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Ten minutes passed ... nothing. Twenty minutes later, Ed still hadn’t come out. Wei and I stayed hidden behind the bushes. Much as I ached to call Sandy and make sure she was all right, I couldn’t. Ed might have come to and would, no doubt, be looking for me. He might be able to hone in on my PAV signal. I dared not take that chance.

Everything Ed had said inside Robin’s Roost ran through my mind. He’d killed Ginnie. What was to stop him from ... No. I refused to believe Ed had killed Sandy, too. Maybe he hadn’t even raped her—maybe it was just talk to scare me.
She’s probably at Soma already,
I thought,
talking to some guys.
That had to be it. I checked my PAV receiver for the millionth time to see if she’d called while I’d been inside Robin’s Roost. She hadn’t.

“Ed couldn’t have gone out any other way, could he?” Sal asked.

“Maybe we should go take a look?” Mike said.

“You can see through those windows into the basement if you get close enough.” My voice was trembling as bad as my insides.

“You guys stay here.” Sal walked nonchalantly across the street to Robin’s Roost. He took something out of his pocket and dropped it. Kneeling down, he pretended to search for it, but I saw a flash of light—must have been an LED—and figured he was looking inside for Ed. Eventually, he stood up and continued walking toward the corner. When he got there, he glanced up and down the street, then checked his chronos. He strolled back and sat down next to Mike. Perfectly normal—a guy waiting for someone on a Saturday night.

“He’s lying on the floor. He’s not moving.”

“You don’t mean ... he can’t be ... I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Maybe you did,” Wei said. “We should call my parents.”

“No,” Sal said. “If the GC had your dad questioned in Greenland, that means they’re already suspicious about Nina’s visits to your house. I’ll get in touch with Aunt Rita. Let me go take another look.”

“The hotel’s DZ.” My voice was shaking and my insides were roiling like a pond full of carp at feeding time.

Sal reached behind the bushes and took my hand. “It’ll be okay, Nina.” Then he crossed the street and disappeared down the alley.

Two seconds later I doubled over. Wei held my hair back while Mike diplomatically looked the other way. I felt as though I was turning inside out.

By the time Sal returned it was pitch-black outside. “Come on, let’s get going. Derek’s probably wondering where we are. Sandy, too. I’m surprised she hasn’t called you.”

“Sal ... is Ed really ...?” I didn’t want to know, but I needed to.

“Yeah.” Sal steadied me. “I checked.”

I lurched forward into the bushes and anything left inside me heaved out onto the ground. Soon I was empty, but I couldn’t stop retching. Wei took my arm and pressed her thumb above my wrist, hard. In a few moments, the nausea subsided.

I looked at her, bewildered.

“Acupressure. I pay attention to some of what my mom does.”

“What do we do now?” I said.

“We go to Soma and see if Sandy’s made it there yet,” Sal said.

I leaned over and whispered to him, “Ed said he ...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. “Sandy ...”

“We’ll go look for her. Come on,” Sal said.

Wei and I must have looked like those wounded soldiers in old End-of-Wars vids. Mike was half carrying her and I was clutching Sal’s arm—my legs about as steady as running water.

When we got to Soma, Sandy wasn’t there.

“We have to leave,” I whispered to Sal. “We have to find her.”

“When you’re in a DZ, tell Derek what happened,” he said to Mike. “I’m taking Nina home.”

“Okay. I’ll bring Sandy over after the show.”

I nodded; the tears were welling up. Then I stumbled outside, Sal right behind me.

We ended up at our oasis. Through my sobs I managed to tell him the whole story. Everything Ed had said, about my mother, about Sandy.

Sal rocked me gently in his arms until I couldn’t cry anymore.

“What have I done?” I paced back and forth under the muted lights. “I can’t have killed someone—even if it was Ed.”

“Nina, it was self-defense. He killed your mother. We don’t know what he’s done to Sandy, if anything. He was threatening to take Dee and he said he was going to rape and then kill you.”

“Courts never believe sixteens,” I said. “What will happen to me?”

“Nothing.”

I sat down on the bench. “I’ll be reassimilated, won’t I?”

“No one will ever find out about this. It’s been taken care of.”

“What? What do you mean, taken care of?”

“Please stop worrying.” He took my hands in his.

“Rita. Did she fix it?” I could picture her sending someone like Max to “take care” of things.

Sal put a finger to my lips. “Even if this oasis is DZ, we’re out in the open. We need to be careful what we say. Just know that Ed will never hurt you again.”

“What about Sandy?” I started to cry again. “It sounded like he ...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

“Nina ...” Sal twisted it out of my hand. “Stop.”

I buried my face in his neck, sobbing.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

It was late when I fell into bed. Sandy hadn’t shown up or called. I’d tried to reach her mom, but no one answered. All I wanted to do was sleep and forget, but I couldn’t. Ed’s words kept running through my mind.
Don’t you want to know what happened to your friend? ... She really was a virgin ... Bonus for me.
Too much had happened.

My PAV beeped.

“Sandy!”

“No, it’s me.” It was Wei.

“Wei, are you okay?” I asked.

“Mom doctored me up. I feel a little better.”

“Any word about ...?” I knew I had to be careful what I said, and Wei did, too. As much as I wanted to know if they’d found Sandy, or Ed, I was afraid I’d wake up Gran if I went and got the scrambler.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“And the packet—” I still had the proof Ginnie had stolen from Ed. I didn’t want to think about it, not yet, but I knew we had to get the information to my father. This all had to be for a reason.

“Yeah, we’ll talk tomorrow.” She clicked off.

I lay in bed, scared to close my eyes, scared to see the images that were hiding in the dark.

I rolled over and looked at Ginnie’s picture. She’d let all those awful things happen to her, just to keep my dad and Dee and me safe. “Oh, Mom ... I miss you.”

The police found Sandy’s body three days later, partially buried in a gravel pit outside of Cementville. Media claimed it was sixteen-related and gave lip service to the perils of overt teen sexuality—immediately followed by a vert about how to increase your sex appeal with a pheromone-based body wash. If Ed could have been killed again, Mike would have done it.

Sal borrowed a hire-trannie from his brother and we all went to Cementville for the funeral.

Sandy looked so beautiful—like she was sleeping. Her mother was on a dozen drugs to keep her under control. Even her stepdad looked like he’d been crying. I wanted to think I’d misjudged him, but I don’t think I had. I stood at the casket, unable to take my eyes off my best friend. For all of her sex-teen ways, she’d been so naive and trusting. All she’d ever wanted was to get out of her tier, to find someone who loved her. I hoped that somehow she could see or feel just how much I loved her. I leaned over, kissed her forehead, and straightened her bangs. I was so going to miss her.

Mike had offered to be one of the pallbearers. Before they shut the pod, I saw him place a tiny plasticene cow in her hand. He’d had it since kindergarten—I knew because I’d given it to him. One tear trickled down his cheek. That was the only time he showed any emotion from the funeral home to the burial rocket. He watched as it left on its journey to collect other pods before the final launch into space. Long after everyone else had gone to Sandy’s parents’ place for the wake, Mike was still standing, staring down the highway.

Sal, Derek, and I finally persuaded him to get in the HT and we drove back to the city in silence.

Back at home, I opened the packet again and read the rest of Ginnie’s note to my father. It outlined everything that Wei had told me about FeLS. Some of it was on the up-and-up, but most of it had to do with using sixteens as sex slaves for government officials and the ocribundan miners. The chips contained documents, pictures, names, and enough evidence that if it got to the right place, it could not be ignored. My father would know exactly what to do with it. And I would put it and Dee’s baby book in his hands myself.

Eventually, what Ginnie’d found would help thousands of girls. But I wondered what would happen to me. My FeLS contract was gone. But at least Ed wasn’t around to push a Chooser into taking me. If I was chosen, there was no way of knowing if I’d get sent to the sex-trafficking training or the regular training. Running away was starting to look like a viable option. Except that would mean I’d have to leave Dee and Gran and Pops. And my friends. And Sal. But, I couldn’t worry about becoming a fugitive now. I had to get this information to my father first

There were still nearly three weeks until Holiday Day break. It was a rare sunny afternoon in Chicago’s winter, so Dee and I walked home from school through the park. It was nice not to have to look over my shoulder constantly, worrying about Ed. We stopped by the horse pasture and stood watching the horses pull at mounds of hay. In the distance, I saw the resident herd of cows. I could almost see Sandy leaning over the fence, mooing. I had to turn away.

“Gran says that there’s only one way to get to the happy memories. You have to cry out the sad ones,” Dee said. “I’m really sorry about Sandy, Nina.”

“Yeah; me, too.” I swiped a tear away. So much had happened over the past few months. It was going to be a while before I got over losing Sandy. And my mom.

Dee raced up the side of the pasture, petting every horse that would come near the fence. She was safe from Ed. I hadn’t told her that Alan was her father. That would remain a secret, at least until I could find him.