Alien Invasion 04 Annihilation by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant Page B

and batted at the wall for a switch. She flicked it, but nothing happened.  
    Too close, someone said, “Power’s out.”  
    Lila jumped. She turned her light and found herself feet from her mother, with Clara perched happily on her lap.  
    “Mom! What are you doing in here!?” In the dark. Alone. Sitting in Terrence’s chair, saying nothing even when I shouted. The hairs on the back of Lila’s neck rippled in a wave.
    “I thought he might go to visit me in my place. So I came here instead.”  
    “Who?”  
    “Your father.”  
    “That’s not funny.”  
    The flashlight’s beam lit Heather’s face. Clara, on her lap, seemed overly content, but Heather was neither welcoming the girl nor pushing her away. It was as if she had yet to notice her.
    “Seriously, Mom.”  
    “I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t know where we were going when your dad and I ran away, but he always had a way of knowing what to do and where to go. I trusted him. Believed him. Without him, I’m a loose end.”
    “You’re just sitting in the dark.”  
    “The power is out.”  
    “There’s power in the house, and plenty of extra bedrooms.”  
    “But he’s there.”  
    “Who?”  
    “Meyer.”  
    Lila wanted to shout. This wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have to deal with her father’s death and her mom’s mockery in the same day. Or with her losing her shit. Again.  
    She met Heather’s eyes, unsure how to respond. They were here because Clara insisted: If she wasn’t allowed to see Grandpa anymore, she wanted to see Grandma. Why not? Lila wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight anyway. It seemed that Heather wouldn’t, either.  
    “I don’t like you joking about it,” Lila said.  
    “I’m not joking.”  
    “Stop it, Mom.” Lila pressed her lips together, fighting something that might, left unchecked, turn into tears. Anger and loss in a horrible flurry. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shout. But most of all she wanted to take Clara by the arm, drag the girl out of the house, and tell her to keep her goddamn scary powers to herself. Tell her to stuff those things down and be normal, for once.  
    “Go inside, and ask for the viceroy, Lila,” Heather said, her usually nasal, usually sarcastic voice deeply changed. This voice was more mature — the kind of maturity forced on a person through trauma. “Go in, and ask for him if you don’t believe me.”
    “This isn’t fair.”  
    “It definitely isn’t.”  
    Lila pulled Clara from her mother’s lap, turning on the ball of her foot. The yard seemed bright — albeit a frightening kind of illumination made of hard shadows and sharp angles — compared to the house. She wanted to be out there. She wanted to cross back to the mansion, to her room, to her bed. Raj would probably work all night, hoping to become the big man in charge. She’d have the place to herself, and maybe overnight, it would all go away.  
    “Goodbye, Mom. Enjoy your insanity.”  
    “But Mom,” Clara said.  
    “It’s bedtime, Clara. Come on. We’re up too late. We need to get to bed. Nighty night.”  
    “But Mom, I want to see it! I want to see it happen!” And with that, she sprinted outside. Lila followed, giving Heather a final, loathsome look. She found Clara on the porch’s edge, sitting cross-legged, elbows to knees and chin on palms, facing away from the mansion, toward the Apex.  
    Lila didn’t feel like asking. Didn’t feel like indulging. Didn’t feel like playing stupid games perpetrated from women either above or below her by a generation. She grabbed Clara, perhaps too roughly, and marched. Away from Heather and her unfair, cruel jokes. Away from whatever waited in the shadows, and whoever, if Clara was right, might be approaching from beyond the city wall.  
    They were halfway across the lawn when a flash lit the sky from behind. By the time Lila turned to look, everything was back to being perfectly normal, leaving no clue as to