Samm shouted into the hallway, “I think this one’s waking up!” He heard a flurry of activity and raced back to the side of the bed where Partial Number Five was slowly stirring. The Partials from Vale’s lab had been free of the sedative for weeks now, but the effects had lingered, and their bodies, unconscious for nearly thirteen years, seemed reluctant to wake up. Many in the Preserve had given up hope that they would wake up at all, but Samm had refused to abandon them. Now Number Five—they did not know their names—was moving, not just shifting in his bed, but fidgeting, coughing, and even groaning around his breathing tube. Samm had watched with growing excitement all morning, but when Five finally started to flutter his eyelids, as if struggling to open them, Samm called for the others. They came flooding into the room: Phan and Laura and Calix, who was now on crutches as Heron’s bullet wound slowly healed in her leg. The girl pointedly avoided even looking in Heron’s direction.

Avoiding Heron was all too easy these days, as she seemed to have withdrawn herself from the community—not completely, but almost. Instead of disappearing from sight, she simply hovered along the edges, lurking in shadows and hallways, detached from the others. She stood now against the back wall of the hospital room, practically in reach of the humans but somehow miles apart from them. Samm knew without looking that she was as curious about the humans’ behavior—and Samm’s—as she was about the slowly waking Partial. Her link data was typically analytical, but with a tint of the growing confusion that Samm had started to sense from her more and more frequently.

WHY?

Samm did his best not to respond, focusing his thoughts—and through them, his link data—on the stirring Partial. He had approached Heron about her apparent confusion before, but every time he did, she left immediately. He didn’t know what she was trying to figure out, but she wasn’t interested in talking about it—but neither did she seem interested in leaving the Preserve entirely. The one thing he knew for sure about Heron was that if you saw her lurking in the shadows, it was only because she wanted you to. What did she want now? He would have to think about it later, when the link wouldn’t give him away.