Lumara by Melissa Landers

Author:Melissa Landers [Landers, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2022-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning, I awoke with the sun and discovered I wasn’t alone. Olive sat on the wooden dinette chair in the corner, examining what appeared to be a loose strand of hair.

Not the visit I had expected.

“You really should sleep with your hair in a braid, you know,” she said, turning the strand to face the light from the window. “And keep it in a ponytail during the day. People can do all kinds of nasty things to you with a binding agent.”

She stood up and handed the strand to me, and I took it, though I didn’t know what to do with it afterward. Another side effect of my yearlong fake life: I’d forgotten everything my parents had taught me about keeping my DNA out of other people’s hands. “My mom used to freak out when she found my fingernail clippings in the trash,” I recalled. “She would tell me to flush them.”

“Or even better, burn them,” Olive said.

That reminded me of the old charcoal grill my parents had kept in the backyard for exactly that purpose. They had even burned the contents of our vacuum canister each time we’d cleaned. “I always thought they were being paranoid.”

“No, it’s smart.” Olive pointed at the window. “There’s a crowd of very unhappy people on the other side of the perimeter ward, and if they can’t get their hands on you, they’ll gladly settle for an eyelash or a drop of blood.”

“I’m already cursed.” Or cursed adjacent. “What’re they going to do? Kill me twice?”

“There are things worse than death,” she told me, and the way she said it, with a soft break in her voice, plucked at my heart and made it impossible to argue with her.

“Got an extra ponytail holder?” I asked.

She pulled an elastic from her pocket and tossed it over. “I actually didn’t come here to talk about binding agents. Your dad missed his flight.”

I sat bolt upright. “What?”

“The plane waited for over an hour. He didn’t show.”

I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and found a missed message.

Sorry, Button. Change of plans. Call me.

“Just a second,” I told Olive while dialing my father.

He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, honey. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. Are you all right? Are they treating you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t get on the plane,” he said. “It didn’t feel right, knowing Lillian is in control of it. I’ll find my own way to the island.”

“How? When?”

“Today,” he said. “I already rented a boat. If I leave now, I should be there around lunchtime. But I want to meet Lillian in international waters. Tell her to pick a neutral spot, and you can text me the coordinates.”

Olive spoke up from her seat in the corner. “That’s not going to work.”

“You can hear that?”

She shrugged. “He’s a loud talker. Might as well put him on speakerphone.”

I did as she suggested and made a basic introduction. “Dad, this is Nate’s sister, Olive. She says there’s a problem with your meeting spot.

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