“That’s not true.” Her face lit up, and for a moment, she looked like nothing more than some grand predator preparing to pounce. “Anastasia Miller, age three. Human. Disappeared in the woods behind her grandparents’ residence for several hours. Returned claiming to be from another planet. You killed that little girl. You stole her life. You took her place. You know you’re not human.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ve always known I wasn’t human. I told everyone who would listen. I told people I knew would want to hurt me for being a weirdo. I never lied. I never concealed anything. And look where it got me. You still won’t admit this place is a … a Habitrail for aliens. All I’m missing is an exercise wheel.”

If the agent was disappointed that I wasn’t more upset, she didn’t show it. Instead, she shook her head, and said, “You don’t understand how good you have things right now. You don’t see how lucky you are. We’d be within our rights to take you apart.”

“Okay,” I said. “I mean, you’re mostly going to find human bits, at least if what your scientists say is anything to go by—they sort of assume that since I’m not one of them, I’m stupid, and they let a lot slip. Nothing useful unless I want to fully understand my own currently hybrid biology, but hey. Everything’s got to go somewhere.”

“You need to cooperate.”

“I am cooperating. You need to tell me what you think I’m supposed to be doing that I’m not. I can’t be a good little test subject with no information.”

“All you’re supposed to do is answer our questions and tell us what we want to know.”

“I can’t do that if I don’t know what you want to know.” I couldn’t miss the fact that she’d made those things different clauses. She wanted me to answer the questions I was asked, and volunteer the information I wasn’t asked for. There was one big problem with that: I was telling the truth when I said that I didn’t know what was remarkable. I was concealing the existence of the forest, yes, but until she’d interfered with my connection to it, I hadn’t realized it was something that could be blocked off.

They knew more about me than I did. That was chilling. Even more chilling was the fact that I still didn’t know who they were. I could talk back and roll my eyes all I wanted, acting like a bratty teen who didn’t want to clean her room, but that wouldn’t answer my questions, and it wouldn’t really slow them down. It was a nothing more than a show of powerless defiance. On some level, I wished I could quit it, go along with their requests and be a model prisoner … but that, too, wouldn’t change anything. All it would do was undermine the last coping mechanism I had.

I wasn’t that ready to give up.