Page 143 of The Last Hope

Zimmer shakes his head. “This is bizarre.”

I take a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts. “Okay, let’s say she is of a different species,” I say, testing that theory. “How did she end up on Saltare-1? Why is she just sittingbehindthe orphanage in an alleyway? That means she has parents somewhere. People who brought her here.”

I agreed to take anorphan.Not a child with parents. It makes a difference to me. I imagine what it’d be like for someone to rip me from my mom’s arms in the cold Bartholo snow. I can’t do that.

I can’t.

Stork turns on me and the baby wails harder in Zimmer’s arms. He tries to rock her with no avail.

“What do you want me to do?” Stork says, his voice breaking. “Leave her where we found her?” He touches his chest. “I know what it’s like to be taken from my parents—do you honestly believe Iwantto do that to someone else?”

I don’t know.

For Earth, maybe.

When I don’t disagree, his face breaks into a pained, choked laugh. Zimmer frowns. “Since both of you are too emotionally invested in this… situation,” he says, “I’m going to make the decision.” He shifts the baby in his lanky arms. She cries again. “She can’t stay in the alley. If she doesn’t have parents, she’sgoing to starve or get stolen by a worse wart. We take her back to the barge and decide things there.”

Stork nods, and I also agree to the plan.

Nearby sirens wail, but they’re coming from the opposite direction of Court and Mykal and the others. But it’s a reminder.

It’s only a matter of time before our faces are plastered across this city. And when that happens, with or without the baby, our window to leave Saltare-1 will have closed.

THIRTY-SIX

Stork

One thing is bloody certain.

She’s the correct baby. She disappears every few seconds, causing all of us to look around the house barge in tense anxiety. Until seconds later, she reappears on Court’s lap.

She’s been doing that all night. Cuddled contently in his hands. He’s the only one who can hold the newborn without her crying.

Got to give it to the kid, she knows how to make a joke. See, of all people she could have preferred, she choseCourt.The guy who’s stiff as a board and cradles her like she might combust in his arms. Honestly, he doesn’t look that comforting or soft.

Anyone else would have been a better choice. If I were a baby, I’d have chosen me, but not all newborns can be as smart.

Quietly, she sucks on her thumb, happy for now. We don’t even know if she’s hungry or if she drinks milk like newborn Saltarians and humans. Not that we have any.

I sit atop the wooden dresser in the main living area, my gaze plastered to the baby. Franny’s earlier words have infiltrated my head… my heart. And Franny is right. If that baby has parents here in the city, it changes everything.

TheMythbook never mentioned her parentage, and I’d always felt right about taking her from an orphanage. It’s why I never brought up this scenario. I didn’t think it’d be possible to find her in an alleyway. That she could have family in the city. People who love her. Want her. I myself was stripped of a father.

Knowingly doing that to a child is something I’m trying to grapple with. Something I’m not sure I can actually go through with.

But if we don’t bring her back to Earth…

Lord, I don’t know what to do.

“Maybe she wasinsidethe orphanage and teleported her way into the alley,” Gem offers as explanation. Cross-legged on the ground, she tinkers with a portable fan and tries to disassemble it.

Padgett folds a paperback over her thumb, having picked one off the tilted shelves in the barge. “That’s a good possibility,” she agrees.

“Maybe she was always in the alley,” Kinden refutes. “Fast-Trackers do stupid things like leaving their children alone in the city.”

“Heya.” Zimmer points a finger. “I’d never leave a baby in analleyway.”

“I didn’t sayyou,” Kinden says.