“Trevor said you might ask me that.”
“Why are you talking about me with Trevor?” I ask. I should be angry when I ask it, but I’m not. I’m more sad, because she’s keeping secrets from me.
“It wasn’t like that, sweetheart.”
“Then what was it like?”
“He just told me you were asking him questions, questions he didn’t know how to answer, and I told him I’d take care of it.”
That’s consistent with what Tawni told me. “So what’s the story?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. The other generals have blocked me out. I had power when I was a Resistance leader, but down here I’m just the new general, with very little influence. They respect me because I can lead the soldiers and because of my experience, but they won’t let me into their inner circle. I don’t know where the money’s coming from, how they can afford all the weapons, the equipment. Trevor’s trying to find out for me, do some undercover work. He’s taking great risks for me, Adele.”
It’s not the answer I expected at all, so for a moment I’m not sure what to say. I thought my mom was at the center of some big conspiracy, involving bribery and theft and maybe even worse evils. But I can sense she’s telling me the truth—and I believe her. Perhaps she’s not the problem. Perhaps…
“What if Trevor is just pretending to help you? When really he knows the truth—is part of the truth—working with the other generals? Did you think about that possibility? That maybe he’s a spy for them?” My questions are coming fast and I know there’s heat in my words, so I look down when I finish, play with my hands, try to control my emotions.
“I thought that at first,” she says, and I look up at her. Her lips are pursed. “So I did my own digging. I’m pretty sure Trevor’s clean.”
“What if he’s not?”
“Then he’s a damn good liar,” she says, and I’m surprised. I’ve never heard her curse before.
“That fits with my impression of him,” I half-joke.
She laughs. “Sometimes he doesn’t make the best first impression.”
I realize then that Trevor has my mom’s complete and utter trust, and that she’s not going to believe me without proof. I’ll have to get that proof. I change the subject. “What’s going on with the communications with the Moon Realm?” I ask.
Her face falls. “It’s not going well,” she admits. “Those papers I was reading when you came in were the transcripts from the meetings. That’s where I was all day—with the other generals, speaking to the moon dweller Vice Presidents. The majority of them are not being reasonable, are not willing to join the star dweller rebellion. But we have a few advocates, and I sense your father’s influence behind their words.”
“Dad?” I say. “So you heard him?”
“Not exactly. But I saw him—he was there. But trust me, he’s behind the scenes helping to convince them to join the cause. Oh, and your friend is there, too.”
My friend? I stare at her blankly.
“You know, Tristan.”
My heart hammers in my chest. Tristan promised me he would help and he is. He’s not like his father, the President—nothing like him at all. Excitement rushes through me, buzzing all over my skin and swooning in my chest. Memories of the last time I saw him race through my mind. The tenderness in his touch as he pulled me close to him. The way he looked at me, a tear escaping his eye. How his lips yearned for mine and mine for his, and how I had to use all of my strength to pull away from him, thus ensuring that our first kiss would not also be our last. “Tristan,” I murmur.
“Yes,” she says. “He spoke today, tried so hard to convince the moon dweller leaders to join the rebellion, was successful with a few of them. But it wasn’t enough. The majority are still supporting the contracts with the President, maintaining the status quo.”
“We have to go up there, meet with them in person, not hide down here like a bunch of rats.”
“I agree, but the other generals refuse. Not until they have the support of the Moon Realm in writing. They’ve given the moon dwellers three days, or they’ll attack.”
“No! They can’t do that! Dad, Elsey, Tristan, Roc—they’re all up there! Did you tell the generals about the sun dweller soldiers me and Tawni saw?”
“Yes, I did, but they’re skeptical. They think maybe you were seeing things, or dreamed it, or something, perhaps after you contracted the Bat Flu.”
“But it was before we got the Flu!” I object.
“I know, honey, I told them that, too, but it didn’t help. I’m trying, Adele. So very hard. But I’m outnumbered.” It’s Trevor, I think. He’s a spy. The generals know exactly what my mom’s trying to do before she does it, because she shares everything with Trevor.
“If the other generals won’t go, then we have to go ourselves,” I say firmly.
“Yes,” she says softly, as if it’s a decision she’s been trying to delay as long as possible. “We will.”
Finally, I feel like I’ve truly got my mom back. We’re working together—on the same side. No more secrets. I flop my arm across her stomach and lean into her side, curl my legs underneath me.
Warmth and love and fear and exhaustion surround me and I drift away into the darkness of the never never.
* * *
I wake up naturally at five in the morning. I only know that because the dim lights are still on and I can see an old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall. The big hand is a minute past twelve. The little hand is dead on five. My mom is already gone, to do whatever it is she does as a general in the army.
I have a choice to make: to meet Brody or cancel. Something about the whole situation feels dangerous, not because he’s a scary guy or anything—quite the opposite—but because I don’t want to give him the wrong impression, especially not after it felt like he was flirting with me. But it’s just training. No harm in trying to improve my shooting, right?
I take my time getting ready because I don’t have to meet Brody for target practice until six, although it all seems kind of pointless now that I know we’re going it alone. By five-thirty I’m in the mess hall, eating alone because I don’t know anyone.
Just as I walk out the door leading to the training grounds, I see Brody emerge from a door further down the complex. He spots me right away and smiles at me, jogging over to intercept my path to the gun range. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up,” he says.
“I always do what I say I will.”
“Mmm,” Brody muses, looking at me curiously, “I bet you do.” He pushes a hand through his hair to move his bangs away from his eyes. He’s always doing that. “Ready to shoot?”
“Not really,” I admit. “Guns aren’t really my thing.”
“But bows and slingshots and fists are?”
I shrug. “It’s how I was raised. How’d you get so good with guns anyway? They were so rare in the Moon Realm that I wouldn’t think there were any in the Star Realm.” I ask the question nonchalantly, but I’m probing for information. Although I’m sure Brody wouldn’t have more information than my mother, he might at least know when guns started popping up as if they were breeding.
His eyes are steely, as if the blue-green of his eyes have finally agreed to mix and form an iron gray. His dimple is there, but he’s not smiling. Instead, his expression is wistful. “My father taught me to shoot. We never had much money—or any money. But he had this old gun, handed down from generation to generation, a real dinosaur, you know? He’d take my brother and me out back to shoot tin cans using bullets he hand molded from whatever leftover metals he could scrounge up from the mines. By the time I was twelve I could hit those cans dead in the center every time.” For a second there’s a tear in his eyes but he quickly blinks it away, brushing his hair from his face once more. I know there’s more to his story.