He took a deep breath. “Don’t be angry, but they’ve been here twice now. And they’re not happy. But her parents understand as much as they can. Even with everything that’s public now, it’s hard to believe that your daughter was caught up in it.”

“It’s been hard for a lot of people. My phone doesn’t stop ringing. All those families reunited. And new families formed. You know the adoption was finalized.”

William smiled. “To think of Aunt Kate with a seventeen-year-old son. I guess she really took a liking to Ryan.”

“He’s a really good boy. He fits in nicely into the family.”

“I’d like to get them here one day. Stella too. Strange to think of Kate as a mother.”

“She’s a great one, too. Ryan had nowhere to go, and Kate just made it very clear that she’d promised to come back for him. Stella told me about the other man. Juan was his name?”

“Back in California. She found out he has his own farm now. He obviously doesn’t keep in touch, given that he still thinks I’m the devil.”

“Well, he’s wrong about that. I’m so proud. You ended it. For all of us.”

“No, Nanna. You did. It was always you. No one else but you even figured out about the ladybugs. If the government had, I don’t know if they would have even allowed us to live. I still get a bit nervous when I see a bunch of them crawling together. But at least they don’t swarm into the sky.”

Lynn shook her head. “I remember thinking it simply couldn’t be. But I saw it above the trees. At first, I thought it was how they marked the locations of abductions. But now I think … it’s how they communicated what they had done to us. How they had altered us.”

“I saw the same above that formation in North Dakota. I knew then and there that nothing would ever save all of us. We’d changed. In the end, it was how I knew, when I was trapped in that … thing…, that perhaps I could change everyone back.”

Lynn stopped, the breeze blowing her hair. “I know that’s why you stay here. Why you always will. Because you reversed what they did to all of us, but you didn’t do it to yourself, did you?”

William looked out over the beach. “I failed. I couldn’t do it in the end. My plan was to alter what they’d done to us, and then remove myself, to make sure no one could ever be switched back. But I saw the chance for revenge, and I took it. It died, and I was out of bullets.”

Lynn exhaled, leaning into his shoulder. “I’m glad. We all are.”