall was empty except for him. Leaning over, I quietly grabbed his tin feed bucket and a steel-clipped lead. Just in case. Not my first choice in weaponry, but they were better than nothing.

I checked the next two stalls. Nothing but groggy horses.

Clank.

Loud. Just like I’d heard it before. Coming from the row of stalls around the corner.

Mom’s head whipped toward the noise. I tiptoed across the concrete floor, dodging unswept pieces of hay but ignoring the growing collection of grit and other unsavory substances on the balls of my bare feet.

As soon as I was close enough, Mom grabbed my head with one firm hand. My heart galloped as she pressed her mouth close to my ear. “I’m going to check it out,” she whispered. “Wait here. If you hear anything, run.”

I tried to shake my head, but her grip tightened, pressing me even closer. Her breath hissed between her teeth and collided with my earlobe, which I swear was already jumping from the thud-thud-thud of my pulse. “Mila. Please.”

As soon as she let go and rounded the corner ahead, I took off on stealthy feet after her, clutching my makeshift weapons like they were swords rather than random barn utensils.

When I reached the corner, I noticed the first three stalls in the next corridor had their green-barred windows tightly shut. Empties. There were a lot of those, space vacated by the boarders who came when the Greenwood family was actually in residence. Mom stalked past them. She moved so quietly, so smoothly, that her blond ponytail barely bobbed behind her.

She was only three stalls from the end of the row when we heard it again.

Clank.

Our heads swiveled as one toward the last stall on the right. My breath hitched in my throat. If there was a crazy stalker or horse thief in there, he or she could probably hear my heart slamming against my rib cage by now.

But under the rapid-fire beat of my heart lurked something else. An anticipatory tightening of my muscles, an unshakable determination to help Mom.

No matter what.

I traced Mom’s careful footsteps as she picked out a silent path that led to that last stall. I watched while those slender, capable fingers wrapped around the handle, squeezed, and eased the door open.

Maisey let out a startled whinny when Mom leaped across the threshold, Maglite poised for action.

The long black flashlight lowered an instant later.

“What the . . . ?” I heard Mom say as I leaned into the stall. Maisey was the lone occupant.

My heart decelerated to a gentler rhythm while I scratched the mare’s soft muzzle. Meanwhile, Mom performed an itemized inspection of the stall’s contents, running her hands along the walls. She stopped on the feed bucket attached to the wall.

Slipping farther inside, she reached over and pulled the bucket away from the wall, then pushed it forward.

Clank.

“Silly girl. Was that you, playing with your bucket? Mrs. Greenwood warned me about that,” Mom said, her laugh flowing like water; the easiest, purest laugh I’d her from her in ages. The sound released the tension from my limbs, like a valve had opened up and drained it all away. Part of me wanted to join in. The other part worried. This type of reaction, it wasn’t Mom. Had Dad’s death finally sent her over the edge?

But when Mom slipped her arm around my shoulder and smiled at me, I gave in to the laughter, pushed aside the niggling voices.

Like a squirrel, I felt compelled to store every spare scrap of affection I could find. You never knew when winter would strike and make the scraps scarce again.

It wasn’t until we reached the barn door that Mom’s smile slipped.

I followed her gaze and realized what she was thinking. “I’m sorry I left the door open. I was in a hurry and forgot.”

Her brows lowered at that news. And then she laughed it off. “Actually, I’m relieved it was you. This time,” she tacked on hastily. “You need to be more careful in the future.”

The thing was, I was pretty sure I had closed the barn door. But as we ran from the barn back to the house, the tiny lie felt worth it. There was no sense in making Mom worry unnecessarily. I mean, despite her obvious jitters, we were in Clearwater. What could possibly happen here?

The question I should have been asking myself was, how had I possibly heard Maisey banging her feed bucket from so far away? But the thought didn’t even occur to me. Not until it was way too late.





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he next morning, I felt the happiest I had in weeks. My newfound camaraderie with Mom made my smiles come easier and the hallways seem less overwhelming. Kaylee snapped her fingers just as we reached her locker. “Shoot, I left my economics book in the car—I wanted to try to study for that quiz during homeroom.”

Yesterday’s weirdness seemed to have blown over. I hadn’t mentioned her little freakout, and in return, she hadn’t brought up mine.

“Do you want me to go with you?” I said, just as the warning bell rang.

She speed-walked toward the main door, fast as her three-inch heels would allow. “No, you go ahead,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll only be a second.”

I settled into my usual spot in homeroom. Even though I purposely tried to ignore the students already in class, apparently that was too big a challenge for my analytical brain. Five boys, three girls. None of them Hunter.

I smiled at all of them anyway.

I busied myself digging a notebook out of my backpack. Still, I sensed Hunter’s presence several seconds before he dropped into Kaylee’s spot next to me.

“Hey,” he said in his soft voice, those blue eyes fixed on me beneath a sweep of messy hair.

“Hi.” Nervous flutters kicked up inside me. Silly. He was just a boy. Okay, not entirely true. He was a boy Kaylee happened to like.

Kaylee, who’d be back any second, expecting to sit in her spot.

Nervous flutters or not, the boy had to sit somewhere else.

Just then, Hunter dropped his backpack on the desk and laid his head against it. Closed his eyes.

My heart softened into what felt like a big, mushy pile of goo. He looked so tired, young even, with his dark eyelashes fanning across the tops of his cheeks. His mouth softened, too. I had a sudden yearning to trace that lopsided top lip with my finger.

Whoa.

I was so caught up in that crazy thought that the footsteps I’d heard clicking in the hall didn’t register at first. The kind of clicking made by high-heeled shoes.

Oh, no.

I straightened. “Hunter, you need to—” The final bell cut me off, as did the tiny gasp I heard from the open doorway behind me.

Kaylee stood there, freshly glossed lips parted in surprise. She took two steps toward her occupied desk before pausing to smooth her purple tunic dress uncertainly, gaze flitting from Hunter to me.

“Kaylee, hey! Hunter was just hanging out here for a sec—” I started, only to be cut off again, this time by Mrs. Stegmeyer.

“Ms. Daniels, please take an empty seat if you don’t want to be marked tardy,” our homeroom teacher said over the top of her magazine.

Kaylee’s gaze lingered on her usual spot for a millisecond longer, prompting me into action. “Hunter,” I whispered. His eyelashes swept open. The task of kicking him out of the seat became a hundred times harder under that sleepy blue stare. “Um, would you mind moving? This is where Kaylee sits.”

He sat up, glanced at Kaylee like he was seeing her for the first time, then swooped up his backpack and stood. “Yeah. Sorry,” he said. His sheepish grin was the best parting gift he could give, because I could tell it practically melted her on the spot. He loped over to the empty desk he’d sat in last time.

She slid into the vacated seat with a huge sigh, while Mrs. Stegmeyer tapped her nails on the desk impatiently. “He warmed it up for me,” she whispered, pretending to fan herself with a notebook. “At this very moment, I’m being warmed by Hunter Lowe’s body heat.”

A huge wave of relief hit me, prompting a louder giggle than I intended.

“Girls, please. It’s time for the announcements,” Mrs. Stegmeyer admonished.

Sure enough, the intercom screeched, followed by the overly peppy voice of our student council president.

I listened absently to news about an upcoming car wash fund-raiser while I whispered to Kaylee. “He just sort of . . . sat down. Uninvited.”

Though, truth be told, I hadn’t exactly fought him off with a stick.

She waved her hand. “Please. It’s fine.”

Fine, everything was fine.

“Girls . . . shhh!” Mrs. Stegmeyer tapped her lips and glared.

But as soon as the teacher looked away, Kaylee leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Really, don’t worry. Nothing wrong with a little healthy competition.”

What?

“Kaylee,” I started. Only to be interrupted by the loud whack of the manila attendance file as it slapped the desk.

“Last warning before I separate you,” Mrs. Stegmeyer said, her drawl thickening the way it did when she was upset.

I slouched into my chair and kept my mouth shut the rest of homeroom. But Kaylee’s comment spun through my head, over and over again.

Healthy competition? Over Hunter? I didn’t like the sound of that, not one tiny bit.





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aylee’s decrepit old truck bounced us down the dirt road, away from Clearwater High. Between the tires crunching over uneven terrain and the ancient engine’s stuttering roar, the noise level was pretty high. Inside the cab, though, the silence was deafening. Kaylee clutched the zebra-striped steering wheel cover and refused to acknowledge me, her gaze directed straight ahead.

“Kaylee, I swear—I had nothing to do with Hunter transferring into my English class.” Of course, I’d been pleading my innocence for the past ten minutes, and none of it had yet to make a dent in Kaylee’s stony expression.

So much for her “healthy” competition.

I sighed and looked out the passenger window. From far off on the hillside, I saw flickering black strands slap a gleaming mahogany neck. The gorgeous stallion threw his head again before rearing up and launching his massive body into an explosive gallop.

Horses. Horses were one of two things that had kept me from losing my mind when I first moved here.

The other thing was Kaylee.

I peeked at her face again, but her usual smiling mouth remained tight and silent. I couldn’t remember a single ride in this truck without a soundtrack of relentless Kaylee babble to make me laugh. Not until now.

A perfect image of Hunter’s face, with his careless fall of soft brown waves framing a pair of intense blue eyes, crystallized in my head. Stupid. Picturing him right now only made this harder. But even if Hunter Lowe was the most interesting thing to happen to Clearwater in, well, ever—at least since I’d lived here—a silly crush couldn’t take precedence over a friendship. That wasn’t the kind of person Mom had raised me to be.

I needed to put a stop to this. I wanted babbling Kaylee back. After all, she was the only thing that had kept me from being a complete outcast at school. Surely I owed her for that.

“Look, this is ridiculous. We shouldn’t be fighting over some guy . . . just because he’s not into Carhartt and partying down by the river,” I added, to lighten the mood. Though there was much more to Hunter than that. Something about the quiet way he studied me with those blue eyes when I talked, like he really cared about what I was saying, made the rest of the world just melt away.

And I needed that right now, the world melting away. But not at someone else’s expense.

I thought I saw Kaylee’s death grip on the wheel relax, just a teensy bit. Springs creaked as she adjusted her position. But no smile.

“I’m not sure, Mila,” Kaylee said, finally glancing my way. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Look, I swear—I did not tell him to switch to my English class. You can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”

While I would have loved to believe that he’d transferred because of me, he’d told me the move was solely based on his desire for a more ambitious reading list.

She released the wheel with one hand to smooth the neck of her aqua cowl-necked sweater, one of her amazing do-it-yourself creations. “Please. He’d think I was an idiot.” But her voice didn’t hold quite the edge it had just moments ago.

She peeked at me, nibbling her lower lip. Then her shoulders deflated. “Though I’m doing a pretty good job of acting like one on my own, aren’t I?”

“Hey, me too,” I said. Not thinking so much of Hunter as I was that time when I’d grabbed her arm.

Her smile was timid, not the carefree Kaylee smile I was used to. Nevertheless, I’d take what I could get.

“So, let’s just—wait! Oh my god, there he is!” Kaylee yelled.

For an instant, my logic deserted me. No . . . she couldn’t mean . . .

My eyes flew open as the brakes squealed. I turned my head, searched for the object of Kaylee’s pointing finger. Confusion hit first, followed by a flood of disappointment. Hunter. She’d meant Hunter.

Of course she had.

I grabbed hold of my fleeing composure while we bump-bump-bumped our way to the side of the road.

“Roll down your window, hurry!” Kaylee said, finger combing a few flyaway pieces of hair into order. Hunter was just turning to see who approached, his hands rammed into the pockets of black cargo pants.

I couldn’t prevent the rush of excitement at the sight of him. Even though I gave myself stern orders to play it cool. I cranked the old rotor window down, the one that stuck for Kaylee’s little brother and her mom but never gave me any problems at all.

Without the glass as a barrier, the smell of manure grew even headier.

“Hi, Mila,” Hunter said. As usual, I noticed the way his lopsided smile upturned his lips, the left side just a little higher than the right. When he tilted his head, the hood of his black long-sleeved shirt pulled loose, unleashing that now-familiar tumble of brown waves. Waves that looked incredibly soft and practically begged for my fingers to run through them.

Okay, I really needed to stop. Kaylee and I had a deal.

I commanded my voice to sound nonchalant. “Hi, Hunt—”

“Hunter!” Kaylee squealed. “Hey, why don’t you come with us? We’re on our way to Dairy Queen, and you seriously don’t want to pass up one of the best things this town has to offer!” Kaylee leaned across me for a better view, forcing me to smash my head against the crunchy old headrest if I didn’t want to inhale a mouthful of her grapefruit-scented hair.

And wait . . . since when were we on our way to Dairy Queen?

I managed to wrestle my head out from behind hers. Hunter’s blue gaze immediately captured mine, searching. I got that the-world-is-fading sensation all over again. Despite my best intentions, I felt a goofy smile crawl onto my mouth. “Sounds good,” he finally said, still focused on me.

Meanwhile, Kaylee’s smile faded. She watched him watching me, and her eyes narrowed. This time, her excitement seemed forced as she bounced up and down on the seat, sending the springs into a squeaky chorus. “Yay! Mila, you jump in the back so that Hunter can sit up front, okay? We don’t want to scare the new guy off by making him ride in the back of a pickup!”

Ha ha, very funny. “Good one, Kaylee, but how about I just squeeze closer to you?”

The edges of Kaylee’s mouth fell. She lowered her voice. “What, so that you can be all pressed up against him like a saddle on a horse?” she hissed.

Seriously? “You told me less than two minutes ago that you were acting like an idiot. Well, guess what? You’re doing it again,” I whispered back.

Kaylee glared at me before gesturing to Hunter. “Wait a second—Mila was just getting out. She wanted some fresh air, anyway.”

I gawked, trying to convince myself she was only acting crazy because Hunter had caught her by surprise. Later we’d laugh at her insanity.

Until she lowered her voice and said, “My truck, my rules. Get in the back or walk.”

Okay, so laughing wasn’t an option.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Out.”

More than anything, it was the sudden tension in my hands that made me open the door and hop out. I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t use them to grab Kaylee again.

Possibly around her neck this time.

When I leaped onto the grass before he could get in, Hunter’s smile fell. “Are you leaving?”

“No, just getting in the back,” I said. Feeling like an utter moron at the surprised rise of his brows. “It’s, uh, nice to see the landscape from a different perspective sometimes.”

After letting loose with that little bit of ridiculousness, I clamped my big mouth shut and stomped around to the back of the pickup, climbed onto the dented rear bumper, and vaulted into the bed with a little more force than necessary. The stupid Chevy groaned.

“That’s crazy,” Hunter said. “Why don’t I—”

“Nope, I’m good. I like it back here. It’s nice.” It was much easier pretending when I didn’t have to look at him.

“Are you sure?” He sounded doubtful.

“Yep. Totally.”

After another few moments, the front passenger door whined its way shut. The truck started lumbering down the road.

I scrambled across the bed so I could slump against the cab. Never in a million years would anyone have forced me into the back of a pickup truck in Philly. It was almost barbaric. Not to mention illegal.

I stamped my foot on the bed, hard. So hard that I managed to chip the paint.

Served her right. Kaylee had a lot to answer for later. No wonder she and Parker were such good friends.

The truck gathered speed. I had to throw my hands up to keep from eating my hair. The road noise was pretty loud, but I could still catch the conversation going on inside the cab. The back window must have been cracked.

“Are you sure she’s okay back there?” Hunter asked. I pictured him craning his head to look at me in the truck bed and kept my eyes on the trees fading behind us. He didn’t need to see me with my face all red from the wind or my hair flapping around like it was alive.

One of the first things I’d learned in Clearwater: no one ever looks good with truck hair.

“Oh, she’s fine. Like I said, she loves to ride in back. Must be a Philly thing.”

I glared at the tailgate.

“That’s right, she’s from Philly. When did she move here again?”

“About a month ago.”

“I’ve heard Philly’s got a great art scene. Did she love it there?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Even from the back I could hear the annoyance coating Kaylee’s words like the fine layer of dust that coated the truck bed, and now, by virtue of my new seating arrangement, my jeans. “Hey, here’s something fun that you can’t do in a big city like Philly . . . practice your drag-racing skills. C’mon, let’s see what old Butch here is really made of!”

And then the rest of her words processed. Drag racing? Drag racing? Had she totally forgotten me back here?

“Hey, Kaylee!” I was just reaching around to rap on the window and get her attention when the truck bolted forward. My body lurched and my palms smacked the metal bed. Kaylee’s whoop from up front was followed by an even bigger burst of speed. I grabbed for the side of the truck with my left hand.

My hair whipped my face as the truck went faster and faster, bouncing over the pockmarked road on less-than-optimal suspension. I could hear Hunter urging Kaylee to slow down, hear the thrum of the engine as she gunned it harder, and feel the truck accelerate. But under it all, I started to feel something new, something unexpected: a tiny thrill of exhilaration. The rush of embracing something dangerous started to eclipse the fear, sort of like when Bliss had taken me over that jump.

This was actually kind of fun.

The wind caught my gasping laugh and yanked it away as I slowly released my hand. Maybe this is what happened when you moved from big towns to tiny rural hole-in-the-walls . . . maybe it turned you into an adrenaline junkie. It was like my body was preparing for something it was meant to be doing. This really was fun. Great, even. I hadn’t had this much fun since—

The slide to the left was sudden. So was the hard jerk to the right that followed. My arm scraped metal . . . just before I felt a surge of nothingness as my body went airborne.

One second I was flying, and the next, the scream tearing through my throat was silenced by the crushing impact.

I landed arm first on something sharp, felt a strange tearing sensation. Then I was tumbling. The world careened in a crazy spin as I bounced once, hit the ground again, and continued to roll. Tiny visual details repeated themselves—leaves, grass, blue sky—while I flipped around and around.

I landed at the bottom of the hill, staring up at a low patch of white clouds. Clouds of the stratocumulus type, if I wasn’t mistaken.

My lips moved, but no sound came out, my voice strangled by the same shock that glued me to the ground. Shock, that had to be it. What else could explain the fact that I was lying here, analyzing types of clouds instead of massively freaking out?

Other concerns ripped through my head. Like, what on earth had just happened? Why wasn’t I even the tiniest bit out of breath? Or—oh, god—why was I barely feeling any pain? Had I damaged my spine? What if I couldn’t walk?

I wiggled my fingers, then my toes. So far, so good. I climbed to my feet, stunned to discover my dignity felt more damaged than anything else. I’d been unbelievably lucky.

“Mila!” Hunter’s sure strides quickened his descent down the hill, Kaylee tripping after him as fast as her black platform boots would allow. That’s when the anger started to flare. “Kaylee Daniels, what is wrong with you? When your mom finds out, you are going to be grounded for life! You could have killed me!” I brushed at the grass clinging to my sweatshirt. Grass stains, I was going to have grass stains, I thought, somewhat clinically.

“Oh my god, Mila! Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry!” Kaylee sobbed, still several yards away. “Lie back down! You could have a back injury or something!”

Hunter raced to my side first. “She’s right, you need to sit down. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I . . . I don’t think so,” I said. Which really didn’t make any sense, but I wasn’t about to complain. “But my left arm feels kind of weird. On the outside, above my elbow.”

“Here, let me see.” Hunter cradled my wrist and lifted the flap of shredded material that used to be my sleeve. Since I was watching his face, I saw when his expression morphed from concern to shock, saw his eyes widen. “What the . . . ? Mila?”

This couldn’t be good.

“Is it really that bad? Or are you just the type of guy who gets all squeamish at the tiniest drop of blood?” I twisted to get a better look at whatever had turned Hunter into a frozen, gaping statue, just as Kaylee stumbled up.

“I was so scared—I was sure you’d landed on that rusted hunk of metal and killed yourself!” she said, pointing at the mangled remains of a car door near the top of the hill. “Thank—” Her shriek accompanied the hiss of my inhalation.

“Mila? Oh my god, Mila!” she said. “What—what is that? Because it isn’t—”

“—blood,” I breathed at the same time.

All three of us stared at my arm. And stared. And stared. It was like none of us could believe what we were seeing.

My arm wasn’t bleeding at all. There was a huge, gaping tear in my skin, but no blood. No blood. No blood because instead of blood, a thin film of red had ruptured, allowing some disgusting milky-white liquid to leach from the wound and trickle down to my elbow.

And it got worse. Inside the cut, inside me, was this transparent tube with a minuscule jagged fissure shaped like a row of clamped teeth. And inside that? Something that looked like wires. Tiny silver wires, twisted like the double helixes we studied in biology.

No. No, no. I was hallucinating. I’d hit my head, after all, and I was hallucinating. That was the only explanation that made sense.

I snatched my arm away and glanced from Kaylee’s horrified face to Hunter’s shocked one. Of course, if I was hallucinating, so were they.

My hair whipped the air as my head shook side to side. I didn’t understand any of this. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . . this is— Kaylee?” I lifted my hand, the one attached to my good arm, toward her. Only to watch her flinch away.

“Shhh, Mila, it’s okay. Let’s get you back in the truck,” Hunter said, wrapping a tentative arm around my waist. “Can you walk if you lean on me a little?”

“Hospital,” Kaylee blurted. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

My head shook faster. “No, no hospital! How can I go to the hospital, when . . .” We all looked at my arm again, and we could all fill in the rest. How could I go to the hospital when I was such a freak? When they’d ask me questions and I’d have no answers? “No hospital,” I repeated grimly. “No, no, NO!”

“It’s okay, calm down. Kaylee? Kaylee! Could you help us out here a little? Come make sure she’s steady on her feet.”

For a second, I thought Kaylee was going to refuse. She looked ready to bolt. “Fine.”

She arranged herself flush with my side, her reluctance evident in the way her arm slipped around my waist without actually touching me.

As soon as he saw Kaylee had me, Hunter stripped off his black hoodie, revealing a thin gray shirt underneath. He carefully wrapped the hoodie around my wound. Unlike Kaylee, his hands were firm and steady. He didn’t so much as flinch.

“There you go—that should be okay for now.” He gently tugged me away from Kaylee, wrapped a firm arm around my waist, and started leading me up the hill.

The ride home was as silent as the ride out had been. The entire way, Hunter cradled my hand in his and watched me with hard-to-read eyes. Eyes that were probably trying to hide his stark horror over finding out I was some kind of freak of nature, a horror that echoed my own.

Kaylee refused to say a word. Actually, she wouldn’t even look at us.

And all I could think was: no blood.

By the time we pulled up into our driveway, I was desperate to escape, even as dread crept through my chest on spiderlike legs. Because if anyone had answers, it would be Mom. And while part of me clamored for those answers, a tiny part, deep inside, whispered that maybe I was better off not knowing.

I scrambled out the door before anyone could speak, mumbled, “See you later,” and tumbled into the late-afternoon air, a chill sweeping over me that hadn’t been present before. Because even if the tiny part of me was right, it didn’t matter. I had to know the truth.

As I rushed through the guesthouse front door, I told myself, You’re blowing it all out of proportion, Mila. Mom will explain it, and everything will be fine.

I couldn’t have been further from the truth if I’d tried.





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closed the door quietly behind me and just stood there in the entryway, staring right at the empty green-and-tan plaid couch without really seeing it. Dazed, and wishing there was a way to rewind the last hour of my life. Rewind and erase.

With a deep breath, I shoved open the white swinging door that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, to find Mom rummaging in the white walk-in pantry.

The sight of her slim, jean-clad figure, shuffling through cereal boxes and containers like today was any other day, gave me a sudden urge to shake her. My arm looked like something out of a nightmare, and she was looking for a snack?

When she turned around, a bag of her favorite dried pineapple in hand, she smiled and said, “Hey, honey. How was school today?”

I just stood, wordless, staring into Mom’s familiar face. It was so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that sometime, somewhere, she had started keeping things from me. But when? Why?

Was she sheltering me from something she didn’t think I could understand? Not that it mattered. It was like I could feel the fragile bonds of last night’s reconciliation snapping around us under the strain of her lies.

By the time I opened my mouth to ask, her astute gaze had fallen on the hoodie wrapped around my arm. Hunter’s hoodie. “Oh no,” she breathed, her eyes closing as if to block out the sight. Her sharp inhale pierced the room, a harbinger of bad things to come. But when she opened her eyes, efficient, capable Mom was back. The Mom who hunted noises in the night with flashlights. The Mom who didn’t let anything, not even the knowledge that she’d just been trapped in a lie, faze her. “Show me.”

Show me? Didn’t she know she was doing this all wrong? She was supposed to tell me everything was going to be okay.

Why wasn’t she doing that?

“Show me,” she repeated, louder, when I didn’t move.

Slowly, I reached over and untied Hunter’s hoodie with my free hand, let it collapse onto the cheerful blue-and-white tile floor. Contrary to my fervent wishing, the alien parts protruding from my arm had not disappeared. The white liquid had ceased leaking, but the twisted wires, the plastic—they were still there, like the guts of a child’s mechanical toy.

Mom gasped. “What happened? To do this kind of damage, you would have had to hit something sharp at an incredibly high velocity!”

When Mom said “something sharp,” Kaylee’s words clicked in my head.

I was sure you’d landed on that rusted hunk of metal.

“I was thrown from the back of Kaylee’s truck,” I murmured, but Mom wasn’t listening. She was too busy inspecting my arm. I scrutinized her expression, searching for even a trace of the shock I’d felt when I’d first seen my injury. The shock I still felt. But there was nothing. No exclamations of disbelief, no sobs, no cries of horror. Nothing at all to indicate that the interior makeup of my arm was news to her.

The flare of hope that maybe, somehow, Mom hadn’t known about this, known that my arm was completely freaktastic and had just failed to mention it to me, smothered to death, right there, in my chest.

Mom’s own chest rose and fell under her soft blue tee. She reached for my hands. “Mila. I know this is hard, but I need you to listen.”

I allowed her to take them. And waited. Waited for an explanation that could make sense out of this. After all, a simple, logical explanation had to exist. It had to.

Mom’s cheeks showed an uncharacteristic pallor. “How many people saw this?” she demanded. When I just stared at her, dumbfounded by her reaction, she grabbed my shoulder and actually shook me. “How many?”

“Just . . . just two. Kaylee and another friend.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! You’re starting to freak me out—please, just tell me what’s going on!”

Her grip on my shoulders eased. Resignation settled over her face. “Follow me.”

That simple command gave permission for the dam inside me to burst, unleashing wave after wave of craziness and anxiety. I followed her down the hallway, and by the time we arrived at her bedroom, it was a wonder I wasn’t shaking.

I wanted to turn and run. To tell her to forget that I’d just demanded an explanation, to forget the whole thing. We could tape some kind of permanent bandage over my arm, pretend it didn’t exist.

I wanted to run. Instead, I followed her into the master bedroom.

She headed for her antique mahogany dresser and squatted before it. The bottom drawer, always obstinate, finally popped open.

I stared blankly at the assortment of colorful folded T-shirts, wondering what on earth they had to do with my alien arm. Then Mom yanked the drawer out completely, set it aside, and peered into the dresser. I squatted next to her and immediately saw her target. In the very back corner, a bit of silver gleamed under a piece of masking tape.

A key.

Once she had the key in hand, Mom led me into the laundry room, halting just in front of the door to the garage. Finally she turned, smoothing my hair away from my cheek before dropping her hand back to her side. “Mila, before we go any further, I need you to know that I really do care. In fact, I believe now, more than ever, that you’re worth all the risks.”

Those words froze me to the core.

Inside the garage, she led me to a bunch of empty moving boxes, arranged neatly against the far back wall. Or at least I’d assumed they were empty. After dragging down the top three, she reached inside the bottom one and withdrew a shiny silver metal box by its handle. An oversized toolbox.

As she turned to carry the box into the house, I flinched away to avoid touching it. My body’s reaction to knowing, without a doubt, that whatever was locked away inside that innocuous-looking container was likely to change my life forever.

When we reached the living room, Mom set the box on the coffee table and pointed to the overstuffed green couch. “Have a seat, Mila. This is going to take a while.”

I sat. The silver key headed for the lock. Three seconds until my life exploded.

The key turned. Two seconds.

The lid opened. One second.

And . . .

Whatever crazy ideas I’d had about the contents of the box, I could say with certainty that none of them involved a silver iPod and matching earbuds. Which were exactly the items Mom withdrew.

“Here. Listen to this while I fix up your arm. It will explain everything.”

Mom looked away, her strong, capable fingers brushing quickly under her eyes. Then she extended the earbuds toward me. Two round white circles, only a quarter inch in diameter each. Nestled like tiny bombs in her upturned palm.

I hesitated. Did I really want to know? Really? Because whatever was on there was bad enough to make Nicole Daily cry.

No, the truth was, I didn’t want to know. But I had to.

My fingers curled around the earbuds. I shoved them into my ears before I could change my mind. Mom withdrew more items from the box—a pen-sized laser, a pair of crazy-looking tweezers, goggles, and a tiny screwdriver—tools that seemed perfect for servicing a broken laptop. She saw me staring and managed a faint smile. “To fix your arm,” she said, sounding like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Uh-huh, I thought as I eyed a screwdriver. Totally normal.

“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”

Then she hit play on the iPod, flooding my ears with a deep male drawl, and everything else fell away. Well, everything except the lingering thought that Mom had lied. Because while there wasn’t pain in my arm, the words spewing from the stranger were another story.

They hurt. They hurt like hell.





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he very first words the man with the matter-of-fact Southern drawl uttered made my entire world shatter.

“MILA, or Mobile Intel Lifelike Android, is the military’s current experiment in artificial intelligence. The MILA project is cofunded by a special top-clearance segment of the CIA and the military, so as to produce a supercovert robot spy that can infiltrate sleeper cells and then record all of their movements and intelligence.”

I groped for the pause button, pushed it. Stared into space as the words penetrated. Mobile Intel Lifelike Android. Android. My name wasn’t a shortened combination of Mia and Lana, it was an acronym. And it meant . . .

No way. There was no way. That was ridiculous, un-believable. The stupidest thing I’d ever heard.

I went to yank the earbuds out, consumed by an urge to chuck the iPod at the wall, to smash it into a million pieces . . . and then my gaze fell on my mom. My mom, who was currently using a laser to seal the tube in my arm shut.

And just like that, it hit me. Destroying the messenger would do me no good. Not when I couldn’t escape the reality unfolding right in front of my eyes.

I hit play, and the voice continued its detached monologue.

“Although the MILA 2.0—” The! THE! Like I was an object, a thing! And 2.0? What did that even mean? “—is physically indistinguishable from an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, its brain is a reverse-engineered nanocomputer, a complex mix of transistors and live cell technology that gives it unique capabilities. These include exceptional reflexes and strength, superhuman memory skills, and the ability to hack computer systems, among many others. It can also evoke appropriate emotions, based on environmental and physical stimuli.”

I . . . what was this? A nanocomputer? Evoke appropriate emotions? Evoke? This person couldn’t possibly be trying to tell me . . . he couldn’t be saying . . . there was just no way. Of course my emotions were real. I felt things all the time.

My throat constricted, as if to confirm my belief.

“The rest of its structure is also a conglomeration of human and manmade, but mostly synthetic. Its body is comprised of cyberdermis, synthetic tissue infused with a polymer hydrogel lying just under bioengineered skin that is exceptionally strong and resistant to injury and also holds receptors to carry sensation signals to the nanobrain—though pain receptors are very sparse, only one one thousandth of the amount found in a typical human.”

I recalled the fall from the truck, my worry that I’d damaged my spinal cord. Suddenly Mom’s insistence on slow horseback rides made complete and terrible sense. She hadn’t been terrified that I’d hurt myself—on the contrary. She’d been worried that I’d fall and the whole no-pain thing would lead to questions. It was amazing it hadn’t happened before.

Wait a second. How had it not happened before? How, in sixteen years of life, had I not noticed that I had little to no pain sensation?

That’s when the brutal wave of reality really hit. The voice had said that the MILA 2.0 was physically indistinguishable from a sixteen-year-old girl. Meaning . . . he was also saying I’d never been any age other than sixteen.

Meaning . . . those memories I had of being younger? Lies. All of them.

According to him, I’d been “born” exactly as I was now.

Nausea flooded me. Which, given everything I’d just heard, made no sense. None of this did.

I was human. I was.

“Its endoskeleton mixes tightly woven braids of fiber optics encased by tubes of transparent ceramic hybrid that is very difficult to break and easy to repair, and its body utilizes a unique technology that meshes human with machine by way of embedding nanotransistors into live cell membranes. Instead of a heart, Mila has a sophisticated pump to supply energy to her partially organic cells, which can generate their own oxygen. Breathing for it is just a computer program to simulate human function.”

No heart? I had no heart? No, that was absurd. Ridiculous. I could feel it there, in my chest, beating away.

Unless . . . unless that was the “sophisticated pump” the voice was talking about. My hand flew to my chest, my fingers spreading across my shirt and pressing inward. A second passed, and then I felt the faint upward motion. Beating. Something under there was definitely beating. I hoped the action would soothe me, but instead of the fist-shaped, vein and artery-covered organ I’d seen in biology class, all I could picture was a pool pump. A bit of machinery stuck under my ribs, masquerading as life.

Of course, that was assuming I had ribs to begin with.

I hit pause again, my gaze flying to Mom, but her goggled head was bent over my arm, her focus on aiming the laser’s bright-red line at a spot within it.

It felt like no more than a tickle.

I hit play.

“In an especially exciting development, the MILA 2.0 goes one step beyond just approximating feelings. By using experimental data on living girls, we were able to store the visceral and physical sensations that emotions produce and re-create them. Thus, the MILA 2.0 actually feels the same things that humans do, which we anticipate will facilitate blending in with subjects and add authenticity to her cover.”

Cover. Oh my god. Did he mean . . . my cover as a human?

“MILA contains just enough human cells to simulate biological functions, but it is in reality a machine. The launch date for this exciting project is August twenty-second.”

The recording cut off, but the ramifications of that last sentence remained. August 22. Just five days before Mom and I arrived in Clearwater.

I couldn’t even move, couldn’t breathe. Guess that not-needing-air thing really came in handy. The thought made me laugh, a gasping, hysterical gurgle that made Mom drop her tools and grasp my hand.

Mom. Just another lie in a whole string of them.

The pain in my chest, in my nonheart, was excruciating. Whoever had worked on “evoking appropriate emotional responses” had done a bang-up job.

Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I would wake up and realize this was just a nightmare.

Maybe I’d even wake up back in Philly, with Dad still alive. A man who, if I believed the voice, had never been a part of my life.

As for “Mom”—well, according to the voice, I was more genetically related to our toaster than I was to her.

Another gurgle erupted.

“Is this all true? It can’t be, right? Please tell me it’s some kind of sick joke. Please!” But when Mom looked up from packing away the tools, all I saw was the sadness in her eyes. No matter what, I knew this was real to her.

“Mila, I’m so sorry. . . . I wish—”

“I don’t care what you wish,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Just tell me what’s going on. Where did I come from? Why am I here? And how—how could I not be real?” I whirled and faced a watercolor of a horse, wrapping my arms around my waist. I immediately wondered if that action had been programmed, too.

“You are real,” Mom said in her soothing calm-down-and-listen-to-me voice. I bet she didn’t know that, right now, it had the opposite effect. It made me want to jump up and down, scream bloody murder, and shake that poise right out of her. “That’s why I stole you from the military labs. I worked with you every day, Mila. Actually, I’m the bioengineer who helped create you. I know that you aren’t just a weapon . . . you’re too human for that. So yes, I stole you—to keep you safe. You deserved more than what the army had to offer.”

Stolen. I was stolen goods.

Mom’s hand smoothed my hair aside before gently stroking the nape of my neck. Everything inside me wanted to believe her, to know that she really did love me, that I really was part human. She’d always been there for me, when I was little, when Dad died . . .

. . . except—none of that was real. But how was that possible? I could see the memories etched in my head, so perfectly clear, playing out behind my eyes like detailed videos.

Like videos.

The pressure of her fingers on my neck went from comforting to oppressive in an instant. I jerked away and whirled to face her. “How did you do it? All those memories I have?”

Mom—no, Nicole—sighed, her shaking fingers reaching up to remove her glasses so she could rub the bridge of her nose. “I programmed them. The reason some of them feel especially real is because I created them using a virtual reality program, which allowed me to actually insert you into the memory.”

Programmed. My entire past, everything I’d understood to be true about my life, my family, what had formed me as a person. Stripped away with one simple word. Programmed.

“And the fire?” I whispered. “What kind of a person makes that up? And wait—is your name even Nicole?”

“Yes, it’s Nicole, but Laurent, not Daily.” Mom—Nicole—sighed and rubbed her head. “I was just trying to buy us time, to figure out a way to tell you! My first priority was to keep us safe. The only way I could make sure to protect you was to make you think you were a real girl. There’s no doubt in my head that the government is searching for us, with every resource they have at their disposal. Why do you think I chose Clearwater? I disabled your tracking device, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find us.”

And it was just going from bad to worse. Tracking device, like I was some kind of runaway dog. Except—at least dogs were truly alive. Whereas I was some kind of monster. Part living cells, mostly hardware.

All freak.

She made another move to touch me, but I batted her hand away. “Don’t! I don’t even understand how . . . how can any of this be true? Manufactured emotions?” A tight ache squeezed my throat—programmed? Real? How could I possibly know?—and I lowered my voice to a whisper. “If I’m not human, why does this hurt so much?”

“It’s a little like phantom limb syndrome . . . only for emotions. You might not have the same parts as a regular human, but you can still sense the feeling in those parts when you’re in an emotional state—pressure, warmth, chill, visceral, all of it. Phantom sensations, if you will, copied from the feelings of a teenage human girl. Via an elaborate neuromatrix, we prewired your brain to believe you were formed just like a human body, so it would accept all those sensations as real.”

Prewired. Neuromatrix. It was too much.

“And what about Dad’s shirt?” I sneered, using air quotes around the word “Dad.” “Was that just to buy us time, too? And that stupid necklace?”

Before she could grasp my intentions, I’d lunged forward, grabbed the emerald around her neck, and yanked. The fragile chain snapped, and when it did, I chucked the entire thing across the room.

“Mila!” she gasped before scrambling after it.

I raced down the hall, rushing into my room and locking the door behind me, desperate to escape before I burst into tears.

I threw myself facedown on my bed as the first sob hit, felt the warm tears pool under my cheeks. Tears I wasn’t even sure were real. Were they made up of some weird solution, prompted by “appropriate” environmental stimuli? Was I really sad, or was a computer program telling me to feel sad?

One minute I was a normal girl, the next . . . a monster.

That thought urged me to my feet and over to the oval-shaped mirror topping my white dresser. Frankenstein did not stare back at me. Just my own face. Were my eyes a slightly-too-improbable shade of leaf green? I reached up to slide my fingers through my hair. And my hair—how did it grow? Or didn’t it? Those memories of haircuts I had . . . they must all be fake. Not Mom—Nicole, I corrected once again. But even knowing what I did, calling her by name just didn’t feel right.

Next I touched the wetness on my cheeks. The liquid felt like real tears, but then, how did I even know what real tears felt like? How could I believe anything ever again, when everything I knew about myself was completely false?

Even my face, my familiar heart-shaped face with the extra-wide lower lip and the tiniest smattering of freckles fanning out from my nose. Not real. Not real.

Not. Real.

Before I knew it, my fist flew forward, my urge to destroy that phony reflection eclipsing everything else. Glass shattered and a jagged avalanche spilled across the dresser like a cascade of lies. Glittering lies, strewn in front of me as a reminder of everything I’d lost. Of everything I’d never had.

Once the rush of emotion faded, I surveyed the damage. Stupid. Not only had I made a huge mess, but the act hadn’t done anything but reinforce my otherness. No blood seeping through cuts in my knuckles, and only the faintest of pink scratches. Worst of all—no pain in my hand to speak of.

No, the only pain I was allowed was choking the nonexistent life from my fake heart.

Sweeping the shards onto the floor, I stormed over to the bed and slid between the sheets. Threw the pillow over my head in an effort to block out the world.

But I couldn’t block out the memories, false or not. Couldn’t block out the internal pain I shouldn’t even be able to feel.

Couldn’t keep those annoying phony tears that felt so, so real from flowing.





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ater that night I was slumped in Bliss’s stall, knees bent, my left cheek resting against my pajama bottoms. Just staring at her dark leg like I might find the answers lurking there.

The familiar, musky scent of horse engulfed me, along with the slightly sweet smell of hay. It was quiet inside, except for the occasional snort or shuffling of hooves.

Quiet, but not safe.

Less than twenty-four hours before, this barn had been my refuge. A place where I could come to recover from Dad’s death in peace, under the nonjudgmental eyes of the horses. In my grief-stricken state, I’d never once believed that something worse could happen.

I’d never once imagined that discovering Dad hadn’t really died would haunt me in ways that his death never could.

Nowhere felt safe anymore.

“Why couldn’t I be a horse?” I asked, the sound of my voice making Bliss swing her massive head toward me, her huge oval nostrils snuffling at my hair. That simple gesture made my throat tighten.

At least she didn’t care if I was a freak.

I reached behind my head to rub her soft muzzle, ignoring the stupid tears that refused to quit welling up. “You wouldn’t even understand if you weren’t . . . normal. Not that any of that’s true, right? I mean, look at me—I’m asking a horse a question. Could it get any more human than that?”

Outside the barn, only a few stars escaped the thick cover of late-night clouds, leaving the sky dark and depressing. Besides the rustling of horses, an occasional cricket chirped. An owl hooted from a nearby tree. But I refused to go back to my room until I was sure my mom—Nicole—was sleeping. Once she’d poked her head in and swept up the disaster I’d made of the mirror, she’d taken to hovering.

Yes, hovering. As if acting like a stereotypical teen’s mom would make everything better. Right now, the sight of her slim, capable figure and concerned face filled me with violence: simultaneous and disparate needs to rage against more mirrors and to break down and sob in her arms.

Break down in the arms of the person who’d betrayed me—that would never happen. Still, with both of us occupying the guesthouse, I found it impossible to sit still, let alone sleep.

Sleep. About that. Did I actually sleep? Or was sleeping for me just another one of those “humanlike programs” that someone had had installed? Like a new version of Windows?

It would explain why I woke at the slightest motion or noise, perfectly lucid and alert.

I buried my head between my knees, taking deep breaths to combat the panic-induced dizziness. None of what Mom said made sense, I told myself. If I were an android, why did I feel dizzy in the first place? And how could deep breaths help, when, according to iPod Man, I didn’t have any lungs? When I combed my fingers through the hay, how could I feel the exact scratchy texture with fake skin? Suddenly, all of it seemed like an elaborate scheme. A sanity test. If it weren’t for my stupid arm . . .

My mind shied away from that topic. From that and my quick reflexes, my strength. And mostly from the explanations that Mom had offered. I didn’t want to think about any of it for too long, afraid that if I did, I’d start to believe.

I just wanted to pretend today had never happened. Go back to being regular Mila. A girl fumbling her way through a loss in a new town.

The high-pitched notes of my ringtone yanked my head up.

I rescued my cell phone from the hay and glanced at the screen. And stared, my eyes scanning the number over and over again in case I’d somehow made a mistake.

Hunter.

I’d actually brought the phone to the barn to text him, but I’d chickened out and texted Kaylee instead. No response from her.

I scrambled to press send. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mila.”

Just the sound of his voice, that quiet, husky voice, made the entire debacle with Mom feel less real. Hunter Lowe—A. Real. Boy.—was calling me. The military, the CIA? Secret android project? Really?

“Hey.”

“You took off earlier. I was just . . . worried. You okay? Your arm?”

The concern in his voice leached through the phone, flooded me with an unexpected warmth. I latched onto that feeling like it was my savior. “It’s fine.” True enough. It was just the rest of my life that was a disaster.

“This might sound weird, but I’m in my car and was wondering if . . . can I come by, to check on you?”

Come by, now? To check on me?

I pressed my eyes shut, hesitating. Earlier today, I would have been beyond thrilled to have Hunter call and ask to see me. But with the click of an iPod button, everything had changed. My past, my parents, the nature of my entire existence—all of it called into question by a faceless man with a southern drawl.

“I don’t know . . . it’s late, and I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t be thrilled.”

Not that I cared what Mom thought at the moment. Still, the last thing this night needed was more drama.

“Could you sneak outside?”

I walked to the door and pushed it open, emitting a wedge of light. Besides that, nothing softened the darkness except the glow of a few determined stars. The unlit house windows suggested Mom had finally climbed into bed.

Bliss nickered. A reminder that while horses were nice, I could really use a friend who talked.

“Meet me in the barn.”

“Okay. See you in a few.”

As soon as I hung up, I realized what I’d done.

I craned my neck, brushing clinging strands of hay off my butt and tugging down the short-sleeved shirt where it had risen over my stomach. Ducks. Hunter was coming, and I was wearing flannel ducks. Then I realized how ridiculous I was being. If only greeting a boy I liked in silly pajamas was my sole worry.

After a futile attempt to comb the pillow-inflicted knots from my hair, I dropped my hands and waited. Hopefully, the sliver of light would act like a beacon.

Less than three minutes later, the muted rumble of an engine cut through the night air in the distance. It was another thirty seconds before I saw the dark shape of a Jeep heading down our street. No headlights—it had to be Hunter, in an attempt to be stealthy. Sure enough, the Jeep turned into our driveway, the tires crunching on gravel.

He turned off the engine at least twenty yards from our house. I could tell he was trying to be quiet, but even so, I caught the slight click of the car door as it opened, and again as it closed.

A few moments later he stood in front of me, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and an uncertain smile hovering at his mouth.

“Hey,” he said. Softly.

“Hey.” Also softly, since my voice wanted to freeze up at the sight of him.

The faint glow from the barn picked up the damp strands of hair clinging to the collar of his gray sweatshirt and his clean-shaven cheeks, marred only by a tiny red dot on the left side. Right above his jawbone. He smelled like soap mixed with sandalwood.

Freshly showered, definitely. Which suggested he’d used the line about being out and about anyway as an excuse to see me. That realization sent a flutter of . . . something . . . through me. Something that felt warm, alive, and very definitely human.

I put one finger to my lips and beckoned him to follow, swinging the door gently closed behind us.

Amid the rustle of horses, who snorted at the scent of a newcomer, I led Hunter farther into the barn. And then we stood there. The pair of us. Saying nothing.

“Um, do you want to sit?” I finally asked to break the silence, glancing around even though I knew a chair or a couch wasn’t about to appear out of nowhere.

“Sure.” Hunter slid down the wall next to the first stall until he reached the floor. Then he smiled and patted the spot next to him.

I sat, careful to keep space between us. Even so, I found his nearness distracting. The way his bare knee peeked out of the frayed fabric of his jeans. Even the look of the fingers that tapped away at his knee, long and lean and gentle. I wondered what those fingers would feel like, interlaced with my own.

Fearful that my expression would give my thoughts away, I traced a yellow duck on my leg to avoid looking at him.

“So . . . ,” he said, pausing.

“So . . . ,” I echoed. When he still didn’t continue, I felt a pressure inflate my chest, rising with every silent second that slipped by.

Why wasn’t he saying anything? Did he already regret coming here? Was it my arm? Maybe he was wanting to ask me about it but didn’t know how. I should just tell him.

Well, tell him the fabricated version I’d come up with between his phone call and his arrival. Get the ordeal over with already.

With a bravado I didn’t feel, I forced myself to turn my head and look at him. He did the same thing at the same exact time.

“So—”

“So—”

Our words competed again, and we both broke off. The corners of his mouth twitched up. I felt mine follow. A second later, our laughter comingled in the barn, echoing off the lofty ceiling and concrete floor.

“So you wanted to check up on me?” I said, giving him the perfect opening.

Then wished I hadn’t when he stopped laughing. His eyelashes swept low as his gaze fell to my arm. “Yeah, I did. You seemed really upset when you left.”

As Hunter continued to stare, that trapped sensation, the one from school, rushed over me. Maybe inviting him over had been a mistake. If I were smart, I’d stand up, tell him I was tired, then send him away. Tomorrow at school, things would be safer, once the memory of the accident faded and there was a hall full of kids to distract him.

But my feet neglected to cooperate. My head, my heart, everything balked. Smart was good, but right now, I needed Hunter around. Right now, he kept me anchored to the world of the living.

“So your arm, is it . . . fixed?”

Here we go. “It is, actually. No permanent damage or anything.” I rotated my wrist so he could see it from every angle. Amazing, the way Mom had fixed it with a few random tools. All that remained was a thin pink line, like a long scratch, but Mom said even that would fade within two days.

What I wouldn’t give for a scar.

He reached out to stroke the inside of my elbow, his fingers warm against my skin. Panic mixed with flutter—lots and lots of flutters.

See that? Perfectly normal teen response. Okay, maybe not so much the panic, but definitely the flutters.

“May I?” he said.

“Um, sure.”

Ever so gently, he clasped my wrist. When he traced the scratch with his other hand, I swear something inside me flipped over completely. Somersaulted. Performed an entire circus act in less than five seconds.

No way could a covert nanocomputer android spy feel like that.

“Amazing. Not really sure how it’s possible, but it’s definitely amazing. How did it happen?”

The protective way he cradled my arm sent a ball of warmth careening through my stomach. His blue eyes connected with mine, tempting my lips to swallow the lie and release the truth. I could chuck the fabrication. Get another take—his take—on the whole unbelievable thing. Because right now, it still felt surreal. The two of us, we could figure it out. Together.

Of course, there was the other, way more probable scenario to consider. The one where I told him the truth and he laughed. Right before he backed away, ran for his Jeep, and alerted the entire school that I was a nutjob of epic proportions.

The iPod Man’s drawl whispered through my head, conjuring visions of jail cells and labs and other places I wouldn’t allow my mind to go. I shivered. No one could know. Ever.

Besides, I wasn’t about to chase off the one person who made me feel the most human. Sticking with a lie was my best bet.

“My arm is a prosthetic,” I said, disappointment making my voice flat. “I was in a car accident a year ago. It’s so realistic, I almost forget it’s fake sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Yeah, me too, I wanted to say. For lying, for your completely unwarranted sympathy.

I needed a distraction. Something to steer his attention away from my arm, my past, the questions I couldn’t answer.

I pushed away from the wall, cocking my head. “Did you hear that?”

Hunter shot to his feet like his Vans were spring-loaded. “No, what was it?” he said, his eyes trained on the barn door.

My hand flew to my mouth to cover the smile that threatened to spill across my face. Hunter Lowe, who seemed so carefree and cool. Scared of a little bump in the night.

We both waited, him listening for a sound to follow the first imaginary one, and me pretending to listen. A horse snorted, followed by a solitary cricket chirp.

“Guess it was nothing,” I said a few seconds later.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, probably just one of the horses.”

His eyes flicked from me back to the door. “If your mom woke up . . .”

This time I was unable to stifle a small giggle. So that was it. Hunter was scared of being busted by Mom.

His shoulders relaxed. “Either way, I’d probably better go. Just to be safe.”

I led him to the door with slow steps, savoring every remaining moment. Once he vanished back into the night, the barn would feel empty again, robbed of his comforting presence. It would be quiet and still and lonely. “So were you really terrified of running into my mom back there? Disappointing.” I tsked.

He paused just as his lean fingers encircled the door handle. Out of nowhere, he turned and grabbed my hands.

I jumped, sending a strand of hair slipping forward into my eyes. Acutely aware that the space separating us had dwindled to mere inches.

“Yes, terrified . . . of being busted and ruining my chances to make a good first impression,” he said.

And then he stepped closer, and the entire world went still. I felt the soft swish of air on my forehead as his hand reached for my face. The warmth of his skin as his fingers slid down my wisp of stray hair. The sensation of my heart stopping as he leaned closer . . . only to pluck a loose bit of straw from the top of my head.

The smile that sprawled across his lips may have been a tinge smug as he tossed the straw to the floor. But he still didn’t make a move for the door. Instead, his hand slid under my chin, tilting my face up. My stomach coiled, my eyes closed. This, this was exactly what I needed.

One kiss, to turn my horrible nightmare into a fairy tale.

One kiss, to prove I was normal, once and for all.

One kiss, to give me a real story to tell.

But before his lips could so much as brush mine, a slamming door shattered our perfect moment. Our front door.

Mom.

Hunter released me and leaped back. I froze. For all my earlier teasing, the thought of Mom discovering I’d allowed someone onto the property at night made me slightly panicky. I couldn’t handle one of her lectures. Not tonight.

“Back door,” I whispered, pointing.

“See you tomorrow,” Hunter said. And then he bolted, running to the far end of the corridor, unlocking the latch, and slipping into the dark.

I hurried over and relocked the door behind him, turning just in time to see the other doorway frame a familiar figure.

“Mila? It’s late. You should come inside.”

Mom peered at me blearily. The red streaks in her eyes startled me, but I refused to soften. Especially not when I saw the emerald pendant peeping above her blue pajama top, restored to its former prominence around her neck.

Wrapping my arms around my waist, I padded over to her silently. I made a deliberate, conspicuous effort to duck the hand that reached for my shoulder, to avoid contact completely. She’d had plenty of opportunities for that kind of comforting before the big reveal. She’d chosen to pass them up then.

Now it was my turn to return the favor. Especially when every touch felt like a lie.





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