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  Luna looks to Ghost again. He sighs impatiently.

  “I comfort others?” she says in something just above a whisper. “Does that make sense?”

  That’s enough, Luna! Please, just shut your mouth. I close my eyes and try to project this thought as loudly as possible, but Luna’s proud of herself. Her role is a great honor to her people, a position of power and influence. She’s been selected to be something like a life coach, steering a leader toward good decisions, guiding their choices and careers in an effort to achieve greater power and prestige. Luna is the literal woman behind the great man, and in this case, the great man is Ghost. She’s his girlfriend in all meanings of the word, but her job is to prepare him for the responsibilities of a future role in Alpha government and for his role as a husband to someone else.

  “Comfort others?” Mr. Ervin presses.

  C’mon, Ervin! Let it go!

  “Yes, some Sirena are honored to be . . . pleasure givers—I think the word you use is mates?”

  I want to jump up and stop her. This is too shocking for a bunch of rowdy teenagers on the first day of school. They’re going to label her a prostitute. I know because when my mother told me this story, I thought the same thing. There’s so much more to it, but this frail girl doesn’t have the words to do it justice.

  Luckily, Mr. Ervin’s face tells me he’s getting an inkling of what Luna is trying to say. His face burns red and he begins to stammer.

  “Okay, so, let’s see. Um, tell us about these gloves the two of you are wearing. Are they jewelry?” he asks.

  Yes, change the subject!

  “She’s a ho!” someone shouts from the back.

  The boys hoot and holler, whistle, and pound on desks. The girls gasp in a collective judgment that sucks all the air out of the room. American teenagers have seen it all—the Internet is a bottomless cup of OMG—but this is something entirely new to them. They aren’t used to being surprised.

  I want them to know Luna doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do, and that it is she who actually chooses whom to guide, that Sirena get to pick those among the Alpha who have the most potential. I want them to understand that Luna’s role is nuanced, but I’m being naive. Jorge, Deshane, and Keith aren’t into nuances.

  “How much?” Jorge shouts. A crumpled dollar flies over my head and lands at Luna’s feet.

  Frightened, Luna takes Ghost’s hand. I might be imagining it, but their gloves shimmer, a faint light weaves through the etchings, and then it’s gone.

  “You’re not doing Caspar the Ghost, are you?” Deshane shouts. He’s an enormous kid—a hulk, loud, and lacking in all self-restraint. If our school had money for a football team, someone would have steered his aggression toward organized sports and away from the rest of us, but our school doesn’t have money for a football team. “You need a pimp, honey?”

  “Ignorant filth,” Ghost rages. His fists are balled up so tight, the powdery white skin beneath his webbed fingers turns a hot crimson. “Luna holds an honored place amongst our people. Know your place, bottom feeder.”

  Suddenly, Deshane is all out of laughter. “What did you call me, fish head?”

  “I called you a bottom feeder. That’s a fish that eats feces off the ocean floor,” Ghost says as he stomps toward Deshane.

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Mr. Ervin crosses the room to get between them. “We all need to remember that we’re from two very different cultures with completely different ways of living. What might sound strange to us is perfectly normal to someone else. I’m sure there are things we do that the mermaids—”

  “Mermaid?” Ghost snaps. “Do I look female to you? Do I look like something out of your brainless fairy tales? I am a Son of Nix! My name is . . .”

  What comes out jars my bones. It’s a vibrating wail and a bark and a roar all at once. It feels like it could pop my eardrums if I didn’t clamp my hands over them.

  Mr. Ervin stammers an apology, but Ghost won’t let him get started.

  “You clueless jellyfish. My people would have you thrown into the Great Abyss to prevent you from mating and creating more dull-witted minnows. No wonder these sea cucumbers are so simple.”

  Deshane gets to his feet. “Say it to my face!”

  Ghost looks at Deshane and laughs. “Step up if you didn’t hear me, but know this: the moment you’re in my reach, I will gut you.”

  Jorge stands up. “Kick his ass, Deshane.”

  The soldier takes a step toward us. He’s got his rifle in his hands. “I want everyone in their seats now!”

  But no one is paying attention to him. Every eye is on Deshane. He’s a wrecking machine. He put a teacher in the hospital once back in elementary school, but if my mother’s stories are true, Ghost is the one to worry about. I always thought she had exaggerated what comes over them in a fight. It sounded like something from a horror film. But when Deshane charges up the aisle, I see it for myself. Ghost’s fingertips split open like overcooked sausages. Black talons creep out of the meat and gristle. What was once his mouth stretches impossibly wide, as if his jaw is not connected to his skull and can just grow and grow until it devours the entire room. Inside are rows and rows of teeth planted in milky-white gums. But what is far more frightening is the eager, murderous smile in his bulbous, bloodshot eyes. Ghost wants to hurt Deshane. He wants to show off.

  I can’t let him, even if my father’s voice is trumpeting in my head. Don’t get involved! Stay out of their business! Let the soldier handle it. But my father is not here, and he doesn’t realize that I listened to the other things he used to say to me back when doing the right thing was more important than being safe. Be the person who stops the fight.

  “Sit down, Deshane,” I say as I leap to my feet.

  “Uh, Lyric?” Bex says, reaching for my hand.

  Deshane looks at me like I materialized out of thin air. I haven’t talked to this kid since he and I sat out the fourth grade field trip to the aquarium because we kept laughing at the tour guide’s lisp. I hope he remembers.

  “Get out of my way, bitch.”

  Okay, I guess he doesn’t remember.

  He tries to get past me, but I block him, then do it again. He looks at me, laughs, then shoves me so hard, I tumble over my desk and slam my shoulder onto the floor. There’s a flash of red, an instant ache, and spots before my eyes. Oh, man, I’m going to have one serious migraine.

  Bex kneels beside me. “There’s my wild thing,” she says with a proud grin.

  “Stay in your seats!” the soldier roars. He’s on his radio shouting for backup. Seconds later the door flies open and ten heavily armed men storm into the room. They stomp down the aisles and drag Deshane and Jorge into the hall, then come back for Ghost.

  “Get your hands off me,” he hisses as they pull him out of the class.

  There are hands on my arms too, and I realize I’m not being helped to my feet. I’m being arrested.

  Chapter Seven

  The gymnasium is now a temporary holding cell for students waiting for the bus to the Tombs. Twenty-five desks complete with chairs bolted into the hardwood floor make up five neat rows. I’m handcuffed to one. Some whimpering freshman is to my right. Ghost is to my left, grumbling in his barky language, and Deshane and his pals are behind me, laughing. They aren’t taking any of this seriously.

  I, however, am freaking out. We’ve been here for three hours, and I’ve been trembling every minute of it. What I did was dumb. Apart from the fact that I’m going to be stuck in a jail cell with who knows what, a trip to the Tombs will put me into the system. I just invited the police to peer into my hiding places, uncover my secrets, examine my DNA. Flags will go up. Questions will be asked about my parents, about why my mom doesn’t have a Social Security number or a driver’s license or a birth certificate. They will come for us, just like my father warned they would, and it will be my fault. Right now I’m missing my phone. I just wish I could call them and tell them to run.

  The doo
rs to the gym open, and footsteps approach. A man in a tight, short-sleeved oxford shirt and khaki slacks approaches, along with a small handful of soldiers. He’s got a crewcut and a jaw like a mason block and a hint of a tattoo poking out of his sleeve. When he gets to my desk, he stops, sips from a mug of coffee, and eyes me up and down.

  “Soldier, can you take Ms. Walker’s handcuffs off?”

  A young private unfastens the cuffs. It feels good to be out of them. My wrists have been rubbed raw, but being free also means I’m on my way to jail.

  “Come with me, Ms. Walker,” he says.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m David Doyle, the new principal.” He wanders toward the exit.

  I look back to the soldier, expecting to find his gun in my face, but he’s not paying any attention to me. He goes back to where he was stationed and turns his eyes to the other students.

  “Ms. Walker?” Doyle is gesturing impatiently. “Please keep up.”

  Two things could be happening here. Maybe he’s escorting me to the police van for transport to the Tombs. Or (and this feels more likely) he’s already figured out what I am and he’s trying to lure me out of the room to avoid causing a scene. Neither of these is a good scenario, but I don’t know what other choice I have but to follow him. I might have Alpha blood, but I do not have their strength and speed. Fighting my way out of here is not an option.

  Doyle leads me out of the gym and down an empty hallway to a door that has a sign on it that reads nurse’s office. He reaches into his pants pocket and takes out a ring of keys, then unlocks the door and gestures for me to enter. I’m expecting to be forced into a chair and questioned, but there’s no one in the room—in fact, it doesn’t look like too many people have ever been in this room. Ancient first-aid equipment is pushed against the far wall. A blood-pressure machine leans near a stack of crumbling boxes vomiting yellow medical files onto the floor. A dusty eye chart has fallen under a desk, and a poster of the human skeleton hangs precariously by one strip of tape. Everything was shoved aside to make room for a wall of surveillance monitors. There are thirty of them in all, and each screen reveals a different part of the school. I can see classrooms, hallways, down every shelf in the library, the teacher’s break room, and even under the bleachers in the gym. Mr. Ervin is teaching his class. A soldier is stationed at a door, armed and ready. Two cops are putting Deshane into a police van outside the back of the building.

  Mr. Doyle gestures to an empty chair, but I ignore him. I need to be on my feet so I can run. This is what my father taught me.

  “What happened to Mrs. Channing?” I ask.

  “She has been reassigned,” he says.

  “Am I going to the Tombs?”

  He takes a long sip of his coffee and eyes me up and down, like he’s not sure what the answer is yet.

  “Just relax, Ms. Walker.”

  “I’m relaxed.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  Mr. Doyle sits down in a rolling chair, then uses his feet to move toward me, creeping along like a spider greeting its entangled lunch. He smells of aftershave, cigarettes, toothpaste, and some chemical he uses to make his hair look wet. His chinos are those wrinkle-free kind. Everything is locked down and tight. There’s no way he’s really a principal. He’s probably a cop. Only cops care this much about how they look. Plus, I’ve never met a teacher with a tattoo—at least not one where you could see it.

  “Please, Ms. Walker, sit down,” he says.

  It doesn’t sound like a request, so I sit, reluctantly, in the chair closest to the door.

  “Did you know that forty-two percent of the student body at this school have been charged with a misdemeanor?”

  Cop.

  “How come you’re not one of them?” he continues as he rolls over to a little desk in the corner and snatches a manila folder from the top. He rolls back and flaps it in front of my face. “Because according to your file, it looks like you were headed in that direction. Three years ago you were caught on the roof of your middle school smoking pot.”

  “I wasn’t actually smoking it.”

  “You were also in detention fourteen times for being disrespectful. You were one tardy away from an in-school suspension. You were almost expelled for passing around a flask of gin.” He pauses, as he thinks I need to let it all sink in, like it wasn’t me who actually did those things.

  “I’m not sure what the question is,” I say.

  He grins and sips his coffee. “And then one day you changed. You turned into a model student. Your grades got better. You started showing up on time. You haven’t cut a class in three years. There isn’t a complaint or mark in your file. Other than a few extra sick days for migraines, you’re a model student. Why is that?”

  “My father threatened to arrest me. He’s a cop. You know how that is.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “I’m not a cop.”

  “Well, you’re not a principal.”

  He smiles and leans forward, a cat patiently waiting for the mouse to poke its head out from under the radiator. “I have a theory about you. Would you like to hear it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I whisper, but my head is screaming, He knows. I can’t panic; I just have to remember what Dad told me to do. I look to the door. There aren’t any windows, so it’s my only option. I can beat him out of the room if I push his chair. He’ll roll back, and if I push hard enough, he’ll probably fall off.

  “Here’s what I think: you got tired of being a pain in the butt.”

  “What?”

  He pushes off with his feet and rolls across the room to look at his monitors. “Being a screwup got boring. Plus, you knew if you had any chance of getting out of the Zone, it was probably college. So you turned yourself around. Good for you, but now, here’s the interesting thing about Lyric Walker. You still have the respect of your classmates. You’ve got friends that are black, Latino, and Asian. You mingle with the gangsta wannabes and the honor-roll kids. They like you. They count you as one of them. You’re a real chameleon, but it works for you. Today someone twice your size decided not to run you down when you told him to stop.”

  “Actually, he did run me down.”

  “I saw that kid. He went easy on you.” Doyle laughs, and it sounds real.

  “Sounds like you’ve figured me out,” I say. I don’t think he knows. But I’m not about to let myself relax. I nudge my chair to have a better angle toward the door.

  “I think so. I also think you could be a big help to me.”

  “Help?”

  “Lyric, in three months, ten more public schools are going to do exactly what we’re doing here at Hylan: four here in Coney Island, three in Gravesend, and three in Brighton Beach. A month after that, there will be fifty schools throughout Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. By the beginning of the next school year, there will be Alpha in schools all over the five boroughs.

  “I was brought here to make it work, so we can get them off the beach in as peaceful a manner as possible. It’s good for the city and the nation. It’s good for the Alpha, too. This should have been the plan all along. Sending in those soldiers, God rest their souls, was shortsighted. It set us back years in our war with them, but now we have a plan that will work.”

  “We’re at war with them?”

  “Lyric, we’re at war with everyone who’s not like us,” he says as if I should already know that. “And do you know what our greatest weapon is, Lyric? It’s you, the American teenager. Your lifestyle is as powerful as a nuclear bomb, and it works everywhere we drop it. Your two-hundred-dollar sneakers, Twitter, hip-hop—boom! boom! boom! It worked in Russia, it’s working in China, and it’s even working in parts of the Middle East. Now it’s time we unleashed this weapon on the Alpha.”

  “And that’s me?”

  “Yes. You’re going to befriend one of them,” he says.

  “No.” The word comes out faster than my mind has time to manufacture it, but it’s the right word. No. No. No. N
o. No.

  Doyle frowns and laces his fingers together. He stretches his palms outward, and his knuckles pop like tiny machine guns.

  “Hear me out, Lyric. What I want is not such a big deal. Just walk to class with him, help him with his homework, introduce him to things you like. The rest will do itself. You’re shaking your head. Give me one good reason why you won’t do this, Lyric.”

  “Samuel Lir,” I say.

  Doyle sighs.

  “You know Samuel Lir, right?” I say. “He’s Mr. Lir’s son. Three years ago, when people found out what he was, they beat the crap out of him! They nearly killed him. My father was the one who found him, stuffed under the boardwalk with his skull and both eye sockets crushed, his spine so mangled that parts of it were no longer in his back. They put him in a wheelchair. He couldn’t feed or go to the bathroom by himself. He couldn’t speak. And no one was ever arrested.” Then he disappeared.

  “Samuel was one of them. You are not,” he says.

  If only he knew!

  “Oh, then let’s talk about that kid they dragged from his car because he tried to raise money to buy the Alpha shoes, and the girl they set on fire for bringing them a box of canned food, or Kevin Folkes—”

  “What if I promised you wouldn’t be hurt?”

  “Then you would be lying to me.”

  “Lyric, I’m trying to help you out here. That stunt you pulled in class earned you a trip to the Tombs. I can make that go away, but—”

  I leap to my feet. “Then send me to the Tombs. Prison sounds a lot better than being dead.”

  He shakes his head slowly, then waves his hands in the air like he’s swatting away a mosquito. My argument is a nuisance to him, a pest that, if ignored, will go away.

  “Lyric, we all have to do our part to make this work. I’ll call your dad tonight. We’ll get this settled. You start tomorrow.”

  “You aren’t listening to me.”

  “We’ll get this settled,” he repeats. Arguing with him is pointless. Let him call my father so my dad can be the one to tell him to go to hell.

  “You’re going to be a huge help.”