Xared growled at him as more tears filled her eyes. “Sheez, Joey! Could you please learn some tact? I know you believe in ripping the Band Aid off, brother, but seriously? Not the time. You didn’t just take some skin. Pretty sure, you claimed the whole limb.”
“Like there’s an easier way to tell her the truth? Grandma’s on the roof won’t exactly work in this scenario, and we don’t have the time for you to waste, searching for the perfect a Hallmark card. Besides, we’re at war. Why should I show them any mercy when they’ve never shown any to us?”
“Daria’s not the enemy. She’s half human and one of us.”
“And she’s half Drab. Not to mention, a leader of HELL. While we’re at it, let’s not forget that she’s also the one who handed your ass over to their Dawners for torture, and in the process, would have handed in your parents, to boot. So in my book, that eliminates any humanity in her, whatsoever. She might as well be a Remnant. If you have any brains in your head, you’ll let me kill her now and save us all the misery of dying by her betrayal later.”
He shot to his feet. “Don’t you dare!”
Josiah raked him with an expression of disgust. “You’re as blind and trusting as Jet. And you’re going to be just as dead because of it.”
“You speak through hatred and prejudice, not reason.”
“I speak through a hundred years of experience.”
Daria gasped at that. Could it be possible? “You were here at the beginning?”
Josiah stepped past Xared to glare down at her. “Yeah, I was here. I bore witness to the truth and not the lies the Drabs have fed you from birth. So spare me the propaganda.” A tic started in his jaw. “She’s not you, Xed. There’s too much black blood in her veins. It’s infected her head and her heart. Cut your losses while you can. I’ve buried enough family. I don’t want to bury any more.”
And with that, he vanished.
Xared shook his head and sighed. “Sorry about that, Daria. You have to understand, my uncle’s a very bitter man.”
“Oh, I got that. Not like he hides it.” He might as well have bought ad space. “What’d they do? Eat his young?”
The expression on his face made her stomach shrink.
“Oh dear Sorus! They ate his young!”
“You don’t want to know. Suffice it to say, I’m amazed he doesn’t hate me, too, for the black blood in my veins. It says a lot for him that he’s able to even look at me and my maja. Never mind protect us the way he does, given what he’s been through because of the Matens.”
Maybe. But it still didn’t excuse his behavior. “Is what he said true?”
“That you’re part human?”
Her throat tightened to the point she couldn’t speak past the lump, so she nodded.
“Yeah,” Xed whispered. “You’re one of us.”
A single tear slid down her cheek at the thought of the horrendous reality they’d just dumped all over her without any warning, whatsoever. The fact that her entire life had been a complete and utter lie. That everything she’d thought she’d known about herself and her family had been fabricated. That she knew nothing of her true origins.
Her true species. Or half species, in this case.
They had hidden everything from her.
I’m human.
This was worse than her worst nightmare. No wonder she’d been so weak and sickly as a child. The human in her hadn’t been able to thrive in their world.
It’d probably been trying to kill her. Just like them.
Why didn’t you tell me, maja!
But then, she knew. It was a death sentence in their culture.
Daria pressed her hands to her forehead. “How could they hide such a thing from everyone?”
Especially her doctors? Surely the human in her would have shown up on tests?
Wouldn’t it?
“It’s not as hard as you think it is. There are more of us than you’d believe. And we have a network in the cities to protect and shield us. Help us blend in and hide.”
They are among us. No wonder the government was so paranoid that they ran those commercials all the time. It made sense now. The secret ran deeper than she’d ever guessed. “How long have you known about your parents?”
“Always. Because both my parents are cinereals—” their term for half-bloods—“and have been working to save other humans from the Matens, the truth was never hidden from me. I can’t count how many families, like yours, we’ve helped and sheltered.”
Daria sniffed. “I’m so sorry I turned you in. I didn’t want to. Did they hurt you?”
He shook his head. “They barely had me in custody before Joey blew their convoy apart. He’s a little temperamental that way.”
That shocked her almost as much as being told she was human. She couldn’t believe she’d missed hearing about a human assault on one of their facilities. “Why wasn’t that on the newsfeed?”
He smirked at her. “Why do you think?”
Because it wouldn’t have fit in with Maten propaganda that the humans were weak and beat down. More than that, the government couldn’t afford to let it out that the humans had kicked their butts so easily. It might start the rioting again and win sympathy to the human cause. They’d already fought one war over the humans. The last thing her race wanted was to fight another.
Yeah, it was a stupid question in retrospect.
“What am I going to do, Xed?”
“Same as the rest of us ... survive.”
Easier said than done. She didn’t know how to without her parents. “I’ve never been on my own.”
“Joey always says that we come into this world alone and alone we leave it. That it’s why so many doorways are narrow. Because some thresholds are meant to be crossed solo, on our own two feet. If we’re lucky, we might have someone at our back. But don’t count on it. Just hold your head high. Take a deep breath and walk through it with confidence and determination, and be ready to face whatever’s on the other side, waiting for you.”
“And if it’s a bomb?”
“Duck and cover.”
She snorted at his facetiousness.
Xared took her hand and held it tight—just like he’d done on that day so long ago when they’d started school together. “I’m right here, Daria. You’re not by yourself.”
“Why would you? I crapped all over you today.”
He wiped the tears from her eyes. “You acted out of fear, to protect your parents and yourself. I can forgive that. Had you been Frayne and turned me in because you’re an asshole who thrives on cruelty, then I’d be coming for you and all you hold sacred. Trust me. I’m not through with him. I plan to rain down a hell on him that he will long remember.”
She frowned at his words. “Hell? As in the Human Extermination Licensing Leaders?”
He made a pain-filled noise at her question. “No. That’s a sick Maten play on an old human concept. Hell’s our version of your dudaella.”
She sucked her breath in sharply at his words. “You’re not a Zsivasist?”
His features grim, he shook his head. “No. I’m Catholic.”
“Cawotholic?”
He grinned at the way she stumbled over the foreign word she’d never heard before. “It’s very different from the religion you grew up with.”
“Yet I’ve seen you at kaltrium every week. You’ve never missed a single prútscype, or even been late.”