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SIXTEEN

I got an hour and forty-five minutes of sleep.

I was so tired. My mom was already gone. My dad was eating eggs and bacon at the table when I came down from my nap.

"Morning, sleepyhead!" He said. "I'm busy with Miguel's crew today, so Naomi should be here in a few minutes."

I nodded, sat down. Froze as what he said registered. Felt Aftran watching me. Reminded myself to deal now and freak out later. "This looks great, thanks dad." I did not want to deal with close proximity to Rachel on so little sleep.

He nodded happily, finishing his last bites. "You know," he said, leaning back, "your mother isn't sure about accepting the funding. She says The Sharing gives her the creeps." He gave me a conspiratorial look that turned sheepish. "You know, I think they're a little kooky too. Too new-age." He shook his head. "No substance underneath."

"So why accept?" I asked around shoving eggs in my mouth. I tried to sound unruffled, cool. Like it didn't really matter too much to me. Like it was just adult stuff. My heart started to pound.

"Well, the offer is generous, " he replied. "We'd be able to upgrade the OR, take on more severe cases at once." He paused, thoughtful. "I can't say I'm upset about the proposed security upgrades, you know the meds we have in there."

I nodded. There was a reason the med room had a reinforced locking door. Some veterinary drugs had the same or greater effects in humans at the same doses. A lot of our medroom stock doubled as illegal recreational drugs, and was a target for thieves.

My parents trusted me a lot.

"I want to know what you think, though." My dad said. "I know how much the barn is your baby."

I pressed my lips together. Swallowed. Tried to think of what to say. "The offer sounds… great." I hedged. My voice did not in any way convey that I thought the offer was great. "But I don't want our funding coming from a cult."

The sharp eyebrow-raised look my dad gave me made me look down in embarrassment. " Well . You have quite the opinion there, don't you?" He laughed.

«He seems human,» Aftran murmured. Her exhaustion bled into mine. She didn't need to sleep, but she'd also been through a lot in the last few days. Plus, I was sleep-deprived enough for that to affect her. «I can't be sure, not without more interaction.»

I relaxed about one degree. I didn't respond.

"You asked." I said.

My dad started to say something else. A car horn blared from the front yard.

"Go, go." He said, waving a lazy hand. "Try to have a good day at school, it doesn't look like you slept well last night."

I grabbed my bag and walked outside. Rachel's mom was parked near the porch. I slid open the rear car door and headed past Sara and Jordan's middle seats. Sara was crying, mid-sales-pitch. Jordan was half-mockingly 'singing' along to the radio at deafening volume.

"—but Tisha only has the piglets and the goose and she lost the lamb! Mooooom, mooom it has Stacie too—"

"—Hi, Cassie! Glad you're okay!" Rachel's mom called back over the noise. I waved. "Late start today, tell Walter 'you're welcome' this afternoon won't you—?"

"—oo youuu aaaareee… where youuure froooommm, whaaaat youuu diiiidd—"

«I regret having access to your auditory processing.» Aftran snapped, suddenly awash in irritation.

My lips twitched.

—And then I realized I was internally laughing along at a comment from the alien slug who had stolen my body and was graciously allowing me to have some control back— so she could keep access to my morphing ability, keep control of my body, and stay alive. Like this was all fine and okay.

I felt her irritation grow as my decent mood evaporated into discomfort, revulsion, and nausea. I ignored her as I sat down in the back seat. Next to Rachel.

She stared straight ahead, watched me from the corner of her eye. It looked a little red. Puffy, like she'd cried.

The ride to drop Jordan and Sara off was excruciatingly awkward. And then it got worse after dropoff, because it was just as awkward in the car with Rachel and I ignoring each other as it was in my head with Aftran and I ignoring each other.

"Rachel, Cassie," her mom said into the silence beyond the chirpy pop song on the radio. "You girls are awfully quiet back there. Did you have a fight?"

Rachel and I glanced at each other. Mutually horrified at what was happening and mutually helpless to stop it. Aftran's irritation lessened, bled into amusement.

"I'm just having a bad day, mom." Rachel said lamely. She wasn't even trying to sound sincere.

"Hmmm," her mom said from up front as the announcer came on the radio, but she left it alone. I mentally thanked tact.

Words I wasn't ready to hear popped up from the radio, halfway through the dj's spiel.

"—thanks to the generous backing of The Sharing, a local community-focus organization that fosters better connections in our fast-paced modern society. That means this year will feature a third and fourth stage, with more to-be-announced artists! Tickets for Happy Holiday Frolic go on sale starting next month—"

I turned and looked at Rachel on reflex, panicking. She turned her head to me, gave me a complicated look, and looked away. After a moment, so did I.

We rode the rest of the way to school avoiding each other's eyes. Rachel put distance between us the second she was out of the SUV.

I let her.

The entire school day, I tried to keep my head down and get work done. I had days of makeup work to collect.

So many people I barely knew came up to me. Classmates, kids who weren't even in my grade. Everybody wanted to ask if I'd seen the leopard that killed the little girl. Wasn't it so sad? Wasn't it weird that we'd both been lost, that I'd been lost only a couple miles away from her? Scary, huh? Life can be so crazy like that . You really never know.

I was exhausted by lunch. My classes after lunch were a slog. My last class was decent, mostly because the end of it was Marco clearly pulling his entire project presentation out of his butt on the spot . He did a really decent job. I thought he'd get a low B, at least.

The one time his eyes met mine, they'd gone hard and he'd looked away.

When the bell rang I made sure to give Marco a minute or two ahead of me before I left.