Ethan pokes a stick into the blaze and then uses the burning end to trace red shapes in the darkness. “Mama knew Clay’s mother. You know, the lady at the hospital.”

I turn to Mama. “You knew Clay’s mother?”

Mama nods. She’s still weak, almost frail, but her mannerisms are all the same as I remember. The corner of her mouth lifts just before she speaks. “When I knew her, Nessa Vandewater wasn’t such a fancy pants. She was just another patient like me at the Breeder’s hospital. That was the year before you were born,” she says, touching my knee. Her eyes trail back to the fire.

“They brought Nessa in already pregnant and big as a house.” She rounds her arms out to mimic a giant belly. “I guess that was your friend Clay.” She looks up at me. I blush and turn my eyes to the glowing embers.

“Anyway, Nessa always told us she was some sort of genius. All us girls on her floor thought she was crazy. Some girls come in that way, baked in the head.” She looks down at Ethan who’s writing his name in the dust with his stick. “Then they came for her one day and we didn’t see her for a long time. We thought she’d been taken down to the experiments. Later we found out she was in charge of them. Turns out she was a genius after all.”

I study the fire, considering this. “So she experimented on the same girls she’d been friends with?”

Mama shakes her head. “Nessa never had friends. She didn’t care if she ruined girls’ lives, killed people. Never was right in the head.” My mother shivers. She lifts her eyes to mine. “I’m sure your friend Clay’s not like that.”

“He’s not,” I say. I think about him alone in that dark church and frown. “What about Clay’s brother, Cole? He was born four years after Clay.”

Mama shrugs. “That was after your Auntie broke us out of the hospital, sweetie. What happened to Nessa after that is anyone’s guess.”

I ponder this while the fire crackles and the bugs chirp shrilly around us.

“What’d we do now?” Ethan asks, chucking his stick into the fire. It crinkles and pops as the blaze eats it up.

We all look at him as if it hasn’t occurred to us to ask this question. Of course it’s occurred to us. Just none of us are sure of how to answer it. I open my mouth to speak, but then my eyes flick up to my mama.

She nods at me. “Don’t stop on my account. What should we do, Riley?”