Footsteps sound down the hall, and we both jump back like we’ve been caught kissing. An older woman in a green robe and fuzzy slippers stands in the doorway. She has a scarf wrapped around her head.

“Adam, is everything okay?” she asks, eyeing me. Not in a suspicious or hostile way, the way some parents might look when confronted with a tatted-up Mexican girl in their living room, but with curiosity. I imagine Adam doesn’t bring many girls home.

“Yeah, Mom. This is Elena…She’s a friend.”

I can’t help feeling like I don’t belong here, but I step forward and offer her my hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. O’Neill.”

“Very nice to meet you too, Elena.” She grips my hand and I’m shocked by how bony hers is, how thin her fingers are. She looks older than she probably is, her skin sallow and hanging from her bones. There are bruises along her arm, like she’s been injected or had blood drawn many times. She takes her hand away and adjusts the scarf, and I realize she has no hair.

I flash back to Adam saying his mom was “having a hard time.” Of course. She has cancer. That’s why he develops the cure in the first place, why he brought it back from the future, and why he couldn’t let the others take it.

He did everything to save her life.

His mom gives us a tiny smile, like she knows what we’re up to. “I’m going to get some water and then I’ll leave you two alone.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Adam says, already moving toward the kitchen. “You should go back to bed.”

When he’s gone, there’s a second of awkward silence as I stand there with his mom. But she keeps smiling at me. “Adam’s a good son.”

“I know.” I rub a finger over my mother’s watch, missing her all over again. If I’d had a chance to save her, I would have taken it too. Even if it meant lying or stealing or betraying someone close to me.

Adam returns with some water and helps his mom back to her room, Max bouncing behind him. I hear Adam say something about giving her another shot soon, and then he tells her to rest.

He returns to the living room, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Elena—”

“Your mom,” I interrupt. “She has cancer.”

“Yeah.” He stares at the floor. “That’s why I took the cure. But I was never working for Aether, I swear.”

“Then who recruited you to steal the cure?”

“It was Lynne. Aether never knew about it.”