The ocean receded, the sparkling horizon dropping from view as we turned off the main stretch and entered a subdivision with impressive white-and-rose villas lining the streets, surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and palm trees. Some of these dwellings were truly enormous, making me stare in amazement. I’d never seen such huge houses except on television, or in the documentaries the teachers made us watch years ago, when we were first learning about humankind. Where they lived, how they acted, their behavior and family units and language—we’d studied it all.
Now, we would be living among them.
Excitement rose up again, making me even more impatient. I wanted out. I wanted to touch and feel and see the things beyond the glass, to finally experience it. My world, up until now, had been a large underground facility that I never saw the outside of, then a private school in the middle of the Great Basin, with no one around for miles, and only my brother and teachers for company. Safe, protected, far from prying human eyes...and possibly the most boring spot on the face of the planet. I squirmed against the seat again, accidentally hitting the back of the chair in front of me.
“Ember,” Mr. Ramsey said, a note of irritation in his voice, “sit still.”
Scowling, I settled back, crossing my arms. Sit still, calm down, be quiet. The most familiar phrases in my life. I was never good at sitting in one place for long periods of time, though my teachers had tried their hardest to instill “a little patience” into me. Patience, stodgy Mr. Smith had told me on more than one occasion, is a virtue that holds especially true for your kind. The best-laid plans are never conceived in a day. You have the luxury of time—time to think, time to plan, time to calculate and see everything come to fruition. Talon has survived for centuries, and will continue to survive, because it knows the value of patience. So what’s the blasted hurry, hatchling?
I rolled my eyes. The “blasted hurry” was that I rarely had any time that was truly my own. They wanted me to sit, listen, learn, be quiet, when I wanted to run, shout, jump, fly. Everything in my life was rules: can’t do this, don’t do that, be here at this time, follow the instructions to the letter. It had gotten worse as I got older, every tiny detail of my life regulated and laid out for me, until I was ready to explode. The only thing that had kept me from going completely nuts was looking forward to the day I turned sixteen. The day I would “graduate” from that isolated corner of no-man’s-land and, if I was deemed ready, begin the next stage of training. I’d done everything I could to be “ready” for this, and it must’ve paid off because here we were. Observe, assimilate and blend in, that was our official mission, but all I cared about was that I was out of school and away from Talon. I’d finally get to see the world I’d studied all my life.
The sedan finally pulled into a cul-de-sac of smaller but no less elegant villas and rolled to a stop in front of a driveway in the very center. I peered through the window and grinned with excitement at the place that would be home for an indefinite length of time.
The structure looming above us sat across a tiny lawn of short grass, scrub and a single palm tree encircled in brick. Its walls were a cheerful, buttery yellow, the tiled roof a deep red. The top floor had huge glass windows that caught the afternoon light, and the front door stood beneath an archway, like the entrance to a castle, I thought. But best of all, through the gap between the house and its neighbor, I could just make out the silvery glint of water, and my heart leaped at the thought of the ocean right in our backyard.
I wanted nothing more than to yank open the door, jump out and go sprinting down the sand dunes until I hit the ocean waiting for me at the bottom. But Mr. Ramsey, our official escort for the day, turned in his seat to eye us, particularly me, as if he knew what was going through my mind. “Wait here,” he said, his rather large nostrils flaring with the order. “I will inform your guardians you have arrived. Do not move until I return.”
He opened his door, letting in a brief, intoxicating rush of warmth and salt-drenched air, slammed it behind him and marched up the worn brick path to the waiting villa.
I drummed my fingers against the leather seat and squirmed.
“Wow,” Dante breathed, peering over my shoulder, craning his neck to see the whole house. I could feel his presence behind me, his hand on my back as he steadied himself. “So, it’s finally happening,” he said in a low voice. “No more private school, no more getting up at 6:00 a.m. every single day, no more being stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“No classes, no study hall, no evaluators dropping by every month to see how ‘human’ we are.” I grinned back at him. The driver was watching us, listening to us, but I didn’t care. “Sixteen years, and we finally get to start our lives. We’re finally free.”
My twin chuckled. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he murmured, gently tugging a strand of my short red hair. “Remember, we’re here to blend in, to study the humans and assimilate into the community. This is just another phase of training. Don’t forget, at the end of the summer, we start our sophomore year of high school. But more important, our real instructors will show up, and they’ll decide where we fit into the organization. This is a brief respite, at most, so enjoy it while you can.”
I made a face at him. “I intend to.”
And I did. He had no idea how much. I was tired of rules and isolation, of watching the world go by without me. I was tired of Talon and their endless string of policies, laws and restrictions. No more of that. The summer was mine, and I had big plans, things I wanted to do, before it ended and we’d be forced back into the system. This summer, I was going to live.
If I was ever allowed out of this stupid car.
The front door opened again, and Mr. Ramsey waved us forward. But instead of disengaging the child locks, the driver himself got out of the sedan and opened the doors for us. Of course he let Dante out first, and I almost slid across the seat to exit the car behind him. I was literally bouncing with impatience by the time the driver walked around to my side and finally let me out.
When my feet hit the ground, I stretched both arms over my head and yawned, breathing in the sun-soaked air, letting it warm my skin. I already loved how this place smelled. Ocean and sand, surf and hot pavement, the sound of distant waves caressing the beach. I wondered what Mr. Ramsey and my future guardians would say if I blew them all off and went skipping down to the ocean without looking back.
“Ember! Dante!” Mr. Ramsey stood in the shade of the archway, beckoning to us. I sighed and had taken one step toward the trunk to get my bags when the driver stopped me.
“I’ll bring in your luggage, Miss Ember,” he said solemnly. “You go on up to the house.”
“Are you sure? I can get it.” I stepped forward, holding out a hand, and he cringed back, averting his eyes. I blinked and stopped, remembering that some humans in the organization—the ones who actually knew what we were—were afraid of us. Our teachers had told us as much; though we were civilized and had slipped perfectly into human society, we were still predators, higher up on the food chain, and they knew it.
“Come on, sis,” Dante called as I stepped back. He stood at the edge of the walkway with his hands in his pockets, the sun gleaming off his crimson hair. He already looked perfectly at home. “The sooner we meet everyone, the sooner we can do what we want.”
That sounded good to me. I nodded and followed him up the walk to Mr. Ramsey, who ushered us into a charming, well-lit living room. Through the large bay windows off to the side, I could see a rickety picket fence and, beyond that, the beach, a long wooden dock and the ever-tempting ocean. A pair of humans stood in front of a green leather sofa as we came in, waiting for us.
“Ember, Dante,” Mr. Ramsey said, nodding to the pair, “this is your aunt Sarah and uncle Liam. They’ll be taking care of you until further notice.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dante, ever