Solstice (29 page)

I
nod and stand up and wipe the tears that spring into my eyes. Chloe acts like she’s two different people. But she is right. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of the city. The metal groans again, and all of a sudden, I know what it is. They are opening the growth slats on the domes; they’re going to try to grow the glass. Even though the domes haven’t had time to regenerate, they’re still going to try.

I take a step for the door, but Chloe doesn’t even look at me. Maybe the sheet ripping thing was just like the light bulbs—just some near-death recovery thing. It’s only been a few days. Chloe just needs time to recuperate. I’m almost at the door when it blows open. From the kitchen, I hear Chloe’s mom call out again, but I don’t want to talk to her, so I run out the open door.

The sky is furious. Clouds as black as the River Acheron spin in the sky, and rain comes down so hard, it hurts when it strikes my face. The blast of sirens is almost muted from the storm. I glance up at the steel struts of the dome. Glass is growing fast. In the seconds I watch, it grows downward by a foot. I need to run to get out of the city. I take off and don’t look at anything around me. I don’t look back at Chloe’s house; she’ll be fine once the dome is sealed. She’ll be fine when she gets some rest. Debris fills the streets, but no one is around. There’s no sign of the work crews that had been there earlier. And I’m willing to bet a shuttle won’t come.

Litter flies past me and tumbles down the street. Something hard strikes me on the back and knocks the wind out of me, but I can’t turn to look. I have to get out of here. I’m vaguely aware of my FON vibrating in my pocket, but I ignore it. My mom’s calling, I’m sure, and given this storm, I don’t blame her. It’s like nothing I’ve even imagined before.

I’m almost out of the last steel support of the dome when the metal groans a final time. And then shards of glass start to fall to the ground. I dig into my reserves and run like I’ll die if I don’t. Once I’m free and clear and twenty feet away, I spin around and watch the destruction of the dome the city had prided itself so much on. Glass showers down, mixing with the rain until I can’t tell one from the other. My FON is going crazy in my pocket, so I stop under the overhang of a house’s roof and pull it out.

“b home in a few,” I text my mom. She’s probably absolutely nuts with worry.

“please tell me ur okay,” she sends back.

“fine,” I text.

“i love u so much piper. i never want 2 lose u,” she writes, and I surprise myself when a lump forms in my throat and pushes tears upwards to my eyes. Her words are simple, but she cares so much.

I wipe my tears, and wait until the storm begins to subside. I stand there under the patio roof of the house and watch as the clouds first blow away east of Austin and then nearly evaporate from the sky. The rain stops next, and when it clears, I see that most of the glass from the dome is gone, too. All that’s left is the shattered skeleton near the sides of the steel beams. The sky transitions first from a dark gray to a creamy butter and then to a denim blue. Then it’s back to the color of topaz, and the sun shines down from above, reflecting off every bit of glass littering the ground and the sky. The transformation is so sudden, so complete. There’s been a hurricane in Austin, and now, only its destruction remains.

The city is a wreck, but I don’t head back to Chloe’s house or anywhere near the dome. I need to get home to my mom. Because even with everything that’s happened, I want to be near her. I want her to tell me there’s been some mistake. That she was just angry and that she has no idea who Reese really is. But as I walk home, my stomach starts to turn queasy. My mom knows I went on a date with Reese; they know each other. And she wants us to move. Again. She’s been to see my father, and whatever path we lived on in the past has changed. I just don’t know to what extent yet.

The first thing I see when I get home is Reese’s pink calla lilies, still smashed on the floor, and nearly every pink petal missing. I pick a single stem up, and before I think about what I’m doing, I infuse life back into it.

The blossom moves under my energy, and even the green stem is given rebirth. Power flows out of my hands into the flower, and it bursts into color and vibrancy. I touch the bottom of the stem, and roots grow and twist around my hand and fingers. In turn, I pick up each of the remaining flowers and do the same, and when they’ve all reformed, only then do I stop and realize what I’ve done.

The cut flowers, once dead, are alive. I feel their life with my hands. I’ve had a green thumb my entire life, but this is paranormal. But then again, so is everything else that has been going on in my life recently. If gods walk the earth, then why can’t flowers regrow in seconds? I stick them back in the water-filled vase on the counter.

“Maybe you should just let them die.”

I turn and see my mom standing there watching me.

“I can’t.”

“Throw them out, and tell him to never come back.” She shifts, like she wants to say so much more than she is. Like she wants to run to me and hug me.

I set the plant on a shelf next to the sink. “Didn’t you already do that?” I walk past my mom, brushing her shoulder on my way.

“Of course, Piper. But he won’t give up.” Her voice shakes as she talks. “He’ll keep coming back because he thinks he has some right to be with you.”

“But why?” I ask.

My mom throws her hands up in the air. “I don’t know. I just don’t. He showed up here and said he was supposed to take you away. And I can’t let that happen.”

“Who am I, Mom?” I have to ask the question even though it sounds absurd to my ears.

My mom doesn’t even hesitate. “You’re my daughter, that’s who you are.”

I shake my head because her answer’s just so frustrating. “No, really. Who am I? There has to be something else.”

My mom comes over and pats my shoulder. “Piper, you’re beautiful and you’re smart and to me, you’re the most perfect thing this world has ever created. But that’s it. That’s all you are.”

“No,” I say. “There has to be something else. Something special.”

She looks at me like she feels sorry for me. “There’s nothing else, Piper. There’s nothing special about you at all.”

Her words sting. I feel them like worms digging into my heart. If she notices she’s hurt me, she doesn’t show it.

“We need to move. To go away,” she says.

“No.” I don’t raise my voice or argue or even try to make it sound like a compromise. I’m not moving. Not again. If I move anywhere, it’s going to be away from my mom—alone.

“Yes,” she says. “Your father will find you otherwise.”

“The dome shattered,” I say because I don’t want to talk about moving.

My mom stares at me a second, and I finally let my eyes meet hers. And then she pulls me into a hug. I don’t break away, but I don’t hug her back.

“I was so worried about you, Piper.” She puts a hand on my cheek, and the tears in her eyes tell me how much she loves me.

“I was fine,” I say.

“You were out there in the storm. Councilman Rendon called a council meeting to tell us about his plans. He’d gone ahead and activated one of the domes. He said there was a hurricane approaching Austin.” She shudders like even the memory is too hard to live with.

“I went to Chloe’s.”

“The council had a virtual meeting; he said he was going to activate all the domes.”

“The glass shattered,” I say. “It was everywhere.”

Anger flashes into my mom’s eyes. “It didn’t have time to regenerate. How does he think the glass will sustain a hurricane when the growth proteins haven’t had time to bond?”

I don’t answer because there’s nothing I can really say.

“He’s killing the city,” my mom says. “He’s killing the world. He’s pulling it apart with everything he tries.”

I know it’s true, but it seems a little unfair. “It’s not like he started the Global Heating Crisis.”

My mom’s nostrils flare. “No, he didn’t. It doesn’t matter at this point how it started, just how we get past it.”

I’m not sure I agree, but my mom doesn’t leave it open for debate. We head upstairs and flip on the tube. Reports of damage from the hurricane are still coming in. I try to zone out because most of the images they’re showing are horrific. People are dead everywhere. The shattered glass from the dome Chloe lives in caused so much destruction, they estimate it will take weeks to clean up. Councilman Rendon is scheduled to give a speech in a half hour to talk about the tragedy. I text Chloe to make sure she’s okay, but she doesn’t answer, so I call her mom who tells me they’re all fine, that aside from some missing roof tiles and the broken window, they got off lucky. I assure her I got home safely and am with my mom.

I attempt to go about my normal routine until the news conference starts. Changing my clothes. Brushing my teeth. It’s only when I pick up a comb and begin to yank it through the blond snarls that my mom comes over. She takes the comb from me and sits me down, pulling each and every tangle out one by one until they’re all gone.

“Maybe I should get a tattoo, also.”

Her words catch me halfway into a trance state. I’m sure I’ve heard wrong. “What?”

“A tattoo.” She touches it. “We could both have one.”

I laugh at the absurdity of my mother getting a tattoo. I wonder how
overprotective
would be spelled in ancient Greek anyway. But maybe the time away from my mom was a good thing. Maybe she’s starting to relax. To be less protective.

“Maybe we could get matching ones. Mother and daughter. Together forever.”

All hopes of my mom relaxing disappear. “That sounds more like something saved for couples,” I say. “Not mother and daughter.”

She holds the comb steady, feeling each tine with her fingers. “We’re an exception, Piper. You’ll always be my little girl.”

“I’m eighteen now, Mom.”

She moves the comb to her own head and runs it through her hair. Even when it catches on a tangle, she keeps her eyes on me. “Eighteen is only the beginning, Piper. We have our whole lives to be together.”

I decide not to respond. There’s nothing I can say to agree with her. I want my own life, but the impasse is she wants it, too. My silence prompts her to kiss me on the forehead and turn back to the tube. The news conference will start in minutes. But there’s something I need to ask my mom.

“Mom, do you know what a phoenix is?”

She freezes, and I see she’s stopped breathing. She knows. As surely as I know Randy Conner’s death is my fault, she knows what a phoenix is.

“It’s a bird.” She makes it sound casual like everyone in the world should know.

“What kind of bird?”

“A bird that only exists in legends, Piper.”

I don’t get a chance to say anything else, because, at that moment, the news conference starts. My teeth grit when Councilman Rendon comes on, standing at a makeshift podium there in Chloe’s dome. He’s supposed to give some speech about how the domes were activated by accident which I know is a lie. If there was any devastation behind him, it’s gone now. The area is lit up like midday, and new trees are planted in the ground. He gives his signature smile and motions with his hand for the crowd to be quiet. He announces he’s going to be speaking and won’t be taking any questions. Of course, questions come anyway.

“Councilman, how could the domes be accidentally activated?”

“Is it true growth materials were refilled today?”

I think of the sand I saw being poured into the metal struts.

“What’s being done to remove the glass from the domes that didn’t shatter?”

The news reports showed these domes. Chloe’s was the only one to crack and fall, but the other operational domes only grew about one-third of the way closed. If I lived under that glass, I’d be freaked out, too. One gust of wind, and the glass could all come crashing down.

My mom’s staring intently at the tube next to me. Her lips are pressed thin, and I think she hates this man.

He starts a prepared speech, but when the questions don’t stop, he gives up and starts with the answers.

“The accidental activation occurred due to a programming error,” he says. “I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

My mom stiffens next to me. “Lies,” she says. “Flat out lies.”

He goes on to deny growth materials being refilled today even though I myself saw the work crews dumping the sand. But his last lie is the worst.

“I can assure the city of Austin with all faith that there is no risk of glass shards continuing to rain down on the city. Sealant has been sprayed from above.” He gives a small laugh like he’s trying to win over the crowd. “The real question will be: how do we get the glass down now that it’s up?”

“Lies,” my mom says again.

The questions from the crowd start fresh, but they’re halted at the sound of metal groaning on metal. I recognize the sound the second I hear it, and I know what will happen even before it does. The groan waxes, and then there’s a cracking sound. And we watch as a single shard of glass comes careening down from above and strikes Councilman Rendon directly through the head.