seem strange, but be calm and watch.” Alise took in a deep, slow breath, filling her lungs all the way, her gray eyes fixed on Juliana’s face. When she exhaled, she breathed out a cloud of what looked like tiny, pink, fluffy flower petals. Juliana flinched as they landed all over her face, neck, and arms...but then she felt much, much better.
The delicate little petals melted into her skin like sugar cubes in hot tea. A few of the pink flakes drifted into Juliana’s gaping mouth and landed on her tongue. They reminded her of cotton candy from the fair, and every sweet thing she’d ever tasted.
Juliana sighed and relaxed. The world had a beautiful golden glow now, radiating from Alise, the girl she loved with all her heart, even if she hadn’t realized it until just now.
“You’re so sweet to come see me,” Juliana said. “You’re so...perfect.”
“I know. Are you happy now?”
“I am happy when you’re near me.”
“And you trust me, don’t you? You know that anything I ask you to do is for the good?”
“Of course.” Juliana beamed. At that moment, she would have jumped off a cliff in the desert if she knew it would make Alise happy. Her heart had never felt so alive and so vulnerable. “You’re a good friend, Alise. I want us to stay friends.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Alise look puzzled.
“Weren’t you mad at me when you got here? You were mad about...something.” Juliana couldn’t remember. All she could think about was Alise, beautiful, fascinating Alise. “Let me think...”
“I know what it was. You said some silly thing earlier, to Dr. Wichtmann. You said you wanted to quit the research, leave the base, and go back to America. That’s not true, is it?” Alise looked as if she were about to tear up and start crying, just like Mia had. “Oh, no, I can’t lose a friend like you. Promise me you’ll never leave me, Juliana.”
“I wouldn’t leave you.” Juliana’s heart ached sweetly, just knowing that Alise felt the same way about her. “I couldn’t leave you, Alise. I...I think I might love you.”
“I love you, too, Juliana.” Alise stood and winked. “Let’s go have dinner. I’m glad we could talk things over. I’ll walk you to your lab tests in the morning, if you like.”
“I’d like it very much.” Juliana beamed at her as they left her room, toward the small dining room where the test subjects had been segregated ever since Juliana’s arrival.
It had never been easy for Juliana to make friends, so she couldn’t believe her luck, having a friend like Alise who lived just down the hall.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
An electronically amplified voice woke Seth from his sleep: “The general is here to see you.”
“Huh?” Seth sat up, his hair sticking out in clumps. He tried to get his bearings. He was on a very small, uncomfortable bed in a concrete room like a prison cell. He faced a steel door where a young man in a black uniform looked at him through a thick pane of glass. “Where the hell am I? Is this Alabama?” Seth asked.
“You are in a classified research facility.” A hard, gruff voice took over. The young man in the window moved aside and was replaced by a man in his late forties or early fifties, with bright green eyes and close-cropped red hair, going gray. “You and Jennifer Morton have been taken into custody because of the mass death in Fallen Oak.”
Oh, shit, that again, Seth thought. “So...Alabama, then?” he asked.
“You are very far from home, Seth. My name is Lieutenant General Ward Kilpatrick, U.S. Department of Defense. We’re very concerned about the threat to national security represented by you and Jenny...especially Jenny.”
“Jenny’s not a threat to anybody,” Seth said.
“How can you say that, after witnessing the slaughter in Fallen Oak?” Ward asked. His voice crackled from the ceiling, slightly delayed from the movement of his lips.
“Those people were trying to kill her. And me. So my sympathy is kind of limited,” Seth said.
“Were they not people you knew personally? Teenagers and teachers from your school? Your church pastor? Your mayor?”
“I did know them,” Seth said. “A lot of them were assholes.”
“But did they deserve to die?”
Seth shrugged. “Once you say it’s okay to murder somebody, aren’t you kind of saying that it’s okay for somebody to murder you? I mean, fair’s fair.”
“You have no remorse?”
“I wish it hadn’t happened, but I’ve had plenty of time to get over it.” Seth smiled. He realized that he