“And then I freed you,” said Samm. “There’s a very real possibility that whatever Morgan wanted to do to you would work—that she could learn something from your biology to help stop the expiration date—but I freed you. Tell me right now that the reason you won’t go back there with me doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that those Partials are being used to save human lives.”

Kira opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t lie to Samm. “So you’re saying we should just let all the human children here die.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.

“You don’t know that’s what would happen—”

“I know damn well that’s exactly what would happen,” she shot back, stopping him before he could even finish. “In East Meadow that’s happened every day for twelve years, and for one of those years I was right in the maternity ward watching it. If we take those Partials out of that lab, the human children being born will die. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“But you’ll let those Partials be used like machines?” he said. She had never heard him this angry before. He sounded almost . . . human. “You’re a Partial, Kira. It’s about damn time you start to come to terms with that.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“The hell it isn’t. What is it, shame? Are you ashamed of what you are? Of what I am? I thought you were in this to save both races, but when push came to shove you went right back to the humans. Heron has been explaining from the beginning how we might be able to save the Partials, but you wouldn’t do it; you had to come out and here look for a way to save the humans first.”

“It’s not that simple!” Kira shouted. “Take away those Partials and these children will die. This community will disintegrate. I don’t want this to be about numbers, but in this case it is: ten people for two thousand, for ten thousand or twenty thousand as the community grows. If they were humans in that lab who were keeping alive a hospital filled with Partial children, I’d be saying the same thing.”

“Then why not treat them like humans?” Samm said. “For all you know, the Partials would stay willingly. Did he even ask them? Did he even explain the situation? We’re not heartless monsters, Kira, and we don’t deserve to be treated like it.”

“Would you stay?” she asked, turning it back on him. “Give up everything you have, every hope and ambition, to become a . . . milk cow? You’d stay here and do nothing and let them harvest your pheromones? At least you’d have Calix to keep you company.”

“Kira, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”