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“Maybe not forever. What if the Padre’s right and we are special, more powerful than we know? What if that’s why the Sympas came for me?” These aren’t words I’ve ever said, but I’m desperate. I need to keep him calm, before he gets himself killed. “We can’t pretend the Mission is safe anymore, Ro. If there’s even a Mission to go back to.” I swallow.

“But why hide, if we’re so special? What if we’re supposed to be doing something? What if we’re the only ones who can?” He runs his hands through his hair, unable to keep still.

This is all he wants. To save the world and everyone in it.

Right now, I just want to save the only family I have. Whether or not he wants me to.

I try again. “The Padre said who we are can be used against us, if we’re not careful. We might make everything worse.”

Ro has lost his patience with me. We are both spinning perilously close to the edge of our tempers. “Yeah, Dol? The Padre also said the truth would set us free. He told us to turn the other cheek. He said to love our neighbors. And now he’s dead.”

I move away from him, but he grabs my arm.

“I loved the Padre, Dol, same as you.”

“I know that.”

“But he was from another time. What he said, what he believed, that was a fantasy. He said those things because he didn’t want us to give up. But he didn’t want to fight, either.”

“Ro. Don’t start.”

He softens. “I’m not going to leave you behind, Dol. A promise is a promise.”

He remembers; we both do.

Dot to dot, we swore. Down at the beach, after the first time Ro ran away. When I was the only one who could talk him into coming back.

That was the first time we learned that binding our hands would bind our hearts. That whatever it was that made Ro’s heart pound was the same thing that made mine break. When I felt myself willing the sand up over us, in my mind, smothering the flames inside him, he calmed down; we both did. When we touched—just so—dot to dot—the ache turned in on itself.

The fire burned out.

We lay together there, hand to hand, until he was sleeping. That’s when I knew I wouldn’t make it without Ro. And Ro wouldn’t last a day without me.

He can’t stop the fires alone. He doesn’t care. It’s the hardest thing I know about him.

He’d rather let them burn.

I’m still lost in thought when I hear the Choppers overhead. We both know what it means, but I’m the one who finally says it.

“Embassy Choppers. We have to move.”

“Give me a minute.” Shaking in his wet clothes, Ro’s not quite himself yet. I’ve never seen him this rattled.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I thought you were dead, Dol.”

I reach my hand up to his thick brown hair. I pull out a twig, caught behind his ear. I don’t say what I am thinking, that I should be dead, that I am supposed to be dead. A pig is dead and a Padre is dead, I think. Why should luck escape them to find me?

Because they were never going to kill me. Because they were coming for me.

I wonder.

I wonder if the Padre and the pig are the lucky ones. Then I push the thought away and reach for Ro. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.” I try to smile at him, but I can’t. The Chopper is all I can hear, just as the bloody soldier at my feet is all I can see.

“Then I thought I was dead.” He swallows a laugh, but the way it bubbles up from his chest, it’s almost a sob.

“You nearly were. You can’t just jack a train car and attack the Tracks like that. I don’t know what you were thinking.” I twist his ear, like I would Ramona Jamona. Only hers are soft, like cloth. His are practically caked with mud.

“I was thinking I was saving your life.” He doesn’t look up.

I sigh and draw my arm around him. “I wish you wouldn’t. Not when it almost kills you. And anyway, someone’s going to have to save both our lives if we don’t get out of here before that thing lands.” I try to push him off, but he pulls me closer, tightening his arm around my waist.

“You wish I wouldn’t. But you know I will.”

“I know, I know.” I smile, softening in spite of everything. The cave, the unconscious Sympa, the sound of the Choppers. “We’re all we’ve got.”

It’s true.

We’re practically family—the closest thing we have to it, anyway.

But as I say the words, I realize Ro isn’t looking at my eyes.

He’s looking at my mouth.

The spark that is Ro becomes a firestorm. I can feel my palms beginning to burn, my eyes widening. I know what he is feeling and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I can know someone so well and not have known this. “Ro,” I start, but I don’t go on. I don’t know what I would say.

That I love him more than I love my own life? It’s true. That we’ve swum half-naked in the ocean without bothering to even look at each other? Also true. That we’ve slept a hundred cold nights together on the tiled floor of Bigger’s Mission kitchen hearth, just the two of us—alongside a bony litter of tired dogs and sheep? That I could no more kiss him than I could one of Biggest’s pigs?

Is that also true?

I close my eyes and try to imagine kissing Ro. I imagine his lips on mine. His lips, the same ones that have spit pomegranate seeds straight into my mouth.

They’re soft, I find myself remembering.

They’d be soft, I find myself thinking. At least, softer than his ears.

I am afraid to open my eyes. I feel his hands on my waist, as if we are dancing. I feel him slowly pulling me toward him.

I let myself be pulled.

Almost.

Then I hear someone moaning, and I remember we aren’t alone.

The Sympa soldier is waking up.

RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT