Before the Turning, Izabel knew that the flooding of the world was one possible future apocalyptic event. But Izabel had always thought of the waters as passive, like an enormous bloating woman. Humans had melted the ice caps and done this to her. Humans had raised the temperatures, and she took in the land that came with her new size.

Now she was imagining the waters flooding the world intentionally. That was an animosity that Izabel hadn’t considered. And she liked the agency of it even if it scared her.

Izabel overheard the children talking again, the robot game over now.

“Who is older—your mom or your dad?” the other girl asked Cami.

Cami looked at Izabel.

“Your dad,” Izabel said.

“My dad,” Cami said to the girl.

“That means your dad will die first and you will die last.”

“I don’t think I will die at all,” Cami said.

“We don’t have to talk about that,” Andy said.

“It’s okay,” Izabel said, and though she knew she shouldn’t, she leaned down to the girl who was not her own and said, “You know, death isn’t that predictable.”

“Why don’t you two play robots again?” Andy said, pushing her daughter away.

Izabel stood up. Andy was looking right at her.

“What do you do, Izabel?”

“Just a mother,” she admitted. “You?”

“I do some legal work for the factory, and other places.”

“From home?”

Andy nodded.

Cami came up to them. “Mommy, my foot hurts.”

“I know, honey. I told you we had to give you a little prick.”

“I don’t like shots though.”

“I know you don’t, but you don’t even remember.”

“But now it hurts,” Cami said.

“Did it bleed?” asked the other girl.

Cami looked at Izabel—shock on her face, probably shocked she hadn’t thought to ask her mother this herself.

“No, it didn’t bleed,” Izabel said.

“I like when I bleed,” the girl said. She leaned toward Izabel like Izabel had leaned toward her. “And I like to rub it on things.”

Touché, Izabel thought.

“That’s enough of that,” Andy said, and she shoved the girls away again by their shoulders.

“I would make my whole dress blood,” the girl said, walking away.

“Enough,” Andy said sternly after her.

Izabel heard Cami say, “I’d love your blood dress.”

“Kids are weird,” Izabel said.

Andy pushed out a laugh again, trying not to be embarrassed. Izabel knew that laugh. And maybe Izabel couldn’t comfort her completely because she was considering how strange their daughters were. She was thinking, If these girls were older, bigger, stronger, might they be the type of people who could slash through the wall of a family’s home?

She watched the girl hug Cami again, and Cami stood stiffly in her arms.

She thought, about each of them, Is this how a killer would behave?

    Chapter Five