Chapter Text
(Leah POV)
16 Stranded Teenage Experiment Subjects Rescued Off Central American Coast – Lead Researcher, Gretchen Klein, Yet to Be Found
By Dylan Harding
Published 2:58 a.m. PT, Sep. 23, 2020
Anybody not living under a rock for the past six weeks has heard the news – the downright dystopian story of sixteen high schoolers boarding private flights bound for a Hawaiian retreat, never to make it. Eight girls and eight boys stranded on two separate islands, two sides of the same experimental initiative, respectively deemed The Dawn of Eve and The Twilight of Adam.
An anonymous inside source revealed the details of this story shortly after the FBI received the tip that sparked their ongoing investigation, which several angry parents have argued should’ve begun over two months ago when their children never returned from their supposed fourteen-day vacation oversees. Little was done by local officials then, who in many cases told the worried parents to simply have more patience, or even suggested that their son or daughter had turned into a runaway. Bernice Blackburn, mother of Martha Blackburn and foster parent to Toni Shalifoe, has been especially vocal about the failure of her town’s department.
The missing claim was taken more seriously by the NYPD, but the retreat that Angela and James Reid remembered sending their daughters on was found not to exist. Its online presence was seemingly scrubbed with no paper trail left behind to follow, and it would take weeks for an unknown whistleblower to reveal why to the FBI.
Gretchen Klein, a former doctor of behavioral sciences, sold the retreat as a cover for a study in which her unknowing subjects would, much in the style of Lord of the Flies, determine whether a society led by women was superior to one under a patriarchy. The 48-year-old researcher lost her license just two years ago for malpractice not dissimilar to this most recent transgression.
After a six-week search, Klein remains in hiding from authorities, but her initiative has come to an end. On September 21 (two days ago at time of publication), survivors Fatin Jadmani and Leah Rilke were allegedly found searching by boat for help, their signal flare being spotted by a nearby U.S. military base. Sergeant Joanie Wright was the teens’ rescuer and overseer during their short stay, but has declined all invitations for an interview.
Thirteen of the survivors were spotted after arriving back in their hometowns (see some of the homecomings pictured below), the exceptions being Shelby Goodkind, Dorothy Campbell, and Seth Novak. It’s been reported and confirmed by multiple sources that the three never returned to their respective homes, leaving many to question if this tragedy ended in casualties.
The only person able to be reached on Campbell’s side, a family friend and her late father’s nurse, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The same is true for Novak’s parents, but Dave Goodkind, the father of one of Texas’s most beloved pageant queens, has told reporters: “It’s tearing us apart. We haven’t heard a word from her…nothing. We’ve got no idea if she’s even coming home, and the police won’t answer our questions.”
After being notified that an unmarked vehicle – tinted and presumed to be FBI with his daughter inside – was seen leaving the Redmond airport that morning, he criticized the organization: “They should have brought her straight here. Why aren’t they doing their jobs?! Where’s my little girl?”
See his full interview here.
That was only the first third of the article Leah clicked on that morning, not able to bring herself to check social media yet on her first full day back to civilization, but needing to see some of what the rest of the world had to say about their little life-changing detour. What it had to say was…a lot. They weren’t just in the headlines, they were in every headline. So many that Leah seriously doubted she’d ever be able to read them all.
She didn’t even get through the first, because while she’d been lying in bed with her screen brightness down, Fatin had woken up without her notice and apparently read along. Head still tucked into Leah’s shoulder where’d it’d been all night, her gravelly morning voice said, “Solid concerned dad act. Bastard forgot to mention he’d tell her not to come home if she was gay.”
Leah’s heartrate hit the ceiling of the room that’d been completely silent moments before, the jolt of her body not making Fatin move except to tighten the comfortable hold she had around Leah’s middle.
“Think her and Dot are apartment-hunting already?” Leah asked, relaxing again and scrolling down to skim the rest of the article.
“Duh. Bet Dorothy sold one of my dad’s Rolex’s before they even had lunch yesterday. They could be sipping martinis on a penthouse balcony as we speak.”
A great thought, but not even a little realistic. “I know you can’t see frugal survivalist Dot renting the fanciest apartment on the market. She’s gonna convince Shelby to live out of a shoebox.”
“I’d fly out there just to kick her in the ass,” Fatin groaned in protest at the idea. “But that’d still be better than Shelby living with her folks again. Whatever gets her out of that house and away from the bullshit her dad preaches.”
Leah hummed in agreement as she reached the bottom of the news story, which was bookended with a collage of all sixteen subjects’ names and photos seemingly collected from whatever the editor could find. Leah’s was the yearbook picture from the worst school year of her life, and the weak smile on her face showed it.
But before she could even start to take that trip down memory lane, Fatin was laughing so hard that she had to roll off Leah to clutch at her sides, face buried in a pillow.
“What?” Leah questioned, the other girl’s noise turning into a mad cackling and making her crack up too. “That better not be over my sad-ass photo. I was going through it, okay?”
“No, no.” Fatin sat up abruptly, hysterically wiping a tear away. She pulled the phone closer and zoomed in on a group of three. “What the shit is that?”
On the left was a beaming Martha, to the right a perfectly photogenic Fatin in some cropped vacation shot, and dead in the center: Toni caught the second before she tore into whoever was behind her school’s yearbook camera – pinched face, bulging neck vein and all – probably after being told to smile.
“Send me that, right now,” Fatin urged like it would disappear, rushing out of bed to grab the phone she’d left on the floor with the clothes she traded for Leah’s last night.
Leah did as she was told, not deleting it from her camera roll afterwards. Fatin used it for Toni’s contact picture, the girl already lovingly named “Gremlin.”
After spending so much time in the middle of nowhere with no entertainment outside of themselves, seeing Fatin even holding a phone was weird. Like, glitch in the matrix weird. And for no longer than a snap, the stranger Leah used to see in the school halls was the one crawling back under her covers instead of the person she knew.
That illusion faded quickly amongst all the scars, sunburns, and miscellaneous marks spotting Fatin’s skin from head to toe. Thicker cuts had long healed on her temple and thigh, serving as the most prominent reminders that the two of them weren’t whoever they used to be. Leah’s biggest remembrance lived on the entirety of her left forearm, every inch scarred.
It was a starker, more grim thing to face than the smaller differences she could find in Fatin, who teased, “What’re you staring at?” when Leah propped herself up on her side to point out her favorite.
“Your freckles got so much darker,” she borderline marveled, lightly tracing a finger along the left cheek’s constellation just because she could.
Fatin softened, then tugged on the front of Leah’s shirt. “Come over here, we’re not done getting our shut-eye.”
The sunlight shining through the curtains said otherwise, as did the numbers on her alarm clock. “I think we are. We slept for almost eleven hours, and I’m hungry, so—”
“Just ten minutes.” It sounded like a plea, but Fatin turned over with confidence, knowing Leah would fill the empty space at her back. Which she did, of course. She wasn’t heartless. And holding on to Fatin’s little spoon preference as hypothetical blackmail material was just a bonus.
Leah fit her head over Fatin’s shoulder, watching as she tapped away on her phone. She created a group chat that included all the numbers she’d collected the previous day, before they all had to go their separate ways. Then she made a second one for just the girls, dropping a quick message telling Dot and Shelby to let the rest of them know they’re alright. The bigger chat got a more general “What up bitches.”
Nobody had even been back home for a full day yet, so replies would be slow as the rest of them got their hands on a new phone to replace their lost ones. Fatin closed out of her messages without waiting for an answer, and Leah caught a glimpse of the bright red notification alert above Instagram that read “999+.”
She didn’t want to know what her own social media looked like, all notifications decidedly turned off. But that massive number might not have been that unusual for Fatin. Even back in their sophomore year, in the few instances Leah’s curiosity took her to Fatin’s profile after the first time they met, the girl’s follower count was in the thousands. No doubt it hit five figures already. Might’ve even been closer to six, with her name and face being plastered everywhere now.
But it went ignored by Fatin, who just tossed the device face-down on the bed and pulled Leah’s arm tighter around her. She breathed in deeply, pressing the comforter against her nose and saying on exhale, “Your mom and dad washed your sheets,” with an odd hint of disbelief.
“Yeah, I think this is the only clean room in the house. My mom’s usually personally offended by dust bunnies, but I guess she hasn’t found many reasons to keep the rest of the place spotless.”
If Leah knew what was on Fatin’s mind, she would’ve kept her mouth shut. She was left mentally kicking herself when she heard, “My room smelled stale the second I walked in. It just…hit me right in the face. There’s so much dust it looks like it snowed. Every other floor’s clean enough to eat off of, though.”
The sadness in her voice was clear, turning to wounded by the end. “Maybe it just hurt your mom too much to go inside,” Leah offered, remembering how undeniably happy Mrs. Jadmani had been to see her daughter again in the airport. “She wouldn’t have told your dad to get out last night if she didn’t care about you.”
Fatin took the words in, considered them, and let out another sigh. “Yeah…maybe.” Her legs swung out of bed right after, then the rest of her did too as she cut her requested cuddle time short. “Where’s your bathroom?”
“Across the hall. There’s a spare toothbrush in one of the sink drawers.”
Levity returning with a grin, Fatin loudly joked, “Oh, so you’re okay with my tongue being down your throat, but not on your toothbrush?”
“Shh!” Leah hushed as she sat up abruptly, knowing her were mom and dad had to be up already. “If my parents heard that…that cannot be how they find out about us.”
As usual, Fatin just seemed to enjoy how easily embarrassed she was, throwing her hands up with feigned innocence. “Just seeing where our spit-swapping boundaries lie,” was said more quietly before she slipped out the door, closing it behind her.
Leah pulled herself to her feet once she was alone, padding over to her dresser to dig around for another set of pj’s, having no intention of leaving the house that day. Maybe not at all until the hoard of news vans in the street out front found something better to do. One peek through her window turned up what looked like even more reporters than yesterday, a few of them actively filming. The ones with no shame at all were arguing with a police officer across the barricade line.
Leaving the blinds tightly shut, Leah warned a returning Fatin to leave them that way as she went to take her turn in the bathroom.
Naturally, Fatin immediately looked outside, huffing as she did so. “Got dozens of these fuckers at my place. At least we have a gate to keep them off our lawn, though. If those cops go for a donut break, Perez Hilton’s gonna be trampling your hydrangeas.”
“Dad will probably run them off with a baseball bat if they get brave enough,” Leah shrugged it off, gathering her comfiest sweatpants and an old long-sleeve band t-shirt in her arms to go shower. “Wouldn’t open those blinds any farther if I was you, unless that’s something you want to see.”
She laughed shortly with a, “It is,” but didn’t poke the hornet’s nest rabidly waiting for any sign of them.
Leah crossed the hall to the bathroom, brushing her teeth while she smiled at the simple sight of Fatin’s toothbrush sitting in the holder, like an unspoken promise that it’d need to be used again. She hopped in the shower after, not rushing as she enjoyed things like the vanilla scent of her favorite shampoo, which made her feel that much more like a normal human again.
Her leisure didn’t last long, however. When she heard a faint knocking on a nearby door followed by her mom’s very surprised voice, the stroll turned into a full-out sprint. Her parents didn’t even know Fatin was here. Well, they did now.
Leah speed-ran the rest of her shower, almost putting her pants on backwards and getting even closer to face-planting into the floor when her foot got caught. Her bedroom was open-doored and empty, the only sign of life around being the soft tones of laughter coming from downstairs.
Where she was worried a minute ago about not being a buffer between her parents and the girlfriend she snuck through her window the night before, Leah realized she was concerned for the wrong person.
“Not again,” she whispered to herself, knowing what she was about to find. Turning around and hooking a left, she crept down the stairs and instinctively skipped over the squeaky fourth step at the bottom.
“Really, no sports at all? Even our little bookworm wanted to try soccer when she was little,” Leah’s dad was saying.
“Nope. Well, I got taken golfing against my will once. Could barely keep a grip on the clubs and threw two different drivers into the lake. Gave the ground a good beating with them, too,” Fatin recounted, much to his amusement. “I’ve been married to my cello since I was eight. It’s a complicated relationship – haven’t really had time to play the field for other hobbies.”
“An entire decade?” He whistled, thoroughly impressed. “You’ve got some serious dedication, then.”
“I like to think so.” Given the anger she’d talked about it with in the past, Leah didn’t think Fatin’s answer had much to do with her cello. She was, however, charming the shit out of Leah’s parents. “Sports definitely aren’t my thing, but I’d do anything to see little baby Leah in a soccer jersey.”
Sentimentally, Leah’s mom gushed, “Oh, she was so cute! The uniform was huge on her.” Then, way too excitedly, “It’s been so long since we’ve gotten those photo albums out, maybe we should.”
No, no, no, no.
Leah booked it for the kitchen, where their voices were still coming from.
“Mrs. Rilke, I’ve literally never wanted anything more in my life.”
“Oh, please, call me Maryann.”
Before Fatin could get on a first-name basis with both of her parents, Leah rushed through the archway at the back of the house and into the kitchen. Her hurried footsteps made all three of its occupants turn their heads towards the noise, her dad sitting at the table, a coffee mug in his hands, and Fatin holding a spatula while she stood next to Leah’s mom at the stove.
Out of all the things Leah could have said, she went with the immediate thing that came to mind: “You’re cooking?” Fatin was horrible at it – something she made sure everyone in the island bunker knew when it came time to create the schedule for kitchen duty.
“Not exactly,” said the girl who allegedly once nearly started a fire by putting aluminum-foil-wrapped leftovers in the microwave.
Leah’s mom clarified, “Fatin offered to help. We’re making your favorite!”
“And I’ve only killed two of these so far.” Practically able to smell the butter in the pan, Leah watched Fatin lift a golden-brown pancake riddled with chocolate chips out of it and onto a plate, completing a stack of three. Fatin took Leah’s breakfast and her identical own to the dining table. “Come on, let’s eat! I can’t remember the last time I had chocolate.”
Leah pulled herself together and took the seat right next to her, both parents ending up sitting opposite them with curious gazes and almost disturbingly little to say. She expected questions. Maybe not about the island just yet, but definitely something about the unannounced visitor wearing her favorite sweatshirt. The visitor that obviously stayed overnight and shared her bed. But there was just an occasional, somewhat loaded glance shot at the two girls.
The first question was just to fill the silence. Once Fatin scarfed down the first syrup-loaded pancake bite, Leah’s mom asked, “How are they?”
Her eyes fluttered closed while she made a deeply satisfied sound. “One of the best things I’ve ever tasted. And that’s not just my carb deficiency talking.” She stopped mid-bite to put her fork down and shove Leah’s untouched one in her hand. “Don’t tell me you forgot how to use one of these. If you don’t clean that plate, I will.”
Leah’s returned banter was automatic. “I didn’t know it was a race.”
“Not unless you want us puking this back up. Our stomachs are the size of a fucking squirrel’s now.” Fatin’s suddenly wide eyes shot up from her plate as she realized she’d just sworn in front of Leah’s parents. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she apologized profusely for her everyday vocabulary, making Leah chuckle mid-chew.
Her mom blinked at the apology instead of the expletive that was rare under their roof. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We don’t mind.”
Finding the whole thing funny, Leah’s dad added, “Yeah, fuck it, amiright?”
Fatin lightened up at the dumb joke and the clear approval she’d already gained. “I think you and me are gonna get along, Mr. Rilke.”
“That’s Kurt to you.”
And just like that, she was two for two.
As the minutes passed, Fatin looked more and more like she felt at home, stress draining out of her face and tension falling off of her slightly rigid shoulders. She didn’t relax fully until Leah interlocked their fingers under the table sometime after they finished eating and her dad was in the middle of telling a story from her short-lived soccer days.
“She was supposed to be playing defense, but she got distracted by a butterfly and followed it all the way to the other end of the field. She wasn’t even supposed to be there, but somebody sent the ball her way, and she did what her coach taught her to do. She kicked it – straight into the goal!” He still sounded exasperated over it.
“On accident?” Fatin asked, fully invested.
“Complete accident! Leah didn’t even look up, just kept chasing that little blue butterfly. Her coach had to sub her out and call her off the field before she ran off it completely.”
It was a memory Leah barely remembered anything of. Only the curious insect that she had the urge to follow and a loud cheering after she got rid of the soccer ball disrupting her. “Okay, in my defense, I was five.”
“She told us after the game that she thought the butterfly was magic, like in the book her kindergarten teacher read during storytime that week,” her mom cooed.
Fatin muttered an equally soft, “Aww.” She turned to Leah, adoration evident, but not necessarily out of place to an outsider’s point of view when she’d just heard a cute childhood story. What wasn’t covert was the way their eyes lingered on each other’s for several seconds too long, Leah loving how much this breakfast felt like introducing her girlfriend to her parents, and Fatin seemingly asking if she wanted to.
She wasn’t even out yet. Neither of them was. And before someone could suggest getting the photo albums out again, Leah announced, “We’re gonna go back upstairs for a bit, if that’s okay,” tacking on that last part for politeness’ sake.
They stood together and her dad glanced down at something between them, grinning and opening his mouth to speak before her mom smacked him in the chest. “Of course,” she said. “I imagine you probably want to get back home soon, Fatin, but stay as long as you want.”
The girl barely had time to thank them for that and the meal before Leah was pulling her back up to her room. She wouldn’t realize until later, when she was remembering the strange look her dad sent them, that she’d never released Fatin’s hand.
Once they were behind her closed door, Leah humorously asked, “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“What’s it look like? Making a good second impression on the in-laws.” Fatin pulled out her phone, opening its calendar. “Hey, what’re they’re birthdays? Kurt gives big Libra energy…and I bet Maryann’s a Pisces. She a February baby?” She entered in Leah’s recently-passed birthday and set three different reminders for it as she spoke, now waiting for an answer.
“Fatin, you could charm the metaphorical pants off of anyone. Don’t worry about it. And they already love you, trust me. Mom doesn’t let just anyone help her cook. She barely lets dad get near the oven half the time.”
“Yeah?” Fatin asked, some nerves showing through. Receiving an affirming nod, she insisted, “Still, I want their birthdays. I, uh…did a shit job of keeping track of my family’s in the past. Not that my parents deserved presents from their personal cello-workhorse. But come on, give me a reason to buy Kurt a new double-decker grill or something.”
With an endeared sigh, Leah gave in. “Mom’s is February twenty-fifth.”
Fatin smirked, already typing. “Knew it.”
Retrieving her own phone from her nightstand, Leah saw a few messages from Ian asking if he could come over in about an hour. She sent a quick answer back in confirmation.
“And your dad’s?”
“October ninth,” Leah supplied.
She was about to ask how Fatin would feel about meeting Ian when the girl shoved her phone in a pocket of the pajama shorts she apparently intended to keep and said, “I don’t mean to dine and dash, but I should probably go soon. Promised my brothers we’d spend the day doing whatever they wanted. Don’t want to keep them waiting any more than I have.”
“Yeah, three months was long enough,” Leah agreed sympathetically, but had to admit that she didn’t want Fatin to leave as a small cluster of anxiety buzzed somewhere at the back of her mind. What she was anxious about, she didn’t know.
Fatin seemed to feel the same, smile falling away when she talked about spending time with the brothers she wholeheartedly loved. It returned with a devilish tilt, however, when an idea came to her. “Before I go, though…”
One finger pulled Leah forward by the waistband of her sweatpants and she coyly guessed, “You’re gonna give me my sweatshirt back?”
There was a flirtatious, “Nice try,” before Fatin’s lips captured hers, hungry but deliberate. Hands found her face, seemingly just for the sake of touching, and the full-body warmth she felt made her sigh happily. Which, in turn, had Fatin smiling again. “This is so much nicer when we’re not worried about dying.”
Leah concurred with a hum, then kissed her again, and again, and again. She didn’t have to worry about any one of them being their last, because there was future ahead of them that didn’t depend on how long a human body could go without food anymore. It was an open road, hopefully with hills that weren’t so hard to climb.
They could’ve gone on like that for hours, Leah having half a mind to ask Fatin to stay just a little while longer, but she herself interrupted them when she heard one of her parents coming up the stairs. The hardwood creaked as they passed her room and kept going.
“You’re not out to them either, are you?” Fatin deduced, in a similar boat with her own family.
Leah shook her head. “No. I know they won’t care, but…no, I never told them.” Even if there was no logic in her nervousness, it didn’t make it go away.
Fatin supported her with a gentle surety, “They’re good people, I can tell. Good parents too, I bet. They’ll love you all the same.”
Leah wished she could return the sentiment, but it’d be based on little more than hope. All she knew about Fatin’s parents was the bad stuff, because that’s all they gave their daughter room to remember. One of them had been poisoning the well of their relationship for a decade and the other blew it up overnight, putting the blame for it on the child he betrayed.
“Will you be okay?” she asked. “At home, I mean.”
There was a clear effort not to care when Fatin shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have to be. I’m eighteen and officially out of patience after surviving two deserted islands, so my parents’ days of telling me what to do are over. Anyone brings up boarding school again, I can just leave and never come back.”
After all the hell she’d been through, there shouldn’t be a world where she had to worry about not having a home to go back to. Right then, a small piece of Leah’s anger at Fatin’s parents turned to resentment.
“If things get bad, you can always stay here. Always,” she promised.
Fatin smiled, cupping her cheek. “Thank you, baby. That’s sweet, but I don’t think that guest room is yours to give away.”
“Guest room?” Leah questioned like that hadn’t even crossed her mind. “I was thinking more of a roomies situation. My full-size bed is too big anyways, and it gets pretty cold in here. Only makes sense to share body heat every night…”
The proposal made Fatin laugh, along with the allusion to the joke they used to justify sharing a bed the first time it happened. “Your mom and dad are cool, but no parents are that cool. And the friend façade’s gonna crumble the second one of them walks in on me accidentally grabbing your boob in our sleep or something. You’re cute, though.”
She moved to gather the few things she’d brought with her last night: the discarded clothes they were given post-rescue, and her car keys, sunk deep in one of the cargo pants’ pockets. “Walk me out?”
Leading the way, Leah waited until they were facing each other at the front door to say, “You know I mean it, right? If you need somewhere to go, this can be your home too. Doesn’t matter for how long.”
Fatin took it seriously that time, nodding with sincerity. With her one free arm, she hugged Leah tightly around the neck with a casual but meaningful, “Love you.”
The words made Leah’s head feel fuzzy in the best way and she tightened the embrace they were in. “Love you, too,” she returned quietly, letting them stay like that for a few long moments.
“Leaving already?” her dad’s voice came from the staircase he was descending.
Leah managed not to jump, but put a noticeable foot of space between them. She hated how ingrained keeping things from her parents had become. Now, after aging what felt like decades in one summer, it seemed stupid to throw covers over things she cared about whenever they were around. And unlike her last relationship, this one probably wouldn’t be frowned upon. She’d have to fix that old habit, but preferably not by outing Fatin on the spot too.
“Yeah, Leah’s had to put up with my crap for months now. Thought I’d give her a little break,” Fatin joked, Leah nudging her with crossed arms and rolling eyes. “And I have an ice cream date to take my brothers on, assuming mom unfroze my credit card.”
Leah’s head turned towards her dad. “Can I use my credit card for ice cream?”
“Not unless you can convince me it’s an emergency, kiddo,” he refused, then amusedly directed at Fatin, “But I think I’m starting to see why there’s a Cayman GT4 in my driveway.”
“She was my sweet sixteen present. I never knew much about cars, but I knew I wanted that one,” Fatin explained as Leah wandered ten feet over to the living room’s window. She pulled one of the curtains back an inch, getting a side-view of a sporty cherry red Porsche sitting in front of her garage. Her jaw dropped halfway to the floor.
“Well, she’s definitely a beauty.”
Instead of keeping the conversation going with Leah’s dad, Fatin’s attention followed her. “Leah?”
Her second-hand sedan looked ridiculous next to what was basically a race car. A little speechless, she said, “I think I forgot you were rich.”
Fatin laughed in a short burst. “You and me both. I laid on my bed yesterday and thought it was too soft. Island living might’ve beat the ‘finer things’ lifestyle right out of me…but I also have a ten-step skincare routine I’ve been missing, so, maybe not completely.”
Leah shook herself out of her small shellshock, which should’ve been unfounded since Fatin’s father clearly made a habit of buying solid gold watches on the regular. But it was different when the proof showed up at her house in the form of a gleaming luxury vehicle, custom black, red-accented wheels and all.
“But thank you for breakfast, really,” Fatin continued. “I’ll have to make it up to you sometime. I mean, unless my mom has a dinner invitation penned by now. She honestly might if you guys hit it off yesterday.”
Now leaning against the banister at the base of the stairs, Leah’s dad waved off the gratitude. “Our pleasure. And Rana already exchanged numbers with Maryann – she makes friends quick. If your mother’s the same, we’ll all be having monthly get-togethers before you know it.”
“You promise?”
He gave a hearty laugh at the girl in their house for the first time already asking to visit again. “Our door’s open to you and yours. You don’t need an invite.”
“Thanks…I might make you regret that.” Fatin’s mouth curled into an easygoing grin. She reached for the door handle and told Leah, “I’m just one phone call and a twenty-minute drive away, okay?”
There was an underlying weight of earnestness in her words, and Leah returned it with a, “Yeah, me too.”
They were far past promises that they were there for each other; it was a given after all the weeks they spent proving it. The reassurance felt more about saying that the distance didn’t matter, or the time, or the place. They weren’t stuck on an island together anymore, but the “together” part wasn’t going away, no matter what they were dealing with or if it was in the dead of night. Fatin still wanted to be Leah’s lifeline, and she’d always offer the same.
Fatin gave a small wave and slipped out the front door, which she only opened far enough to fit through and not an inch more. In those few seconds, the quiet chattering of media vultures turned into an onslaught of clicking cameras and shouted inquiries about the horrors they’d faced. Leah, watching from the window, wasn’t all that shocked at how well Fatin ignored it. She was used to her name being in people’s mouths every time she so much as walked to class. A fifteen-second walk to her car was nothing.
The Porsche backed smoothly out into the street, getting swarmed by reporters and paparazzi alike the moment it was within reach. Before one of the cops could try to break it up, Fatin revved the unbelievably loud engine, and cameras pointed away from her tinted windows as everyone’s hands went to cover their bursting eardrums.
Leah’s dad chuckled beside her, also witnessing the fiasco. “I like that girl.”
Once the car was free and driving out of sight, Leah stepped away and tossed herself onto the living room couch with a casual, “I do too.”
“I can tell.” He didn’t move from his spot, still staring out at the road. “Camp New Haven…you always said that was the best summer break of your life. Wouldn’t even pack that sweater for the retreat, just in case the private jet lost your luggage.”
There weren’t many possessions of Leah’s that she considered treasured, but that old sweatshirt – its deep green color having turned into something duller with constant use and passing time – was definitely one of them. And she just let Fatin walk straight out of the house with it.
Her dad turned with a subtle joy written on his face, and Leah had no idea if his lack of confusion was a good thing or not. She couldn’t tell if he had them figured out or if she wanted him to.
“I’m gonna go help your mom clean up.” With a ruffle of his daughter’s hair, he slowly followed the sound of rattling dishes and running water coming from down the hall. But then he stopped for a moment, like he’d nearly forgotten something. “Oh, and tell Fatin to please use one of our many working doors next time. That lattice outside your room is almost your age. It’s real old – very creaky when someone climbs it, you know. Wouldn’t want her getting hurt if it broke.”
Leah’s cheeks blazed like an inferno at them getting caught, but he was already gone, content to just drop the bomb and run. Thoroughly humiliated, she keeled over on the couch and groaned.
(Fatin POV)
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Fatin eased off the gas as she turned the final bend in the road that’d lead her home. Both sides were lined with loitering vehicles, leaving this part of the neighborhood looking more like the city’s heart in evening traffic. It was bad last night, but now the chaos spread far enough to reach their nearest neighbor’s property.
The little elderly white woman who’d lived there since the dawn of time was stood at her mailbox, looking around with indignation settled into every last one of her frown lines. She recognized Fatin and her approaching car, both of which she despised with a passion ever since the birth of their ongoing feud – the one that began with the cops getting called on the best party of junior year and a few flowerbeds getting run over in retaliation the next day. Allegedly, that is. Nobody could prove anything.
“Heeey!” The retiree flagged her down, shuffling into the street and waving her hands in the air. Fatin tried to gun it, but had to slam on the brakes when the brief roar of acceleration did nothing to deter her neighbor.
Rolling down her window, she put on a smile and a painful amount of sarcastic sweetness. “Ms. Richardson, a delight to see you, as always.”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me?!” the woman shrilled, threatening to bring on a headache. “You almost hit me!”
“What the—? You just ran into the road, you old bat.”
“Why are all these vans in my front lawn?”
“They’re not—”
“What’d you do, huh? Always been a rabble-rouser, and now you’re bringing it to my house. Troubling your own family just wasn’t enough anymore, is that it?”
Pressing the ‘family disappointment’ button was her first mistake. Fatin turned and leaned out of her open window in challenge. “Why don’t you go ask your grandson how much trouble we made on your dining table during Spring Break? He might even still have the receipt for that tacky paisley vase we had to replace.” Then, once the woman’s shock and disgust hit the upper atmosphere, she threatened, “Get the hell away from my car, Helen – before I convince him to send you to a retirement home. I still have his number.”
Someone was getting out of a van nearby and she wanted to be gone before they got any ideas. But the only idea Helen had was to berate her some more. “You rude, disrespectful child. I don’t know where you disappeared to all summer, but it clearly did you no good. If that’s how you speak to your parents, I don’t know why they haven’t kicked you to the curb by now—!”
Fatin laid on the horn, banking on it just terrifying the woman instead of stopping her frail, frozen-over heart completely. The moment she backed away far enough for her toes not to get flattened, Fatin went from zero to forty with a middle finger hung out the window. She swiftly rolled the tinted glass back up, not even checking the rearview for screaming grandmas or chasing paparazzi. There’d be enough of the latter right up the road.
The parallel parking situation got worse the further she went, eventually turning into gatherings of vehicles that hopped the curb to plant themselves in the grass. Then, groups of cars became a mass of people. Some of them didn’t even sport any kind of recording equipment or lanyards, just phones and prying eyes. Fatin didn’t worry much about the ones here for a picture or a statement that’d bank them a work bonus – they’d fuck off eventually. It was the randos who took the time to track down the address of a girl they didn’t know that had her gripping the steering wheel with unease.
Just like Leah’s place, there were police stationed at hers too. If there weren’t, she would’ve been bombarded the moment she reached a hand out the window to input the gate code. Instead, she just got blinded by camera flashes before passing through the barricade that got closed right back up again behind her.
It was all a valiant effort to sour her morning, but the frosting on the shit cake showed its face in the form of a familiar silver corvette. Not the same one that frequented the lot for the past couple of years – clearly the newest model, but same color as always. She spotted it sitting in the roundabout out front as she pulled around into the garage. Hands starting to shake, Fatin tried her best not to crack a tooth in anger while she flew out of her car, slammed its door shut, and unlocked the one to the kitchen.
The house alarm chimed to announce her entrance, delayed long enough to hear echoes of an argument on the floor above that abruptly cut off.
“Boys? I thought I told you not to go outside alone,” her mom called out, rushing down the stairs. She froze once Fatin emerged into the foyer. “Oh…you’re back.”
The statement was leaning towards relieved after Fatin sped away the night prior and answered her mother’s numerous texts by saying nothing except that she was going to Leah’s. Now she was back, but her problem remained the same.
“Where is he? Why is he here?” Fatin questioned, bypassing a hello altogether.
“Your father just came by to pick up some things. He isn’t staying.”
“No, he’s not,” Fatin agreed, sliding past her mother to climb to the second story. Her parents’ bedroom was open, the sound of drawers being rifled through coming from inside. The man she hated most was standing there, taking anything that he deemed his. But while he might not have been a burglar – unless freely spending his wife’s built-up fortune for years counted – he was still an intruder.
Their eyes met right after Fatin stomped into the room, ready to start another fight. “Get out,” she ordered coldly.
He looked nothing but disappointed and annoyed to see her. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I lived here up until last night. I’ll leave once I have my belongings.”
“We can send your shit to you. Hell, I’ll even hand-deliver it, but you don’t get to come and go as much as you fucking please—”
“Then consider this visit a free pass after I realized my daughter is a thief. You’ve already taken enough of my watch collection to buy a house of your own; I’ll be taking the rest of it before your disregard and greed escape what little bounds they have.”
Fatin scoffed. “We both know who really bought those watches. That joint bank account’s barely even yours by name.” Rage flickered across already taut features and she took satisfaction in hitting a sensitive spot.
“Fatin?” a smaller voice came from behind her. The worried face of her nine-year-old brother was peeking out of a bedroom with a more hardened Ahmad right behind him. Their mom soothingly ushered them back inside, insisting that everything was fine.
Taking the shot at a moralless man’s conscience, Fatin turned back to her father and said, “Everybody already knows what kind of husband you are. If you want to start being a half-decent dad, you can start by going back to the hotel mom’s paying for so that your kids don’t have to spend the day hiding in their rooms.”
His jaw stiffened, something like disgust pulling down at the corners of his mouth before he went back to shoving shit in a suitcase. “You are the only child I know that could spend months in the wilderness and come back with even less appreciation for everything she has. And now you’ve abused your mother’s sympathy to turn her against me so the rest of your family can be as miserable as you’re determined to be. Her kindness is the last thing you deserve—”
Fatin was seeing red by the time her mom caught up and sharply warned, “Samad,” from the doorway.
“Don’t. Do not defend the daughter that’s hated you for years. She can’t stand you either; her loyalty begins and ends with whoever’s more likely to cater to her every selfish whim.” Either done packing or finished being berated, he slammed his suitcase shut and zipped it forcefully enough to threaten breaking it. With a tight-knuckled grip on its handle, he moved to leave, but not before firmly trying, “It’s not too late for Oregon. This path she’s on…if she keeps getting her way, Julliard will have no problem finding a more agreeable prodigy. Someone more dedicated.”
It was the best card he could play to try and get things to go back to the way they were before, and Fatin huffed shortly in laughter that he folded the rest of his hand so damn quickly. However, her humor fell away when she saw consideration of something on her mom’s face. For a horrible stretch, the woman that welcomed her back home with open arms at the airport blended with the one who told her that bleeding fingers wasn’t a reason to cut practice short.
Preceded by a pained sigh, she avoided her husband’s eyes to say, “Leave your house key here, I’d rather not have to change the locks. No more unannounced visits either or I’ll change the gate code too.”
His mouth hung open at the complete dismissal, head swiveling towards Fatin like all of this was her fault. But even someone as arrogant as him could see when he lost, so he saved his breath and silently fumed all the way out of the room, heading straight for the stairs.
Fatin, on the other hand, knew when she deserved to get another jab in. She walked over to the doorframe and leaned out to shout, “And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Then, more quietly, “Or do…bitch.”
For once, her mother didn’t scold her for swearing. She just shot her a look that said she knew better when her siblings were one room away, but once the moment passed, she deflated and tiredly rubbed at her face. It was the kind of exhaustion that couldn’t be fixed with sleep – the bone-deep kind that Fatin had known for a decade now.
She dealt with it in the same way, too. Rana took her emotion and her pain and she buried it, picking herself up enough to tell her daughter, “Thank you for coming back home…I wasn’t sure you would so soon.”
Fatin shrugged, a huge part of her still resistant to let her mom in. “If you didn’t stand up for me yesterday, I wouldn’t have.” It was all too easy to let her thankfulness slip under the surface, but showing chinks in her battle-worn armor still felt dangerous. Facts weren’t, so that was how she delivered it.
She certainly didn’t expect her mom to show the first hint of vulnerability. “That was the easiest decision I’ve made in a long time…I knew I chose wrong the minute Samad came back from the airport without you.”
“I still can’t believe you let him drive me alone,” Fatin admitted, or maybe criticized. Being abandoned by one parent and trapped in the passenger seat of the other that loathed her just as much as she did him…the ride had been an hour of pure hell. It’d been months since, but she could still remember the tenseness in that car, like a taut rubber band that was one tug away from snapping.
“…Me either,” her mother muttered like she was thinking back on a different lifetime, but still owning up to at least one mistake. Appearing somewhat lost, she slowly slipped past. “Kemar and Ahmad have been asking for you all morning, don’t let me keep you. I should go start preparing dinner anyway. Are you okay with biryani? The chicken’s already thawing.”
Allowing her guard to slip just a hair, Fatin said, “Sure. Thanks, mama.” She could count on one hand the number of times she’d called her that since she was Kemar’s age, affection disappearing on both ends as her parents’ love became dependent on how quickly she could perfect a cello piece. But being reminded that things weren’t always this strained seemed to give her mom some strength, her eyes brightening and lips starting to find a smile as she left.
Content to leave things on a high note as far as parent drama went, Fatin marched over to Ahmad’s little gamer cave to find the half of her family that had never made her want to rip her own hair out. The doorknob turned silently in her hand, allowing her to stage a surprise-attack on the two boys playing a video game on the TV with their backs turned.
“You shot me again!” Kemar yelled in devastation as his squid-looking character “died” with an ink explosion on screen, his ruthless older brother’s sniper reticle still pointing at the spot. “I don’t like this game, it’s too hard.”
“Well, this is how you get better at it. And I’m not the one who picked what to play,” Ahmad defended his insistence on obliterating Kemar every time he left his spawn point.
“I haven’t even gotten you once, it’s not fair!”
“Sure it is, just don’t get shot. Like right now…”
Ahmad’s laser sight found Kemar once again, making his character jump around in a panic as he screamed hysterically. “NO, DON’T!”
While the older boy was too busy enjoying making the other one dance and hit ungodly pitches, Fatin had snuck up behind him, blissfully unaware in his beanbag chair. It took more strength than she’d like to admit, but she was able to rip it out from underneath him in one pull. Ahmad’s controller fell out of his hands, head turning around in shock just in time for her to deck him in the face with the massive, pillowy seat.
Not super effective, especially when he went to grab it back, but Fatin urged during the distraction, “Get him, Kemar – hurry!”
The little boy caught on to what she was doing with a bright and slightly evil grin, controller getting pulled up towards his chest while he went to get video game revenge. Ahmad dove, reaching for his own to defend his ridiculously high score, but Fatin slid it away with her foot before plopping down beanbag-first on top of his back.
“Fatinnnn!” the pre-teen whined, confined to being squashed helplessly against the floor while, on the TV, his brother’s weird looking squid-humanoid finally found his hiding spot.
Laughing ecstatically, Kemar ran him over with what looked like a giant paint roller, no remains left behind but a big blue paint splatter. Way better for kids than seeing blood and guts, Fatin supposed, but weird. Not that she cared, because that one dumb win had Kemar cheering and puffing out his chest with pride. He might’ve already forgotten that she was fighting with their dad ten minutes ago.
And after Ahmad made a miserable sound in “defeat” (the game still ended with nineteen kills to one), he also had to deal with Kemar celebrating by diving into Fatin’s arms and adding more weight to the pile-on. This was the kind of stuff she missed most whenever she was drowning in the latest and greatest torment of Gretchen Klein’s Frankenexperiment – not just her brothers, but the stupid shit they got into and how the way they lit up could brighten any of her dark days.
Now, sitting in that light, it was darkness that was trying to seep through the outside cracks. Kemar, hugging her, accidentally put pressure on the sunburns living on her shoulders, and the sensation dragged her all the way back to the broken-down boat she’d received them in. All of a sudden, it was a hundred degrees in the room, she was numb with hunger and overwhelming exhaustion, and there was a dying girl balled up in the corner that appeared more ghost than human.
The apparition disappeared with a hard blink, but the feeling only started to seep from the raised hair on her skin right back into her bones, where it could linger and wait. Fatin’s breathing became as shaky as her hands and Kemar’s far-off voice didn’t come into focus until his little face was right in front of hers. There was alarm behind the glasses that the boy adjusted back up his nose while he questioned if she was alright.
“Fine, buddy. I just missed you,” she covered the lie with a truth that was easier to swallow for both of them. “And how could I not be happy when we’re having a brother-sister day? Just me, you, and this flattened weasel.”
Fatin stood, finally letting Ahmad get up off the floor with another irritated grumble and a, “Is it too late to change my mind?”
“Yep!” she said cheerfully. Kemar was gluing himself to her side – practically hugging her leg – so she hauled him up and onto her hip like he was still a toddler. “You wanna choose what we do first, little dude? Anything you want.”
The thinking only took a few moments, which he seemed to take very seriously. “We should go swimming!”
“And so we shall,” Fatin signed off on what she knew would be a tiring afternoon, but there would be time to rest some other day.
“But you have to play with us. Last time all you did was sit around.”
“You got it,” she laughed, because she’d officially had enough sun-tanning for a lifetime. “Ahmad, bathing suit, outside, ten minutes. No flaking or I’ll cry.”
“Fine…” the older of the boys rolled his eyes at her usual dramatics.
With a satisfied smile, Fatin turned on her heel with Kemar still in her arms and went to drop him off at his own room so he could change too. On the way, he asked unprompted, “Is Leah coming over?”
Considering he’d barely exchanged two words with her, she was slightly shocked. “Not today, she’s busy with her own family. Why…? Do you want her to?”
His smile broadened as he nodded excitedly.
Fatin’s heart squeezed. “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got good judge of character?”
The nine-year-old’s head tilted in confusion, but before that line of conversation could go anywhere, the doorbell rang. Only steps away from his room, Fatin put him down and waved him towards it, quickly returning to the walkway over the foyer. Her mom was already marching towards the front door below, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel before she reached for the handle.
From where she was leaning over the second-floor railing, Fatin suggested, “If it’s dad again, just say ‘restraining order.’ Maybe then he’ll get the message.”
Her mom startled, spinning halfway around with a hand to her chest. She didn’t say anything to the comment, but coughed over what sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a laugh before peeking through one of the thin, curtained windows on either side of the entranceway. Her shoulders visibly fell as the glance turned into a prolonged stare.
“Mom, who is it?”
She didn’t answer – just sent an undecipherable look back at Fatin and opened the door without much warmth for whoever was on the other side. “Hello, can I help you? We weren’t expecting visitors.”
“We apologize for the interruption, ma’am. Are you Rana Jadmani?” a man’s completely neutral, nondescript voice came from outside. It held a professionalism Fatin had heard used before.
“I am. What is it you need?”
A woman spoke next. “Is your daughter home?”
Fatin’s mom hesitated against their inability to answer a question without another question in return – something that was irritating Fatin already too. She knew who these people were and what they were here for. She just wished they could’ve given her more than twenty-four hours before invading her home without so much as a heads-up.
After a long silence, the man stepped close enough to come into view and for Fatin to see the shiny badge he was holding out. “Mrs. Jadmani, we’re with the FBI. We have a few questions for Fatin about her experience with the Gretchen Klein case.”
Perfect.