Clara MacKinnon was the happiest girl in the world, and it was all because Amity Serrano was her girlfriend.
That certainly wasn't a sentence she thought she'd ever say. Until very recently, she had thought that she was as straight as a line. Not that she had anything against those who weren't! Her parents were proud allies of the LGBT community and had successfully raised her to be the same. She just hadn't even considered the possibility of liking, let alone dating, a girl before.
Clara knew that her best friend Amity was a lesbian. Amity had let it slip during a slumber party the previous year, much to her profound embarrassment. Clara was totally cool with it, and had made that very clear. She liked her friend no matter who she was, even if she liked girls or really wasn't human like people had insinuated over the years thanks to her strange (but cute!) ears.
She definitely had not known that Amity had a crush on her. Of course, Clara wasn't a stranger to people getting a crush on her. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad; it went with the territory. And in this modern day and age, especially in the progressive bastion of Seattle, she had even gotten a few girls who had crushes on her. Clara had become an expert at gently turning people down.
But Amity was a different story, because she was Amity, a true friend who'd stuck with her through thick and thin. Amity didn't have a crush on Clara, captain of the cheerleading squad and high girl on the popularity totem pole. She had a crush on Clara, her best friend. And that made things more difficult.
They'd been just enjoying a perfectly nice day at Clara's house, watching a movie, when Amity had blurted out, "I like you!"
Clara, like an idiot, responded, "Aw, Amity, that's so sweet! I like you too." She had meant it purely platonically, and didn't consider that Amity had meant her earlier statement in any other sense for a second.
Amity tensed up and started twisting her hair around. "No…Clara, I meant that I…I have a crush on you."
Clara turned off the movie immediately and gave Amity a gentle smile. Her face fell. She knew what was coming. "Amity, that's…honestly, I'm really flattered. But, sweetie, I'm straight. I like boys. It's nothing personal. Oh, God, Amity, you're such a good friend, and you're super nice to everyone. I know you'll find some girl who can appreciate those traits. I'll help! I can, like, matchmake! I know some girls in the GSA…"
Amity stood up and put her hands behind her back, going all rigid, as if she was standing at attention. "Yes, of course, Clara," Amity said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "Thank you kindly. I'll trouble you no longer."
Oh, God, Amity thought that Clara didn't want to be her friend anymore. Well, she had to fix that right away. "I like being your friend, Amity! You shouldn't let this stand between us. We have something awesome going – don't let it end just because of some feelings that you can't help. I wish I did like girls – I'd totally go out with you if I did!"
Something snapped inside Amity and she started crying. It was actually quite jarring. One moment her face was perfectly, almost unnaturally, composed and then it was contorted and tears were streaming down it freely. "I can't do this," she managed to get out between her tears, and then she was running. She nearly ran straight into the door, but opened it in time and before Clara could react, Amity was heading for the forest, going out of sight. Some part of Clara wanted to follow her, but she knew that Amity needed space.
It wasn't until later that afternoon when Camila (as Mrs. Serrano adamantly insisted Clara call her) called the house that Clara realized she might have made a mistake. "Clara, have you seen Amistad?" Camila was literally the only person, including Amity herself, who called Amity Amistad, and then only when she was very upset. Emma and Edmond hadn't taken to the names she'd given them, Emilia and Edmundo respectively, either. "She was supposed to be back hours ago, and she's not answering her phone."
Clara's blood ran cold. "She asked me out," she admitted. "I really should have seen it coming. I told her no…I wish I could have said yes. She ran off. I thought she just needed space. But what if something happened to her?"
"Okay, well, the most important thing to do in situations like this is not to panic," Camila said. "Why don't you stay there, and…"
Clara hung up the phone right then and there. She may not have been able to have been Amity's girlfriend, but she was still her best friend, and best friends did not just stand around while their best friends were potentially in danger. Amity could have slipped, fallen, and gotten knocked unconscious! Or gotten attacked by a bear! Anything could have happened!
She combed the woods, and she told herself that she was just looking in random locations, but she knew where she was going: The old abandoned house in the woods, the one everyone said was haunted. Amity believed in the supernatural. She'd even gone through a very long phase in her childhood where she thought she had magical powers, that she was a wizard, according to the general consensus of just about everyone. The occult was something familiar to her, and while most people steered clear of creepy things, Amity would gravitate to it as a lifeline.
Sure enough, she found Amity on the ground, unconscious, not too far from the house. There was a sizable bump on her head, but she looked otherwise unharmed. By the looks of it, she'd tripped on a tree root and smacked her head against the ground, quite recently too. Thankfully, a few seconds later, Amity opened her eyes again.
"Amity, are you okay?" Clara said urgently. Amity nodded. She looked dazed and disoriented. "You had me and your mami worried sick! Why didn't you call her?"
"Call her?" Amity echoed. There was something strange about her voice. It was Amity's voice, but there was something…missing, and Clara couldn't put her finger on what it was.
"Yes, Amity," Clara said patiently. "Call her. On your phone?"
Amity blinked. "What's a phone?"
Clara swore in her head. That bump on the head had given her amnesia! Oh, this was bad. "Okay, Amity, I think you might have amnesia. Do you remember who you are? Or who I am?"
"I…" Amity looked at a loss. "It's all kind of fuzzy. I'm so sorry. I guess I'm important to you?"
Guilt stabbed away at Clara, even though she knew, intellectually, that it was not her fault, that it was no one's fault, that it was just an accident. "It's going to be fine," Clara promised her. "We're going to get you to a hospital. They'll run some tests on you and –"
"NO!" Amity screamed so loud that Clara was near deafened by the shout. "I won't let them do that to me! I won't be experimented on! NO!"
"Okay," Clara said, trying to sound much calmer than she actually was inside. "I won't take you to the hospital, I promise, Amity." She could understand why. Amity had a strange, unprecedented mutation – an extra organ in her body, adjacent to her heart. She must have been afraid that she'd become some lab rat if she got taken to the hospital.
Maybe Clara shouldn't be making that promise, but what else could she do? Amity was walking on a razor's edge, and the last thing that Clara wanted her to do was run off again. "My name is Clara MacKinnon. I'm your best friend. Your name is Amity Serrano. You live with your mother Camila and your older twin siblings Emma and Edmond."
Amity recited those names under her breath. "Yeah…I think I remember them now. Yeah, it's…sort of coming back to me? Most of it, anyway." She gave a bashful smile at Clara. "You know, you're very pretty. I can't remember if I told you that."
Clara blushed. Why was she blushing? What was up with that? "Okay, well, your mami's a nurse, and she's going to look after you. You'll get your memories back soon, and I'll help you, I promise." She'd be making a lot of promises lately. Hopefully, she'd be able to keep them all.
Clara called Camila to tell her that she'd found Amity as well as about Amity's amnesia. Amity seemed fascinated by the cell phone, and Clara let her use it for the rest of the walk back. Despite the fact that clearly all of the memories of her ever having used one were blocked, Amity got back into the swing of using it quite quickly, which Clara was encouraged by.
Camila had been so relieved to have her daughter back. Though Amity continued to react violently at the very suggestion of going to the hospital, she eventually agreed to get looked over by Suzie Henderson, the wife of a friend of Camila's girlfriend, and a neurosurgeon at a local hospital, on the condition that it be conducted off the books and that Camila was there the whole time.
That night, Clara found it difficult to get to sleep. She couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if Amity's injuries had been worse. Amity could have died if Clara hadn't found her! The thought of almost having lost her best friend made her shudder with fear.
At least Amity didn't remember that Clara had rejected her, and hopefully she never would. Clara would find her someone to move on with, and everything would be fine. Steph Monmouth was a good choice, she decided. She was also a member of the cheerleading squad, and liked girls. Some of the other members of the squad had picked on her for that, but Clara soon put a stop to that. Steph was super smart, and funny, and talented, and Clara thought about her dating Amity and she felt a pulse of furious anger.
Now that was strange. Why would she feel angry about her friend finding love? The two of them were a great fit. Amity deserved happiness, especially with her new amnesia. But try as she might, every time she envisioned Steph taking Amity out to eat or to a movie or ice skating, a red hot spike of fury enveloped her insides. She thought about Clara kissing Amity and – no! Steph! She was trying to think of Steph kissing Amity!
But the thoughts wouldn't get out of her head. Clara kissing Amity. Clara taking her out to dinner, treating her like the queen she deserved to be treated as. Clara rubbing her hands all over Amity's gorgeous body and savoring the fact that she, and she alone, had the privilege of being the girlfriend of the hottest, most brilliant girl in school…
She sat bolt upright in her bed. "Oh, my God, I like Amity," she whispered.
But that wasn't possible! She liked boys. Didn't she? But then again…Amity was so soft and pretty and yet resilient and strong and, yeah, okay, so much for her straight as a line thing. But boys were great! They were muscular and strong and handsome, and Clara got butterflies in her stomach whenever a hot one smiled at her. That was undeniable! She'd had boyfriends and she'd been attracted to them! She didn't like girls! Did she?
As always, when she had a problem with her heart, she went straight to the one person who she knew could be relied upon to give the best advice: Her father. Her mom was a great person, don't get her wrong. But she was a therapist, and her advice tended to come with in depth analyses and psychological terms and Clara was just looking for something practical right now.
"I've got a problem," Clara announced at breakfast without preamble. "I think I like girls." Her mom was at a conference, so it was just her and her dad.
Her dad set his spoon down on his napkin with meticulous precision. His face was unreadable, and Clara's heart thundered. She was coming out to him, she realized belatedly. She had not thought of it that way. She had a problem; he had answers, as always. He could always be relied upon to give her answers. He could always be relied upon, period. Couldn't he?
"You're wrong," her dad said softly but firmly, and Clara's heart sank. She would not cry. She would handle this situation calmly. That was a total lie, she knew. She'd start panicking and scream and swear and things would go completely pear-shaped.
"No!" Clara shouted. "No, Dad, I really do think I like girls! And guys, but also girls. It's true. It's not a phase or something like that."
Her dad's eyes widened. "Oh, shit, I just realized how that sounded!" Clara was about to faint from relief. "I only meant that you're wrong about it being a problem. It's not. Not to me. I don't care who you like. You could like an alien for all I care, so long as you're happy."
Clara gave her a huge grin, and then that grin faded as she remembered her actual problem. "No, that's…that's not the problem, Dad. The problem is that Amity has a crush on me. And I rejected her, because I thought I was straight! She was devastated! She ran off; that's how she got hurt!"
Her dad looked befuddled. "Wait, you actually thought you were straight?" Clara blinked. He had known before she did? "I'm sorry, Clara, but straight girls do not ogle Scarlet Johansson like you did when we watched The Avengers." Clara blushed. Okay, that was fair. But she looked so sexy in those leather getups and, yeah, all right, in retrospect, it was kind of obvious, wasn't it?
Clara's dad shook his head. "No, no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be making light of this situation. There's no one road to self-discovery. Not everyone knows right away." He reached out and squeezed her hand gently. "I love you, Clara. You're my daughter, and anyone who says that I shouldn't love you just because of something you can't even control needs their head examined."
Clara wiped a tear from her cheek. "Thank you, dad. Would you…let me tell mom on my own terms? I will! I just want to do it myself."
"Of course," her dad promised. "Consider it our little secret." He would keep it too, Clara knew. "About Amity, I know that you're probably blaming yourself for her accident, but it wasn't your fault. It was just that: an accident. She didn't look where she was going, she tripped, and she hit her head. You couldn't have foreseen it, and neither could she. Memories or not, I guarantee she doesn't blame you for it."
Clara nodded. "But…you really think that she'll still want to date me? After I told her no?"
Her dad grinned at her. "Now come on, Clara. You know better than that. Amity doesn't hold grudges. It's not in her nature. Now go out there and score yourself a girlfriend!" Clara let out a laugh.
Well, Clara was never one to ignore her dad's sage advice. When it was useful, anyway. (Seriously, not everything was a fishing metaphor.) So she went over to Amity's house. She was in for an awkward conversation, but maybe she'd have a girlfriend at the end of it, so she was willing to take the plunge. Besides, it was Amity. Clara would cross oceans for her.
As her hand hovered over the doorbell in front of the Serrano house, Clara hesitated. Was she truly doing the right thing? Amity had just lost her memories. The damage, according to Camila, was quite extensive. Fairly basic concepts like cars and computers eluded her. Would Clara be taking advantage of Amity by asking her to be her girlfriend?
No, Clara decided almost immediately, and then she actually thought about it, and she came to the same conclusion. Amity could choose to say no. Clara wasn't forcing her into anything. And Amity had wanted to date Clara before she lost her memories. It wasn't as if she had become an entirely different person or anything like that. Now that'd be silly.
Before she could ring the doorbell, the door was opened and Camila was on the other side. Sometimes, she swore Camila must have been psychic. "Clara! How are you doing?"
"Never mind how I'm doing," Clara said. "How's Amity?"
Camila made a so-so gesture. "To be honest with you, Clara, Dr. Henderson is quite befuddled by her case. It doesn't resemble normal amnesia at all. She even had the gall to accuse Amity of possibly faking it, can you believe that?!"
Clara scowled. Of course Amity wasn't faking it. And why would she do that anyway? What, for attention or to avoid having another awkward conversation with Clara? Ridiculous. Anyone who knew Amity would know that she'd never act like that. "I think she's telling the truth."
"So do I, of course!" Camila hastened to assure her. "I'd like her to go to the hospital, but she reacted…extraordinarily badly to that idea. Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if there's something she's not telling me about her previous trips to the hospital. It's almost as if she has trauma."
Clara shrugged. She didn't know anything about that. "Can I talk to her?"
"Absolutely," Camila said. "She may not remember specific details of your friendship, but you're clearly still very important to her. She won't stop talking about you!" Clara's heart soared. Maybe she still had a chance!
She walked into the living room, where Amity was going through photo albums, no doubt trying to see if they brought back any memories. It didn't look like they did. "Hi, Amity. Um, do you want to see me? I don't blame you if you don't."
Amity's eyes lit up when she saw Clara, and Clara couldn't help but give a huge grin. Amity was looking at her as if she was the most amazing thing in the entire universe. It felt so awesome to be looked at like that. "Of course I want to see you, silly! Come on in!"
Clara sat down next to her on the couch. She hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed Amity's hand. She was worried she was being too forward, but the smile on Amity's face and the blush on her cheeks seemed to signal that she was not. Amity blushed all the time around Clara. Back before she had confessed, Clara had just assumed that she did that with everyone, but in retrospect, it was one of many flashing signs that she'd blithely ignored.
"Do you remember the conversation we had before you got hurt?" Clara asked softly.
Amity shook her head. Clara steeled herself. As much as she'd have liked to charge into her new relationship without bringing up the rejection, she knew that would be dishonest. "You asked me out. And I told you no. I said I was straight."
"Straight," Amity repeated. Clara winced, suddenly regretting her decision. Amity was so messed up that she had forgotten concepts like sexualities. But Amity gave her a reassuring smile. "No, no, I know this. It's when girls just like boys, right?"
Clara breathed a sigh of relief. At least Amity hadn't forgotten everything. "That's right. I thought I was straight, but then I really thought about what it'd be like to date you and I realized that I'm not. I don't know if I like girls in general, or maybe you're just, like, the exception? But, Amity, I know I really care about you, and the thought of you dating another girl makes me want to hurl."
"I don't really remember much at all," Amity admitted. "I don't remember the time we've spent together. I'm…messed up and broken, and I don't know when – or if – it's going to get better."
"I don't care about that," Clara promised her. "I care about you. Amity, I'd be honored to be your girlfriend…if you still want that."
"I do!" Amity said, bouncing in her seat, her face alight with enthusiasm. She looked astonished, in awe. "I can't believe it. I have a girlfriend. And it's you!" She looked so cute that Clara couldn't help herself. She gave Amity a kiss on the cheek. Clara's eyes must have been playing tricks on her because for a second, it looked like there were these weird white spots on her face. But then she blinked a few times, and then they were gone.
The next few weeks were absolutely sensational. Clara came out to her mom like she said she would, and her mom was chill about it. Like Clara's dad, she'd figured it out already and was just waiting for Clara to figure it out herself. Amity had been present when Clara came out for moral support, and her parents were delighted that they'd gotten together. They'd even bet on who would confess first.
Clara would never admit it to anyone, and she felt somewhat guilty for even thinking it, but there were advantages to Amity's amnesia. Even normal things like grocery stores and the existence of airplanes filled her with amazement that was just so beautiful to see. There was a childlike wonder to Amity these days that was just infectious. And the two of them got to see movies and read books together that she knew Amity had seen before, but now she was experiencing again as if it was the first time. The face when Amity learned that Darth Vader was Luke's father was something that Clara would remember for the rest of her life.
She took her girlfriend out to movies and to ice skating and laser tag (Amity turned out to be shockingly ruthless at laser tag, almost as if an innate hunting instinct had been unlocked within her), and Clara was just so happy. She was so happy that a persistent voice inside her head kept on warning her that there had to be a catch. Clara told that doubting voice that it was being ludicrous. Sure, Amity had done a complete change in her personality, but that sort of thing happened with head injuries. It wasn't as if she had changed for the worse.
But Clara's instincts turned out to be right. When she arrived at the Noceda residence for one of their dates, all dressed up and ready for a night of dancing, Amity opened the door, looking absolutely horrified. As if she had killed someone. "Clara," she whispered, "I think I just made a horrible mistake."
Clara knew that whatever was going on was serious, but she'd be there for her girlfriend through thick and thin. "Whatever it is, we can fix it together, Amity," Clara vowed.
Amity took a deep breath. "I…don't think so. Not this time."
Clara tilted her head in confusion. "Why not?"
Amity steeled herself and then a second later, she was gone, and in her place was something truly bizarre: a giant creature that looked vaguely humanoid if distinctly reptilian from the waist up, but serpentine below it. "Because I'm not Amity."
Clara was going to tell her girlfriend that it didn't matter, that she still cared for her. It didn't matter that she was an imposter. It wasn't a problem that she was…whatever she was. Heck, if she could get used to dating a girl, she could get used to dating some sort of giant snake. She really meant to get those words out of her mouth.
But she fainted instead.
Number Five was dead.
Okay, she wasn't entirely sure about that. But it was a possibility she was not ruling out. Her torturers, on the rare occasions when they had actually bothered answering her when she begged to know why they were hurting her, claimed that they were fulfilling the will of the Titan. Number Five was good at finding out information, and she discovered that, according to Belos, those who followed the Titan's will would be blessed after death with eternity in a perfect world called heaven.
Clearly, however, those torturers had been wrong about their actions being what the Titan wanted. The Titan must have been on her side, because finally, things were starting to go her way. It had started when a new guard named Steve had been transferred to the facility. Not Steve Harrington, Steve informed her, as if that name meant anything to Number Five at all. A different Steve with even cooler hair. He appeared rather resentful about the fact that this Harrington fellow thought he had cooler hair than him.
Steve was appalled by the way that Number Five was being treated, and Number Five wasn't sure why. Wasn't it normal for people to be poked and prodded and tortured and experimented on? If it wasn't, why were they even doing it?
But no, Steve assured her, it wasn't normal at all. In fact, it was evil. Horrendously, monstrously evil. Steve promised that he'd get her out of there. Number Five didn't believe him. People had made promises to her before. They'd always lied. And when Steve injected her with a syringe, she'd assumed that, too, had been lying. Shortly thereafter, everything went black, and when Number Five opened her eyes, she was outside in the fresh air for the first time in her life.
Steve had removed the mask from his face, revealing a kind, pleasant face that was contorted with sorrow. "Sweetie, you're going to be okay," he promised her. "You're safe now. I just gave you a sedative – they had to think you're dead. What's your name?"
"I don't have one," Number Five admitted. "They told me that I didn't deserve one."
"Well, that's just ridiculous," Steve asserted. "You deserve a lot of things, and a name is just the tip of the bloodberg. Hmm. Why not Vee? It's the Old Numeral for five, so it's not too different from what you thought of yourself before."
Number Five – Vee – tested the name out in her head, and she found that she really liked it. "What are you going to do to me?"
Steve winced for some reason. "Nothing, Vee. I'm not going to do anything to you. No one's going to do anything to you anymore." That didn't make any sense. What else was there? "Sweetie, what Belos was doing to you is wrong. It's evil. And there are people who aren't willing to accept it anymore. There's a rebellion brewing against him. I'm part of it, and you can be too if you want to. But only if you want to. If you don't, you don't have to."
Huh. This was new. It was a devious trick, Vee had to admit. But it couldn't be anything more than a trick. Belos was in communion with the Titan. He saw all, knew all. The only way a rebellion could exist under his nose was if he allowed it to exist. Vee didn't know whether Steve was really genuine about helping her and just a pawn in Belos' schemes who only thought he was free, or if he was truly in on it, but it didn't matter. Even pretending to be free would be a nice change of pace.
Steve took out a pen and scribbled an address on a piece of paper, which he handed to Vee. "If you want to be part of the rebellion, come to this address. The password is ouroboros." He spelled out the unfamiliar word. "You'll be safe there. The woman there will take good care of you. No one will ever hurt you again." He leaned down and kissed Vee on the forehead, not even seeming to care that she wasn't a witch. "I have to go now, or they'll get suspicious. Can you handle yourself on your own?" Vee nodded. "Good luck, Vee."
When Vee went to the address, a stall in the Bonesborough marketplace, it wasn't a woman that she found there, but a man. He was a strange looking man. He looked like a witch, but he had round instead of pointy ears. The man was selling objects from the Human Realm. Apparently, it was a whole separate realm of existence from the Demon Realm, without any magic. Without Belos. It sounded heavenly. Vee, disguised as an ordinary witch, bought a few objects with money she pickpocketed from nearby people, so she wouldn't look suspicious, and she waited for the woman Steve had told her about to arrive.
She didn't end up arriving. Instead, an adolescent girl arrived, the man's daughter by the looks of it. Soon after, there was a commotion from inside the tent. Vee shapeshifted into a bug to spy on what was going on. A girl had arrived from the other side of the portal. Vee wasn't sure if she was a human or not. On the one hand, she had the pointy ears of a witch; on the other, she was dressed markedly different from everyone else in the marketplace.
It was a good thing that Vee had shapeshifted into a bug, because shortly thereafter, the leader of the Emperor's Coven herself arrived with Warden Wrath in tow. Lilith arrested the man, and the two girls went off to rescue him. Vee had been right – she had been led into a trap. But the trap had failed to get her, and the instrument of her freedom was right in front of her. Before her fear could stop her, she took the form of the possible human girl and walked into another world.
She walked out of the abandoned looking house that the portal connected to, and right into what would have been her death in the Boiling Isles. It was raining. Not very much, just a light drizzle, but it would have been enough to burn her to death if she'd been caught in it for too long if it was the kind of rain she got back home. Vee's panicked mind wasn't able to properly process the fact that the rain didn't burn, that in fact, it was just perfectly normal, even cool water. Instead, she charged forward, tripped on a tree root, and then promptly knocked herself unconscious on a rock.
When she opened her eyes again, the most beautiful girl that Vee could possibly imagine was standing in front of her. She'd heard talk of angels that inhabited heaven, and they were supposedly beautiful beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Of course, there was one problem with that theory: The girl was even more beautiful than that.
Soon enough, Vee learned that the girl was not an angel, that her name was Clara, and that she was the best friend of the girl that Vee had replaced. Vee went along with the amnesia story, and it proved to be a very good choice, because it provided her with a ready-made excuse for not knowing any of the vast array of human things that Amity knew about, but Vee had never heard of.
Having someone like Clara who thought of Vee as her friend was a stroke of luck that Clara could barely envision, but then she met Camila, and she realized that her luck had gotten incalculably better. Camila actually treated Vee with love and compassion. No one had ever loved Vee before. She'd never thought she deserved it. And maybe she still didn't, given that she was impersonating Amity.
Vee also met Amity's siblings, but she didn't really care about them or them about her. Apparently, they thought she was some sort of magically generated placeholder so that no one would find out Amity was in the Boiling Isles on her Ordeal. Whatever that was. Her best guess was that it was some sort of quest. She kept her distance from them. She had a hunch that they were smart enough to figure her out if she had too much contact with them.
Experiencing all this love and affection was more than Vee had ever hoped for herself. But the next day, something absolutely amazing happened: Clara told Vee that she wanted to be her girlfriend! Her girlfriend! Well, Clara thought that she was asking out Amity. But Vee was only too happy to accept the offer.
Vee's life had gone from horror to perfection in such a short amount of time, and that was why she was suspecting that she didn't actually possess one anymore. She was loved. She was safe. No one was hurting her. No one would ever hurt her again. She had the most beautiful girlfriend in the world. Wasn't it more logical that she was in heaven than that these things were happening while she was alive?
For a while, Vee felt guilt about stealing Amity's life from her. But two things happened to change her mind on that. First of all, she returned to the house to find that the portal was gone. Amity had either chosen or been forced to stay in the Isles. Thus, she was not stealing her life, but looking after it while she was gone. Mami would be horrified if she knew her daughter was missing. It was the kind thing to do. She'd give Amity back her life when she returned, and Amity would be ahead one girlfriend. Vee often told herself these things, and occasionally she even believed herself when she said them.
Second of all, Vee realized that Amity didn't deserve the great things in her life. She'd lived a perfect existence. She was never hungry, always loved, no one was going to hurt her, and she had Clara and Mami. And she had given all that up for a supposed destiny that appeared to be based on fiction and probably based in delusion. Why would anyone willingly stay in the Boiling Isles when they could live in the Human Realm? No wonder Belos wanted to join the realms. Earth was so much better than the Boiling Isles.
Vee's amnesia cover worked for just about everyone. But the doctor that Mami had forced her to see was suspicious, and she reported her findings back to Mami's girlfriend Jane. Jane asked Vee to join her at her office in the library, and Vee was pretty sure that she was doomed. And when Jane pulled out a wickedly sharp looking knife as soon as her office door was closed, Vee figured that her fears had come to pass. She'd enjoyed her time in paradise, and now it was time for the bill to be collected.
And then Jane handed the knife over to Vee. Vee just stared at it. What kind of a trick was this? "I know that you're scared," Jane said softly. "I thought you might be less scared if you were armed."
Vee took the knife into her hand, curious as to what Jane's game was. "I don't know what you're talking about, Jane."
Jane looked at her with sympathy in her eyes, but she did not believe Vee. "Dear, I can help you, but only if you're honest to me. It's a surprisingly good impersonation, but it doesn't fool me. I can tell these things." Did Jane have magic? She was definitely acting as if she did, although Vee knew that most, if not nearly all, humans didn't really believe in magic, and certainly didn't possess any.
"You'll hurt me," Vee mumbled, after a very long silence.
"They experimented on you, didn't they?" Jane said, and Vee just stared at her. How did she know?! It was impossible! Did she have some form of oracle magic?
Jane sighed. "If you're wondering how I know, it's because it was done to me too. I was a lab experiment. I have powers…beautiful, horrible powers. I was born with them. They used me, until I escaped and I found people who showed me that there's more to life than being someone's weapon." She reached out and squeezed Vee's arm. "Where is Amity? Is she safe?"
Well, denial didn't seem to be useful anymore. Vee had a knife; Jane seemed understanding. She probably wasn't going to be any safer than she was now in telling someone. And if push came to shove, she could just shapeshift into a bug and flee. "Amity is in the Demon Realm, in the Boiling Isles. I don't know if she's alive or safe or if she'll ever come back. My name is Vee. I'm a basilisk. And I stumbled on this life, and I know it's wrong of me to keep it, but I like it and I'm happy and I'm safe here, and if you take it away from me, I'll kill you, I swear to the Titan I will!"
Jane put her hands up, seeming as if she was torn between being amused and alarmed. "Vee, I promise you, no one is going to hurt you. I won't let them. I'll keep your secret until Amity comes back. But when she does, we have to tell Camila." Vee froze. She only loved Vee because she thought she was Amity! Vee didn't want to give that up! Jane must have misinterpreted what Vee meant, because she said, "Don't worry, I won't let her hurt you. If she kicks you out, you'll have a home with me."
Vee couldn't help but be touched. And also quite confused. "But why would you help me? You don't know me. I'm a monster."
"You're not a monster," Jane said adamantly. "My friends didn't know me either, but they saw a person who needed help, and gave it, even though it was risky. It's time I paid it forward."
Jane kept her word. She kept Vee's secret and covered for her every time Mami got even vaguely suspicious or when Vee slipped up. Without her to cover for Vee, Vee probably would have gotten exposed a dozen times over.
But even with the extra help, Vee lived in fear of the life she'd built for herself coming to an end, of Amity returning and bringing her back to the Isles to punish her for taking her girlfriend, for claiming her role in the Serrano family. And then her fears came to pass when Amity and a witch appeared in Mami's mirror. Vee pretended that she didn't see them, that Mami was just hallucinating because of a lack of sleep, but she knew that her time on Earth was drawing to a close.
When Emma and Edmond tried to kill her, Vee was ready to die. She'd experienced paradise, and she could die happy. But then she saw the portal, and she freaked out. Some sort of primal instinct took over her brain almost, and her world was anger and fear. She had to protect her life. She had to keep her mami and her mate. They were hers! And these witches were taking them away from her!
So she attacked. She sucked their magic for the first time since she escaped, and it wasn't until they were gone and the portal disappeared that she realized that she had been wrong. Amity hadn't returned to hurt her. She'd returned because she was afraid that Vee would hurt her family! She and Vee had the same priorities: To keep Mami and Clara safe. And what had Vee done? She'd nearly killed Amity and stranded Mami's other children in the Demon Realm!
And then, on top of that, she'd made the monumental mistake of revealing her true form to Clara, and her cheerleader girlfriend had promptly fainted. Mami was going to kill her. She was literally going to bludgeon her to death with la chancla.
And Vee would deserve every blow. She always had.
Camila had been having a perfectly lovely evening before everything changed for her. She had gone to her bedroom in order to give Clara and Amity some privacy to talk before they left on her date. She had the newest Clive Cussler book in her hands (mindless action thrillers were something of a guilty pleasure of hers), a cup of coffee beside her, and a nice, comfy blanket on her lap. What else did she need?
But when she heard a loud thud, she immediately put all these things aside and rushed out of her room. The scene before her was not one that she'd have envisioned seeing in her wildest dreams. Clara was lying on the ground, unconscious, and standing over her was…some sort of alien? That seemed to be the most logical explanation, as if "logical" and "alien" could possibly be applied to each other.
Maybe she had nodded off and dreamed this, but she knew it wasn't true. This was real. It was happening. Some bizarre serpentine alien had knocked out her daughter's girlfriend and done God knows what to her daughter!
"What did you do to Amity?!" Camila demanded.
And then the alien did the last thing that Camila suspected that she would do: She burst into tears. Guilt lined every corner of the alien's face. "I'm so sorry," she shouted between bouts of crying. "I should have told you. I should have told you before this!"
Camila didn't know a damn thing about aliens. But a sentient being was standing before her, and it was distraught. That was all she needed to know. "Cariño, please calm yourself. Just explain everything to me. It's going to be okay."
If the crying had shocked Camila, it certainly was nothing compared to the shock she felt when the alien shapeshifted into Amity's form. And suddenly it all made sense. Well, some of it did. Amity never had amnesia, because it was never her. This alien had been impersonating her the whole time, ever since the "amnesia" had begun. The signs were so obvious in retrospect, but Camila had been too blind to see it.
"¿Dónde está mi hija?" Camila demanded.
The alien tried to respond in absolutely horrendous Spanish, but Camila stopped her and repeated the question in English. Before the alien could respond, there was a groaning sound. Clara had regained consciousness. She looked over at Camila and gave a laugh. "Man, I just had the strangest dream, Camila. It…" She blinked. "Oh, it wasn't a dream, was it?" Camila shook her head.
The upstairs hallway, Camila decided, wasn't the right place to have life changing (or, depending on just how hostile the alien was, life ending) conversations, so she moved everyone down to the living room. The alien sat on the couch and Clara sat next to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder, as if defying Camila to say she shouldn't. At the alien's request, Camila called Jane and asked her to come over.
Camila insisted that everyone discuss things calmly, and promised them that she'd try to keep cool to the best of her ability. The alien revealed that she was actually Vee, a basilisk from another dimension, who had ended up trapped in the Human Realm. Amity and her siblings, apparently, were from the same magical land that Vee came from. Camila probably should have been more surprised by this, but honestly, she wasn't. It made far more sense that her children weren't human than that they had a completely new unprecedented organ in them. It didn't really matter, anyway. She loved them just the same.
Camila's promise to keep cool was sorely put to the test when she learned that Vee, in a moment of weakness driven by pure trauma, had trapped Emma and Edmond in the Demon Realm. She wanted to be angry, furiously angry at Vee. And that anger must have shown on her face, because Vee was absolutely terrified. Of her! In that moment, she wasn't a monster from another dimension. She was an abused, scared little girl, and Camila knew that she had to protect her from all threats, even herself.
Now Vee turned to face Clara. "I'm so sorry I lied to you. You must hate me."
"Vee, I don't hate you," Clara said gently. "I'm not happy you lied to me, but I understand why you did it." Vee looked as if this was simply not computing. "These last few weeks with you have been amazing! I've been happier than I've ever been, and even though I thought it was because I was dating Amity, it was because I was dating you! Vee…I think I might love you."
Vee just stared at her. "You do? You love me? Even after all this?"
"I'm not going to lie to you; it's going to take some getting used to," Clara admitted. "I think I'm going to need to cancel tonight's date, so I can think about all this. But I still want to date you." She leaned forward and kissed Vee on the lips. Vee let out a squeal of joy. "I don't care that you're a basilisk. You're you, and that's all I need."
Vee looked like she was walking on cloud nine for a few moments, but then she looked over at Camila, and all the happiness drained out of her face. It was replaced with a look of dull resignation. "Could you please do me a favor?" Camila didn't know what this would entail, but she nodded anyway. "When you kill me, could you just make it quick?"
Camila's heart practically broke in two. This poor, sweet innocent little girl had been mistreated so badly that she actually thought that Camila was going to kill her! If she ever got her hands on the people who made her suffer so much, la chancla was going to become the least of their problems.
"Cariño…mija." Vee looked up. She didn't know much Spanish, but she did know what that word meant. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to hurt you. You made a mistake, but you did it because you were scared, and you're going to help us make it right. I feel so bad that you've been so frightened and had to go through it all alone."
Vee shook her head. "I wasn't alone. I had the two of you."
The doorbell rang. Camila went over to answer it, and sure enough, Jane was on the other side. "Hi, Camila," Jane said casually. "What's –"
Camila took la chancla off her foot and rammed it straight into Jane's chest, causing her to stumble and fall. When she picked herself up, she appeared to know exactly what was causing Camila to be so upset. "So…I guess I'm in trouble?" she said.
"Oh, you are in so much trouble," Camila hissed at her. "So, so very much trouble. Get in here, and I'll decide exactly how much trouble you're in."
Jane gulped and went into the living room. She sat down in an armchair. Camila pointed at her, not bothering to hide the fury she felt at the fact that her own girlfriend, someone she'd come to care for and trust, had deceived her. "Why didn't you tell me?!" she shouted at Jane. When Vee flinched, Camila forced herself to use a quieter voice. But she was still angry, and Jane was also getting the bonus fury that she felt towards Vee but was resolutely not showing directed at her instead.
"Because I thought you'd react like this?" Jane said, trying to make a joke of it. Well, Camila wasn't finding the situation funny. Not at all.
"You are going to help me find a way to get my children back," Camila ordered her. "Or we are through. Actually, we might be through regardless. I haven't decided yet. But you're still going to help me." Jane nodded. "Good."
"They're going to be fine," Jane promised her. "I've been teaching Amity magic. She's quite skilled at it."
Camila took a few deep breaths. Of course she was. Magic was real now, and her children were capable of doing it. And her girlfriend had been hiding it from Camila for…? "How long?"
Jane winced, as if she just realized that she'd dumped herself into an even deeper layer of trouble. "Seven years." So basically for the entirety of the time they'd known each other. Fabulous. Well, seven years did seem like a long time. Harry Potter had grown quite magically talented in seven years, hadn't he? Even as she thought the sentence in her head, she winced, but it wasn't as if Camila had any other baselines for that.
Camila took a few deep breaths. Getting angry would accomplish nothing. Jane knew about magic, and Camila needed her help. The screaming arguments could wait until later, when her children were back and Vee was out of earshot.
Speaking of which, the basilisk had disentangled herself from Clara's grasp and now was walking towards the front door. "And just where do you think you're going?" Camila asked.
Vee turned around, looking confused. "I'm leaving? I'll find a home somewhere else. Anywhere is better than the Demon Realm." Camila's heart lurched in its chest at those words.
"Oh, no, you don't," Camila said. "No daughter of mine is living on the streets when she has a perfectly good home here."
Vee blinked. "Have you…been paying attention? I'm not your daughter. I took her place."
Camila walked over to Vee and gave her a hug. The poor girl deserved that and so much more. "You're not Amity, but you're still my daughter. I don't care that you're not blood – my children aren't my blood either. I love you, and there is nothing you can do to change that."
Tears flowed down Vee's cheeks. "Te…quiero? Is that how you say it?"
"It is, mija," Camila said. "Te quiero también."