“Besides, they can’t help me unless I help them first,” she said.
“So she says,” I muttered.
“You think she’s lying about that?” Ariane asked, her eyebrows raised.
“Well, if not, why not help you more?” I threw my hands up. “Why not give you more details on how to get into the building or suggestions on how to get the pills or medicine or whatever?” They hadn’t even specified what form their precious Quorosene took, which was more than a little suspicious. Wasn’t it?
“And you’d trust that information?” she asked.
“Probably not,” I admitted reluctantly. “But—”
“Are you sure you’re not reacting to more than just their proposal?” she asked. But she wasn’t looking at me. She stared out the side window, as if fascinated by something out there or, perhaps, worried about something in here and not willing to face it. Or me.
“Like what?” I asked warily.
Ariane straightened the scarf around her neck in a long moment of silence. “They made you uncomfortable,” she said.
I should have been expecting this—the stuff my mom had said was probably wearing a track in Ariane’s brain—but it still made me angry. I pulled over into a gas station parking lot, cutting off a bread truck, whose driver apparently loved the sound of his horn, and turned to face her. “No. Absolutely not. You don’t get to do that.” I jabbed a finger in her direction. “I was uncomfortable because they threatened us, and because they want to put you in danger. It had nothing to do with their…heritage.”
But how much of one was indistinguishable from the other? Was it a little freaky that Ford had to talk through someone else? Yeah. But what I hated more was the cold way Ford had looked at Ariane as if she were a tool to be used, how she called me “human” like that was a synonym for dog shit, as if Ariane deserved better. So I guess the question really was, was Ford just a jerk or was she an alien jerk? Either way, no thanks.
“Besides, if anyone’s acting differently because of where they’re from, it’s you, not me,” I continued.
She whipped her head around to face me. “What?”
“It took me how long to even get you to talk to me, let alone trust me, but one conversation with them and their magical ‘silence,’ you’re ready to drink the Klingon Kool-Aid or whatever.” I wanted to scream in frustration. How could she not see this?
She stiffened. “That was a totally different situation.”
I snorted. “Yeah, one where you risked being caught, but at least that evil scientist wanted you alive.”
She didn’t say anything, but she seemed to retreat into herself, as if I’d lashed out at her physically.
I sighed. “I didn’t mean that. Nothing would ever make what Jacobs wanted okay. I’m sorry.” I put the van in park and waited for her to decide if she was ever going to talk to me again.
Several long moments passed before she spoke. “I am who I am because Dr. Jacobs put me out into the world,” Ariane said.
My mouth went dry. “Don’t tell me you’re grateful for what that asshole—”
“No,” she said, “just that I’ve been shaped by my experiences. It’s the same with them. They are behaving the only way they know how. If I hadn’t been raised by my father, taught to blend in with the humans, I might have been just like them.” Was there the tiniest hint of longing in her words or was that just my worried imagination? Were we, an entire planet of people, not enough to combat her loneliness? Was I not enough?
“No, you wouldn’t,” I said vehemently.
“Are you sure? Or is it more that you don’t want to think about that possibility?” she asked quietly. “I’m not human. Not the way you are.” She held up a hand, cutting off my protest preemptively. “I’m not saying that I trust them. Just that I see this differently than you do.”
My mouth worked, no words emerging at first. I was losing this argument, I could feel it—and her—slipping from my grasp, even as she sat right next to me. “I’ve never wanted you to be anything but who you are,” I said. Lame but true.
“How about now?” she asked, tilting her head at me.
Wait, so now she was positioning this choice as some kind of representative decision about her as a person? Like, if I cared about her, regardless of her genetic makeup, I’d let her do whatever she wanted? But if I thought going on Ford’s quest was stupid and reckless, then it was because she was too alien for me? No. No way. “That’s crap reasoning and you know it,” I said. “This is not about you. This is about them, and—”
“This is about all of us,” she said. “The three of them, me, whomever Emerson St. John has hidden away. We have to work together if we’re even going to have a chance to survive. They’ve made it that way.” Disgust colored her tone, and I knew then that she meant Jacobs, Laughlin, and the others. Humans.
“So, it’s the four of you against the world?” I asked, my jaw tight. No full-blooded humans allowed in that clubhouse, I guess.
“I didn’t say that,” she said a little too quickly.
“That’s exactly what you’re saying, just not in so many words.” My hands ached from gripping the steering wheel too hard.
“Zane,” she said. She touched my shoulder, her hand light, tentative. “I need to at least check into it. Please.”
I looked over at her, the glow of sunlight turning her white-blond hair into a halo around her head. It reminded me of that first night, on our way to the activities fair. We’d come so far, so fast. This girl had stood up for me when no one else would. Maybe this was my chance to do the same for her.
I blinked hard against the stinging in my eyes. “We’ll talk to my mom,” I said finally. “Find out what she knows.” I put the van in gear and pulled onto the road.
Ariane sagged with relief in her seat. “Thank you.”
I should have stopped then, just shut my mouth. I had one last card to play, and I should have held on to it until we found out what my mom had to say once she got home tonight. But I couldn’t.
“If you go through with this, I won’t be there,” I said conversationally, even as that sensation of jumping off the cliff spiraled through me. Whatever was between us would not be the same after this—it wasn’t an ultimatum, simply a statement of truth, but I knew she wouldn’t see it that way. “I’ll go to my mom’s with you tonight and then make my way back to Wingate. I don’t care if she tells you which cabinet their meds are in and draws you a freaking map.”
Her eyes went wide. “Are you…are you threatening me?” She didn’t sound angry, more hurt.
“I’m not trying to threaten or blackmail,” I said, hearing the deadness of my tone. “I can’t stop you from doing what you’re going to do. You know that.”
She flinched.
“But you have to understand I can’t sit by and watch you walk into one of those places.” I would be haunted for the rest of my life by the image of her in that tiny room, the monitors, the implements, the tests, the bright red blood splattered on the gleaming white floor. Granted, that time it had been Dr. Jacobs’s blood from the head wound that Ariane had inflicted in knocking him out. But I knew that was not the case for all the years previous. And how would I sleep at night imagining her in that room, or one just like it in Laughlin’s complex? Or worse, a room full of microscope slides, test tubes, and sample jars, all marked with her name. The only things left of her.
A tear escaped and slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away swiftly, hopefully before she noticed.