They weren’t expecting to get pregnant.
After ten years of marriage and endless tests, they’d accepted that it was practically impossible to reverse the near-sterilization her parents forced on her. The baby was an enormous shock. The entire pregnancy has been fraught. She nearly miscarried three times. At one point we couldn’t hear the heartbeat. There’ve been a lot of dark days.
Juliette calls the whole thing a miracle.
Warner calls it a “fucking nightmare,” and he never uses explicit language. Once, when we thought she’d lost the baby, I heard him having a panic attack in the bathroom. Kenji had been with him then, calming him down.
The memory strikes me in the chest.
We like to give each other shit around here, but at the end of the day we’d all die for each other, no questions asked.
“Really, I’m fine,” I hear Juliette say, and I glance up to catch her forcing a smile, her hand still caught under her belly. “I just hate that I can’t get out of bed.”
“Just a few more weeks,” Kenji says, his own eyes sobered. “You got this, J.”
“We can have as many meetings in here as you like,”I add a little eagerly. “And I’ll make sure to come by more often.”
“Really?” Her eyes brighten. “I’d like to hear all the Rosabelle stories—”
“No,” Warner says sharply. “Nothing upsetting.”
She only looks at him, her smile blossoming into something so openly adoring I have to look away. “I’ll be all right,” she says softly. “You don’t have to worry so much.”
“That’s like telling water not to be wet,” Kenji mutters, crunching popcorn again. “This man lives to worry about you. It’s his favorite thing to do. Between worrying about you and talking about you and frolicking through fields aggressively shouting your name at wildlife, I’m surprised the man has any time left to fuck with the world.”
“Hey, don’t make fun of my husband,” Juliette says playfully, and pinches him. “He works hard.”
Kenji yelps. Popcorn forgotten, he turns to look at her with wide eyes. “Did you just, like, zap me with your killing power?”
She laughs. “Only a little bit.”
“Only a little bit?” His eyes go wider. “J, you can literally murder people withonly a little bit—”
“She can murder whoever she wants,” Warner says flatly. “Don’t stifle her.”
Kenji’s jaw drops open. “You two are disgusting. This whole situation is disgusting. I hate everyone in this room.”
“Except for me,” I point out.
“Except for you,” he says, nodding. He hesitates, then frowns.“Wait, no, I’m still mad at you.”
“I thought we forgave him,” says Juliette.
“No, we haven’t,” says Warner, crossing his arms. He turns fully to face me. “And we’re not done with this discussion.”
I sigh, slumping deeper into my chair.
“At first I thought cutting you off from the girl was the right course of action,” says Warner, “but it’s clear to me now that you need to finish what you started. She’s exhibited enough vulnerability—enough instability—in her interactions with you to prove she’s human, and that makes her weak.”
“Write that down,” Kenji says. “Remember this moment. Hell, make it the title of your memoir:Being Human Makes You Weak, by Aaron Warner Anderson.”
Juliette fights a smile, but Warner ignores this. He’s still looking at me when he says, “If the girl has one weakness, she has others. It’s your job to find them.”
“She’s not going to do it!” I shout, throwing up my hands. “Rosabelle the serial killer is not going to participate in a therapy program. Can you imagine her opening up? Talking about how The Reestablishment hurt her feelings? The steps she’s taking to be a more mindful individual?”
Warner’s mouth is a grim line. “No one is expecting her to actually participate. This is nothing more than an opportunity for you to have regular access to her in a controlled environment. If we want her to believe that we’ve accepted her bid for asylum, we need to establish an equally believable transition into our world.It’s what we do with all theoretically reformed members of The Reestablishment. By the end of the program, we’ve compiled a thorough dossier on each member, all of which informs next steps.”
“How long?” I ask. “How long would I have to do this?”
