“It wasn’t a nice touch. I passed out from blood loss.”

“Still makes you look like you’re going to be out for hours, which is what we need right now. Not that we’re going to have hours. We’re not even going to have fifteen minutes, if you keep standing around like this. Come on.” She grabbed my arm and began tugging me down the hall.

Maybe it was the confusion and maybe it was the blood loss, but I let her take me, leading me past several identical, unmarked doors until she reached one that had been propped open with a brick.

“Through here,” she said, hip-checking the door open to reveal a gloomy stairwell. It extended both up and down from where we were standing: this facility was larger than I had originally assumed. That was a sobering thought. If I had somehow managed to make it out on my own, I could have been wandering in here for days.

“I don’t think I can do stairs right now, Mandy,” I said, bracing myself against the wall with my left hand. This had the awkward side effect of exposing the green streak running along the inside of my elbow. I thought about pulling it back. I didn’t. I needed the balance, and more, Mandy needed to see what she was trying to save.

I wanted her to stay my friend. I wanted her to love me the way she always had, the simple, unornamented love of close friends. And I wanted her to run as far and as fast as she could, because it wasn’t safe to be around me. Not anymore; not now that the invasion was on its way.

“That’s fine,” she said. “I checked the testing roster. You’ve got another hour before anyone is scheduled to check on you. These people…” She shook her head. “They don’t deserve to own a turtle, much less have custody of a person. They should have stuck with spaceships. At least those are harder to kill by accident.”

I laughed. I couldn’t stop myself. “They haven’t killed me.”

“Not for lack of trying. You’re … I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re a plant, Stasia. A green, growing, oxygen-producing plant. You need sunlight and fresh water and not to have people sucking your blood out like a bunch of giant asshole mosquitos.” Mandy made a sour face. “I don’t have a fucking clue how your biology works, and I still know keeping you in a windowless room and feeding you cafeteria meals isn’t a good way to keep you healthy.”

Slowly, I blinked at her. “I didn’t think about sunlight.” Did I need sunlight? Did I photosynthesize? “I live in Seattle. The sun doesn’t shine half the year.”