“Oh, thank God.” I can hear the relief in his voice.
“Where are you?” I ask, too eager to remember to be discreet.
“I’m …” He hesitates. “You were circumspect, in your phone call, yesterday. I think I understood the place you were talking about. If I got it right, I’m about an hour away.”
I hadn’t dared tell him yesterday that if we made it across the border we would be heading for Montpellier. I have no idea if anyone’s listening to his phone, but I need to assume the worst, because we can’t afford to be caught—the fate of the world may well hang on us making it to Prague. So I made a joke about wading into a pond while on holiday—something that really happened when my family and Neal’s once visited Montpellier, on our way to Ambrussum, to study the Gallo-Roman ruins there.
We’d diverted for a picnic lunch in the park, and an eight-year-old Neal convinced a four-year-old me that there were undiscovered ruins hidden at the bottom of the pond in question. So in I wentto discover them. It was a soggy—and disappointing—experience, and one I’m fairly sure he won’t have forgotten.
“Look,” I say. “This might be for nothing, but it might not. There’s a chance that you’ll be tracked. You should draw cash out of the bank and swap your phone for a new one, before you … go to that place.”
Neal doesn’t even know I’ve been to Gaia, unless my father told him. All he knows is that I’ve been out of contact for weeks, and now I’ve surfaced in France, talking like an international spy. Luckily for me, he doesn’t seem to think I’ve lost my mind. “I’ll be there,” he says simply.
“And Neal?”
“Yes?”
“There’ll be other people with me. One’s a girl, Mia, you can trust her. The other two, don’t say anything in front of them. I’ll explain as soon as I can.”
An hour later, we’re wheeling our bikes through the Parc Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, approaching a small pond in the middle of the green space—the site of my long-ago and ill-fated exploration.
I can see Neal’s familiar figure as soon as we come around the bend in the path. We look fairly similar—the Addison genes are strong in both of us, and we play on the same water polo team, so we share the same build. He’s a little taller, a little more broad-shouldered, his skin a little deeper brown, but we look more like brothers than cousins. Wearemore like brothers than cousins.
He’s clad in his usual leather jacket and he’s got a motorbike, but it’s not his—it’s the wrong color, navy blue, with a white stripe down the side. It’s … mehercule, it’s a gendarme’s bike.
I show up on a rusty bicycle, and my cousin’s riding a stolen policeman’s motorbike. That’s us in a nutshell, really.
His blue-and-white steed is parked under a tree, and he’s pacingnervously beside it. He always paces when he’s thinking. He turns, spots us, and stares for a moment. Then he breaks into a jog, closing the gap between us.
I’m forced to drop my bicycle, and it clangs to the ground as my cousin throws his arms around me.
“God, Jules.” He sounds hoarse, but whatever emotion was coming is abruptly stifled as he lets go of me as quickly as he grabbed me. “Dear God, you smellunbelievablybad.”
His familiar face, his familiar voice, both part of my life for as long as I can remember—together they bring me a little undone. The tiredness and the hunger catch up with me, and my laugh sounds shaky to my own ears.
“Neal, this is Mia,” I say, stepping aside to introduce the others. Usually I’d say something more.This is Mia, my friend. This is Mia, my classmate. Something to give him some context. But I hear myself hitch on the end of her name, as if I’m swallowing the rest of that sentence, and I realize in that instant that I have no idea what it would even be.
This is Mia … my girlfriend?
The word is both completely insufficient for what she is to me, and at the same time, completely presumptuous. But still …
She offers her hand to shake, and Neal sketches an elaborate bow over it, lifting her fingers close to his lips, miming the action of kissing them.
“You,” he tells her, “do not smell terrible at all. I’m sure you couldn’t.” He peeks up at her, mischief in his eyes, and though she looks a little like she wants to roll hers, Mia is smiling anyway. Neal has that effect on everyone.
“Atlanta,” I say, gesturing to the next of our party.
She glances sidelong at Mia, and then offers her hand, just as my partner did. And Neal, of course, repeats his routine.
“You also smell better than my cousin,” he tells her, though he doesn’t tease a smile out of her, and something in Neal’s expression flickers warily. He knows something’s not right.
“And Dex,” I say. Dex is already smiling, and for a moment I forget he’s an alien.He’s adapting so quickly. They’re like chameleons.
Neal clearly takes that smile as encouragement, and mock-kisses Dex’s hand too. “And you,” he concludes, “I could positively eat.”
Dex’s smile flickers, and his expression goes a bit blank—but oddly, he doesn’t seem entirely put off by Neal’s ebullient friendliness. Instead, he almost looks … shy.
Human. And like he might be blushing.
