Tears puddled in Adri’s eyes, briefly, before she blinked them away. She dropped her head, staring down at the twisted cloth. Her body sagged against the mantel. “I wasn’t sure that you would come back here, Cinder. I expected to receive another comm at any minute, telling me that my ward had also been taken.” Adri pulled her shoulders back, lifting her gaze. The weakness passed, her dark eyes hardened. “These med-droids tested Pearl and myself. The plague has not yet spread to either of us.”
Cinder started to nod, relieved, but Adri continued. “Tell me, Cinder. If Pearl and I are not carrying the disease, where did Peony get it from?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But you did know about the outbreak in the market today.”
Cinder’s lips parted. Of course. The cloths. The med-droids. They thought she was infected.
“I don’t understand you, Cinder. How could you be so selfish?”
She jerked her head, no. “They tested me too, at the junkyard. I don’t have it. I don’t know where she got it from.” She held out her arm, showing the bruise blooming on her inner elbow. “They can check again if they want to.”
One of the med-droids showed its first sign of life, shining the light at the small red spot where the needle had pricked her. But they didn’t move, and Adri didn’t encourage them. Instead, she turned her attention to a small framed portscreen on the mantel, shuffling through pictures of Pearl and Peony in their childhood. Pictures at their old house, the one with the garden. Pictures with Adri, before she’d lost her smile. Pictures with their father.
“I’m so sorry,” said Cinder. “I love her too.”
Adri squeezed the frame. “Don’t insult me,” she said, sliding the frame closer to her. “Do your kind even know what love is? Can you feel anything at all, or is it just…programmed?”
She was talking to herself, but the words stung. Cinder risked a glance at Pearl, who was still sitting on the sofa with her face half-hidden behind her knees, but she was no longer holding the washcloth to her face. When she saw Cinder looking at her, she turned her gaze to the floor.
Cinder flexed her fingers against the magbelt. “Of course I know what love is.” And sadness too. She wished she could cry to prove it.
“Good. Then you will understand that I am doing what a mother must do, to protect my children.” Adri turned the frame facedown on the mantel. On the couch, Pearl turned her face away, pressing her cheek against her knees.
A tendril of fear curled in Cinder’s stomach. “Adri?”
“It has been five years since you became a part of this household, Cinder. Five years since Garan left you to me. I still don’t know what made him do it, don’t know why he felt obligated to travel to Europe, of all places, to find some…mutant to take care of. He never explained it to me. Perhaps he would have someday. But I never wanted you. You know that.”
Cinder pursed her lips. The blank-faced med-droids leered up at her.
She did know it, but she didn’t think Adri had ever put it so clearly.
“Garan wanted you to be taken care of, so I’ve done my best. Even when he died, even when the money ran out, even when…everything fell apart.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed one palm firmly against her mouth. Cinder watched her shoulders tremble, listened to the short gasps of breath as she tried to stifle the sobs. “But Garan would have agreed. Peony comes first. Our girls come first.”
Cinder started at the raised voice. She could hear the justification in Adri’s tone. The determination.
Don’t leave me with this thing.
She shuddered. “Adri—”
“If it weren’t for you, Garan would still be alive. And Peony—”
“No, it’s not my fault.” Cinder spotted a flash of white, saw Iko loitering in the hallway, uncertain. Her sensor had gone nearly black.
Cinder searched for her voice. Her pulse was throbbing, white spots flickering across her vision. A red warning flickered in the corner of her eye—a recommendation that she calm down. “I didn’t ask to be made like this. I didn’t ask for you or anybody to adopt me. This isn’t my fault!”
“It isn’t my fault either!” Adri lashed out, shoving the netscreen off its brackets with one shove. It fell and crashed, taking two of her husband’s achievement plaques down with it. Bits of plastic ricocheted across the worn carpet.
Cinder jumped back, but the frenzy fled as fast as it had come. Adri’s ragged breath was already slowing. She was always so careful not to disturb the neighbors. Not to be noticed. Not to cause a commotion. Not to do anything that could ruin their reputation. Even now.
“Cinder,” said Adri, chafing her fingers with the washcloth as if she could erase her lost temper. “You will be going with these med-droids. Don’t make a scene.”
The floor shifted. “What? Why?”
“Because we all have a duty to do what we can, and you know what a high demand there is for…your type. Especially now.” She paused. Her face had gone pink and mottled. “We can still help Peony. They just need cyborgs, to find a cure.”
“You volunteered me for plague research?” Her mouth could barely form the words.
“What else was I to do?”
Cinder’s jaw hung. She shook her head, dumbly, as all three yellow sensors focused on her. “But…nobody survives the testing. How could you—”
“Nobody survives the plague. If you care for Peony as much as you claim to, you’ll do as I say. If you hadn’t been so selfish, you would have volunteered yourself after you left the market today, before coming here and ruining my family. Again.”
“But—”
“Take her away. She is yours.”
Cinder was too stunned to move as the nearest android held a scanner up to her wrist. It beeped and she flinched back.
“Linh Cinder,” it said in its metallic voice, “your voluntary sacrifice is admired and appreciated by all citizens of the Eastern Commonwealth. A payment will be made to your loved ones as a show of gratitude for your contribution to our ongoing studies.”
Her grip tightened on the magbelt. “No—that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? You don’t care about Peony, you don’t care about me, you just want the stupid payout!”
Adri’s eyes widened, her temples pulling taut against her skull.
She crossed the room in two steps, the back of her hand whipping across Cinder’s face. Cinder fell against the door frame and pressed a hand to her cheek.
“Take her,” said Adri. “Get her out of my sight.”
“I didn’t volunteer. You can’t take me against my will!”
The android was unperturbed. “We have been authorized by your legal guardian to take you into custody through the use of force if necessary.”
Cinder curled her fingers, balling a fist against her ear.
“You can’t force me to be a test subject.”
“Yes,” said Adri, her own breathing labored. “I can. So long as you are under my guardianship.”
“You don’t really think this will save Peony, so don’t pretend this is about her. She has days. The chances of them finding a cure before—”