Inheritance

who can also do this. Where do your loyalties lie? With your fellow humans, or with these extraterrestrial visitors who have lied to us for nearly seven decades about who they are?”

“What do you want us to do?” Reese asked.

“We want you to proceed with your training. Once you’ve begun your lessons with the Imria, you can then transmit that information to us.” He gestured to Hernandez. “Alex Hernandez will be your contact. Beginning on Monday, he’ll be teaching at your high school.”

“You’ll be able to come to me with your updates at any time,” Hernandez said.

“What is your decision?” Lovick asked.

Reese met Lovick’s sharp gaze, and she swallowed. She didn’t like him, and she didn’t trust him. If only she could touch him, then she would know what he was thinking. It was the first time she had ever thought to use her new ability that way—to purposefully violate another person’s mind—and the nerves in her fingertips tingled. She knew it was wrong, but she was so tempted to do it. It would answer so many questions.

“You can’t just ask us to decide like that,” David said, startling Reese. “Can you at least give us a minute to talk about it? Alone?”

“Of course.” Lovick gestured toward the door to the shop. “You’re welcome to step outside to confer. We’ll be waiting here.”

Reese got up and followed David through the curtained doorway. He looked at her and held out his hand. She took it while they moved into the narrow space behind the cash register. We don’t even have the option to say no, Reese thought. If Hernandez is going to be teaching at our school, he’ll be watching us.

Then we have to agree, David told her. At least for now, until we know exactly what our adaptation is about. We don’t have to tell them everything that we learn.

You want to lie to them?

His forehead glistened with a light sheen of sweat. Everybody’s lying, he thought, and now she knew that the frustration she had felt came from him. We might as well lie too.

Then we go with it, she thought. For now.

For now.

They returned to the back room, where Lovick and Hernandez were still seated. The gravity of what she and David were about to do began to hit home, and she rubbed her damp palms against her jean skirt. They didn’t trust the Imria, but they certainly didn’t trust Charles Lovick and his Corporation for American Security and Sovereignty either. They were on their own. “Okay,” she said. She glanced at David.

He nodded. “We’ll do it.”

CHAPTER 13

The guard was still blocking the exit when Reese and David emerged from the back office and headed for the door. She was so caught up in thinking over what had just happened and how she and David were going to manage to lie to both the Imria and CASS that she barely noticed that the guard didn’t move as they approached. Then he reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Hey!” she cried. His grip was tight on her, and something cold and dark seeped through his fingers into her body. She froze. He was so strong—exactly like that soldier who had manhandled her at Blue Base right before she’d had the medical exam.

This man wasn’t looking at her at all. His eyes were focused on the rear of the shop, and Reese heard Lovick call out, “They’re finished. You can let them go.”

The man released her and she fell back, bumping against David. He sensed her sudden disquiet and took her hand. What happened?

The guard opened the door and she plunged out into the cool evening air, her mind whirling as she plowed up the sidewalk, dragging David with her. That guy was like the soldiers at Blue Base.

She sensed that he wasn’t entirely surprised. I knew there was something off about them, he told her.

She barely noticed the chilly mist on the skin of her legs as they walked through Chinatown, hand in hand. She was consumed with the realization that Lovick had Blue Base–made guards acting on his orders. She and David could try to manipulate Lovick and CASS, but the two of them were thoroughly outgunned. How the hell are we going to pull this off? she wondered.

“We’re here,” David said, pulling her to a halt in front of a restaurant. His face was pale, and he glanced behind her down the street. She didn’t have to turn around to know that he had seen the men in black’s sedan. We’ll figure it out, he told her. One thing at a time.

He opened the door to the restaurant, and she followed him inside. It smelled of chili peppers and garlic, and scrolls of Chinese characters hung on the walls. The hostess asked David something in Chinese, and after he responded, she showed them to a table midway down the rectangular room, dropping off two thick menus.

Reese glanced behind herself at the door. The restaurant was about half full of mostly Asian patrons, and the men in black had not followed them in. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and went to the rear of the restaurant where she saw the sign for the restroom. She had to go down a set of narrow stairs to the basement, where she found two toilets. She went into the one marked for women and took off her jacket, hanging it on the half-broken hook screwed into the wall. She unbuttoned her shirt and slid out of it, draping it over her jacket, so that she could remove the wire that was taped onto her skin. It was attached to a slim recording device clipped to the inside of her skirt. She pulled the recorder out and flipped the switch to Off, then wound the wire around the device and tucked it into her jacket’s interior pocket. She put her shirt back on before taking the cell phone out of her skirt pocket to text Julian: I got it.

* * *

David looked up from the menu when she returned from the bathroom. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I texted Julian.” It had been his idea to tape the meeting with Lovick—“insurance,” he called it—and Reese had agreed immediately.

David leaned toward her and whispered, “We can’t post that online yet.”

“I know. I’m not going to give it to Julian until the right time comes.”

The waitress returned before she could say anything more. “What would you like?” she asked.

Reese glanced down at the menu. “Um…”

“This is good,” David said, flipping through the multiple pages to the noodle section and pointing out something called double-fried noodles with seafood. “Want to share it?”

“Okay.”

David said something to the waitress in Chinese, and they had a brief discussion before she picked up the menus and left.

“What did you order?” Reese asked.

“Spicy jellyfish and soup dumplings.” He poured tea from the stainless steel pot into their two teacups.

She was still agitated from the meeting with Charles Lovick, and her leg bounced beneath the table. She glanced around the restaurant, taking in the glass-topped tables, each setting laid with a single round plate and a pair of chopsticks. A tank full of lobsters glowed near the swinging doors to the kitchen. Her dad always wanted to go out for Chinese when he visited, but they hadn’t had time yet. She wondered how long he would be staying. He had been acting particularly fatherly lately, and it made her suspicious about his motives.

“Is something wrong?” David asked.

“No, sorry.” She took a sip of tea, carefully holding the cup around the rim to avoid burning her fingers. “I was just thinking about my dad, and—we don’t have to talk about it now.”

“We can if you want. What’s going on?”

“My parents are divorced but my dad’s been here since we got back from Nevada. I’m worried about my mom.” She picked up her chopsticks and pulled them out of the paper wrapper, breaking them apart. “Let’s not