Inheritance

grounded wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world was being forced to go to school.

In the hallways, students snickered at her behind their hands. The story of David breaking up with her outside the boys’ locker room had spread quicker than wildfire. “She deserved it,” some people said loud enough for her to hear as she walked past. She tried to ignore them, but it was hard, because to some degree she agreed.

David made no attempt to talk to her about their potential trip to the UN or what they would do on Saturday when it came time to deliver those photos of the adaptation chamber to Mr. Hernandez. She had no idea if David had truly asked Eres Tilhar about the chamber or if he had been lying to Mr. Hernandez. She knew she should ask him. The situation with the Imria and CASS was much bigger than her breakup with David, but she couldn’t bring herself to face him yet. Not when he had responded to her revelation that she was in love with him by telling her I know. That hurt more than anything else.

On Wednesday night she overheard her parents on the phone with David’s parents, discussing Dr. Brand’s invitation to bring them all to New York. Reese was in the living room watching a DVD of a zombie movie instead of doing her homework, but as soon as she realized what her parents were talking about, she fled upstairs to her room. She loaded the same movie onto her laptop and plugged in her headphones so she could drown out any sound of the phone call. There was something soothing about the fake mayhem: the hordes of zombies lurching across fields and parking lots; the heroes with their makeshift weapons fighting them back. It was black-and- white, survival of the fittest. There was nothing debatable about it.

She fell asleep with the movie playing, only to awaken with a start several hours later. A high-pitched, ear- popping alarm was beeping over and over. The smoke detector. She sat up, heart pounding as she blinked in the light of her bedside lamp. Her headphones fell out of her ears, making the noise even louder. The computer screen was blank.

She smelled something burning.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to the door, pulling it open. Across the hall her mom rushed out of her room.

“Reese, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Where’s Dad?” They looked down the stairwell at the same time, and at the bottom there was an orange flickering light.

“Oh my God,” her mom said. She raced down the stairs, calling back, “Reese, stay up there!”

Reese didn’t obey. She followed and saw her father coming from the kitchen with a fire extinguisher. “Go outside!” he cried. “It’s in the living room.” The smoke was thicker down here, and Reese covered her nose and mouth with her arm as she looked through the archway into the living room. The rug was on fire, flames billowing bright orange and sending hot, gasoline-scented fumes toward the hallway. Something glittered on the floor, and as Reese stared, transfixed by the fire, she realized it was shattered glass.

Her mom seized her by the arm and pushed her toward the front door. “Move!”

Reese saw her dad pull the pin on the fire extinguisher and a spray of white foam launched at the flames. “What about Dad? Is he coming?”

“He’s coming,” her mom said, grabbing her purse off the hall tree. She opened the door. “Go!” she ordered.

Outside the air was fresh and cool, and as Reese went down the front steps Agent Forrestal came barreling up. She heard her mom talking to him in frantic tones as the shrieking of the fire alarm receded. At the bottom of the steps she turned to look back at the house. Agent Forrestal had gone inside, and her mom was coming down to the street. The living room window—illuminated by the dying glow of the fire—was broken. Dread slid down her back, vicious and cold. Someone had thrown something through the window on purpose. That’s what the glass on the carpet was from. Who would do that?

She didn’t have to guess for long, because her dad and Agent Forrestal soon emerged from the house together. Her dad hurried down the steps toward her and her mom and said, “The fire extinguisher’s empty. I got most of it, but the alarm’s still going off.”

Reese stared at the front door, which Agent Forrestal had pulled shut. Written in neon-green spray paint were four words: QUEER ALIEN FUCKING FREAK.

* * *

The fire department came first, their sirens and whirling lights waking up the neighbors who hadn’t been disturbed by the incessant beeping of the alarm. They charged into the house in their neon-striped black coats, and then the police arrived, their sirens adding to the cacophony. All along the block, lights began to come on.

Reese stood with her mom’s arm around her, feeling the cold sidewalk through her socks, trying to focus solely on herself. She couldn’t handle her mom’s terror and anger in addition to her own.

“Weren’t you watching our house?” her mom demanded of Agent Forrestal. “How could you let this happen?”

“It was only one guy, and he broke the window before I realized what he was doing,” the agent said.

“If it was only one guy, why didn’t you catch him?” her mom pushed.

Agent Forrestal bristled. “It’s dark. He knew the neighborhood and ducked into someone’s yard. And my job is to make sure Reese is safe, not chase common criminals. I couldn’t leave the vicinity.”

“The police will find him,” her dad said, squeezing her mom’s shoulder.

“They’d better.”

After the fire department was finished, the police did a walk-through. The first-floor bay windows were vintage single-paned glass—Reese’s mom had never had the time or money to renovate—and it hadn’t taken much to break one: a few fist-sized rocks hurled from the street. They found the rocks on the floor beneath the coffee table. After the window had been broken, someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail through, and it had exploded on impact. Reese’s dad had put out most of the fire with the extinguisher, but the fire department had sprayed everything down anyway, so when Reese and her parents were allowed to return inside, the living room was soaked and blackened, the rug and the furniture ruined. As Reese paused in the archway, staring at the mess, she heard her mom talking to the police about hate crimes. Nobody needed to guess who the message was for.

After the police took their statements—including Agent Forrestal’s vague and mostly useless description of the attacker—Reese’s parents herded her into the back of the house, making her sit at the kitchen table to drink a cup of hot tea. The house smelled of smoke and gasoline and the lingering, sweet odor of the fire extinguisher chemicals, and mint tea did little to mask it. Her parents were talking in low, intense tones by the sink, acting as if she couldn’t hear them. They were debating whether or not she should stay in the house.

“Where am I going to go?” she interrupted.

They turned as one to look at her. “We’re discussing that, honey,” her mom said.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Reese said tonelessly. “If I go somewhere, they’ll win.”

Her mom crossed the kitchen and pulled out the chair next to Reese. “Honey, I admire your courage, and I’m the first to agree that I don’t want some jerkwads dictating how I live my life, but—”

“Where are you going to make me go? You want me to go to Nanna and Grandpa’s? How do you know the jerkwads won’t follow us there?”

“At least you won’t be as accessible there.”

“They live in Mill Valley! It’s just over the Golden Gate Bridge.” Anger burned through Reese. “No. I’m not leaving. They can fuck off. I don’t care if they think I’m some disgusting pervert.” Her mom sighed, reaching out to smooth away Reese’s messy hair from her forehead. Reese jerked back. “You don’t have to baby me. I’m not a little kid anymore.” She stood up, her chair’s legs scraping across the floor. Her color rose as she spoke, her voice growing harder-edged with every word. “I know there are crazy people out there. It doesn’t matter where I go, they follow me. They’re everywhere—on our block, at school, at the ferry. Not to mention on the Internet. Have you seen the shit they say about me? I can’t let them dictate what I do!”

Her mom seemed taken aback. “I’m only trying to keep you safe, honey.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t do that either,” Reese said harshly.

Her mom stood, her face flushed. “Well, I’m going to try. You’re not a little kid anymore but you’re still my daughter. And you’re going to go where I tell you to go.”

Reese gaped at her mom. Then she whirled on her feet and headed for the stairs.

“Come back here!”