Page 4 of The Last Hope

Franny stays in a crouch and presses her ear back to the padlocked door. Concentrating.

I lick my dry lips. “You’ve been wanting to talk for weeks on end,” I remind her.

Her brows scrunch. “I know I’ve been harping on about what theRomuluscommander told us, but it’s not important right now.” She unconsciously touches her hip, scratching.

I’m fine.

I’m fine.

I swallow and say, “You mean that we’re human.”

I don’t know what a human is.

I don’t know what or who we are, but I haven’t known that for years. Now is no different. Learning that we’rehumanhas only left us with more questions that need greater explanations.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she mutters, unmoving. “You know nothing just like the rest of us.” Worry undercuts her snappy tone, and I’m not good at figuring out the origin of emotion. But I assume her worry is about me.

Franny has already asked if Andola, also called Earth, is shaded pink. She theorized that the cadets placed us in a pink-shaded room to make us feel at home.

But Commander Theron hasn’t seemed to care about our comfort. Clearly. What makes me even more nervous: they had separated us at first. But only minutes later, they threw us in the same brig together. I’m not sure why.

I answered Franny,I don’t know what Earth looks like.Weonly know that Saltarians were forcibly exiled from Earth thousands of years ago.

Franny asked how we can be human if we look Saltarian.

I answered,humans must look like Saltarians.She snorted and said,that, I could’ve figured out on my own.It made Mykal laugh. One of the few times we’ve heard the lively sound.

She asked what a Helix Reader is, the device that blinked orange and told us we’re human. Which, we’ve discovered, is why we were able to dodge our deathdays unlike everyone else.

I answered,I don’t know.

She asked if all humans are linked together by senses and emotions. Like us.

I answered,I don’t know.

She asked what makes us human.

I don’t know.

At the door, Franny mutters to herself, “After all that we’ve been through, we deserve a better ending.” The heat in her voice is far away, barely inflaming me.

I gather my strength to say, “… talking is important.”

Franny is motionless, but her pulse pounds and pounds. I want her to ask me whatever she needs to ask. Tomorrow, I may be gone.

“Franny—”

“You’redying,” she shoots back and swerves around to face me. Her eyes sting.

My eyes burn, and Mykal wipes his runny nose, all of us on the verge of tears. He shoves the ceiling more forcefully. Urgently. Until he’s banging his fists for an escape.

It hurts more to watch him bash his knuckles. His skin splits open again, and I grimace.

Franny shakes her hand out, feeling Mykal’s pain too.

I need him and her to survive. They must. So I dig into my last reserves of energy, and I reach for the heap of clothing. I grab my black slacks. Slowly rising, I brace most of my weight against the wall. Creeping upward.

Mykal drops his arm and spins on me. “What are you doing? What—have you gone mad? You—”