Psssst!

I startled so hard that the bubblegum I had been stealthily blowing popped like an electric fuse.

“Winter! Stop fidgeting,” my math teacher, Ms Treacle, shrieked. “This is a test and others are still working.”

She said it as if I wasn’t. Which wasn’t exactly wrong. No matter how hard I tried, the page of algebraic equations stood there on the page meaningless, despite hours of math tutelage from my father, a mathlete in his own time. It was all lost on me.

To me, the page of equations seemed more of a philosophical dilemma. I mean, how was one to ever really know the identity of x when y is an inconstant number? Isn’t the fact that x is so codependent on such an inconsistent, wishy-washy figure really the issue here?

Pssssssssst!

There it was again, so close that the hiss was practically a tongue inside my ear. Cognizant that Freak-al Treacle, as we liked to call her, was observing my every pencil etch, I attempted a natural-seeming stretch of the neck and upper back to catch a glimpse at Hazel behind me. Was she trying to get my attention?

Hazel sheltered her answers with her elbow protectively and shot me a lightning-bolt glare.

Huh.

“First subtract x from both sides,” the whisper continued.

I froze. Where was this voice coming from? No one else seemed to hear it. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

I examined the first equation and, sure enough, there was the x that I slowly subtracted from each side.

“Good,” the voice affirmed. “Now you need to flip the fraction…”

Was this God? Am I dying? I wondered, nevertheless following every instruction in exactitude. When faced with Ms Treacle or death, my choice was clear.

It wasn’t until Hazel, brown noser that she is, noisily pushed back her chair, undoubtedly to let the class know that she was done first, and sauntered past that I noticed my shadow flinch. It actually moved out of the way so as not to be tread upon by her spic span patten leather shoes.

“Summer?!” I gasped.

I had chalked Summer up to my mom’s explanation: an imaginary friend that my overactive imagination had created for companionship, the result of being a precocious only child. But I have vivid memories of actual interactions — conversations, play dates, and even arguments — with Summer, my shadow. It had actually come as quite a shock when, at around 4 or 5 years old, I realized that not everyone’s shadow talked back to them, only mine.

My parents had put me in therapy and a litany of after-school activities until Summer was nothing more than a laughable story of crazy things I did when I was little.

But here she was.

“Miss me?” she asked, bemused.

I grinned, and it was like the final puzzle piece — one I didn’t even realize was missing — clicked into place.

“Truth or dare?”

The question was a dare itself, punctuated by those piercing eyes, burnt honey in color, that, Good Gods, made me putty in her hands.

“Truth.” I whispered, so that she had to lean closer to hear. The truth was always a risky move. More dangerous than a sharpened weaponed, someone had once said. Nietzsche, perhaps?

Anyway, I couldn’t risk another dare. Our last round had both of us down to our skivvies after a few too many tequila shots. I wanted the next move to be genuinely hers, not down to the adrenaline rush of a children’s game.

“Mmmm, fun,” Halle purred, then paused, thinking.

I relished in that pause. Not just so I could admire the ample cleavage erupting over her sleek black push-up bra, but also because I needed the moment to steady my pulse. I was feeling woozy, and it wasn’t just the tequila shots. Halle was drop dead gorgeous, funny and wicked smart. She even shared my same ambition – to get out of this God forsaken Lone Star State and land a scholarship to a law school on the East Coast, not to become a minted power figure (though I certainly wouldn’t mind the superfluous zeros that come with such status), but to make meaningful change in the world. She wanted to right all the recent wrongs that had been executed against women after Roe vs. Wade was overturned, and I wanted to critically improve immigration policies, specifically the rampant systematic mutantism that was rife but largely ignored.

Of course I hadn’t mentioned that last detail. No one knew I was one of “them”, and my life depended on that, as well as the lives and livelihood of my family. The only way we made ends meet was by the bounties I turned in.

Halle pushed her chair back and made her way around the table.

“So, tell me the truth, Roderigo Correa.” My name escaped her lips like a song.

“Anything,” I managed.

She sauntered up and sat lightly on my lap, her freckles now in focus, her lips trembling and oh so tempting.

And then she locked eyes with mine.

But this time it was different. It was literal. I could not break free from her gaze.

I attempted to push her off my lap, but I could barely lift my own arm.

“Who are you really?” she breathed, her entire demeanor transforming from flirtatious to forceful.

There was nothing I could do. Under her gaze, I gagged on my own tongue when I tried to lie. The truth lifted off my vocal chords.

It was far too late when I finally noticed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who had appeared behind her, undoubtedly to take me where all people discovered to possess powers end up – the gallows.

A plate, one that my mother had given us for our wedding, splintered into smithereens against the wall just to the left of my ear.

“Jesus, Trisha!” I barked, flinching.

The plate breaking seemed also to break her spirit, for she went from fire-hot furious to a wilted flower drowning in tears.

I pinched the bridge if my nose, warding off a migraine. We had been at it since morning when Trisha, in a new piece of kinky lingerie, asked me to put the condom away.

I went to her now, wrapping my arms around this woman I loved, despite it all.

“Trish, look,” I began. “It’s not that I think you’d be a bad mother. Forget what I said. I was upset and not thinking clearly.”

Her entire body shook as she sobbed into the coller of my Oxford shirt.

“It’s just that, if we were to try again,” I continued, taking a deep breath, “and if, you know, everything went okay this time…” I fought to control my voice. I still had trouble speaking about our last pregnancy, which very nearly killed Trisha and did kill the baby girl inside her. Death by strangulation of its own umbilical cord. “…then I would be 69 when it graduated from high school. I don’t want to be an old dad. I don’t think it would be fair.”

“Fair to who, Rex?” she shot back, pushing me away. “What about me? I’ll be 39 this year! I don’t have any time left, and I… I…” she stammered, and then fell back into the book of my neck. “I want this so much.”

Fuck. This was exactly what my sister, Réa, had warned me about when I fell for a woman 12 years younger. “She makes you feel youthful now, Rex. But what about when it’s her turn to settle down? Will you have grown up by then?” Réa had asked.

Ding dong!

We shot up, standing at alert as if the door bell were an emergency alarm.

“Who’s that?” Trisha seemed worried.

I approached the door while recomposing myself. Fingers through the hair. Fix the coller. Oh fuck, the coller… a black splotch marked the spot where Trisha had cried into my shoulder. Mascara.

“Who is it?” I called with in a jovial tone, over correcting for the morning’s mood.

“Hey Rex! It’s me.” I threw back the deadbolt.

“Oh hey, Réa.” My sister stood on the stoop with a pie tin in hand.

“I made this grasshopper mint pie this morning because you know I’m a stress baker, and I’m just so nervous about this interview tomorrow, but, as you also know, I’m trying to cut calories these days, so I thought I’d…” she stopped when she saw my face. “Oh no.” I couldn’t hide much from Réa. She had always been able to read me like a crystal ball. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively as I stepped into the afternoon rays and closed the door behind me.

“Hey, whatever it is, little brother, always know I’ve got your back,” she said handing me the pie tin. “I’m always and forever Team Rex.”

“Thanks, sis.”

She gave me a hug, and I breathed in the same almond oil in her long, nut brown hair that my mother had used in hers. The familiarity calmed my nerves.

She pulled away and smiled the crooked smile that we had inherited from our dad and that Trisha had found endearing when we first met. “See ya later, champ.”

I returned to the house to find Trisha at the kitchen table with a mug of tea. I set the pie in front of her and retrieved two forks.

I picked up where we left off. “Look, I’m just scared,” I explained. “Scared of what another pregnancy might do to you, scared that the baby might die, and scared that if you and the baby both manage to survive I won’t measure up as the dad I’ve always wanted to be. Trish, I’ll be 50 next month.”

“I know,” she whispered, taking my hand.

“What if we adopt or foster a kid?” I ventured. “Annie and Tim’s adopted kid fits right into the family. No one would even guess she wasn’t biologically theirs. I just think—

Ding dong!

Trisha rolled her eyes. “What does Réa want now?”

I opened the door, and there was my sister.

Except not.

This was my sister 20 years ago. Same hair, same proportions, same cleft chin, and those eyes…

“Um, hi,” she said, and her voice brought tears to my eyes. She sounded just like my mother. “Are you Rex Nobles?”

I nodded. It was all I could do.

“Okay, this is a bit awkward,” she said, shuffling her feet and smiling that crooked smile. My sister’s smile. My smile.

I heard footsteps behind me. Trisha gasped.

“It’s just that, um, my name is Maheva Rogers, and my mom… Well, she went to a sperm bank about 18 years ago to get pregnant, and the records indicate that, um, well… that you…”

Trisha screamed and collapsed into shuddering sobs. But I couldn’t take my eyes off this teenager on my front stoop.

I extended my hand. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Maheva.”

“It’s a beautiful evening,” I remarked shyly as we exited the Metaverse Store and began our walk through the dimming downtown streets. It had been an all-day affair to find and secure Azha, and though the Metaverse’s Matchmaker assured me that Azha and I were well suited, I had the jitters.

She looked up at me, and I was once again stunned by her blond ringlets, which I had so admired in the catalog. “Yes, it is quite nice. Not too cold.”

‘A bit mechanical,’ I thought. ‘But well mannered.’

“Watch out for the puddles, Azha,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to ruin your new shoes.”

This time when she looked up at me, I could see in her speckled hazel eyes that I had misstepped. “I’m not a baby,” she retorted, pulling ahead.

I hesitated, surprised at her capacity for back talk. ‘Stay cool,’ I whispered to myself, breathing through the fluster.

Azha nevertheless navigated the potholed street carefully, jumping over the larger pools with the grace of a ballerina.

Freckled, rosy cheeks and petite in stature, this girl was everything I had imagined. I had been trying to keep my expectations low after so many years of heartbreak, but I smiled despite myself as I watched her. Such a pretty thing.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeech!

An airmobile careened around the corner at a dizzying speed, nearly sending it into a tailspin.

“Duck!” I yelled, running to her with speed I didn’t know I had in me. I wrapped my arms around her protectively, as the airmobile corrected its navigation and sped off over our heads.

The instinctual, protective fury I felt was foreign to me, but all encompassing. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it: “Slow the fuck down!”

The hooligans hollered maniacally. Azha stared, wide eyed.

“Ohmygod, I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “That is not how I’m meant to act.”

She giggled. An honest-to-god schoolgirl giggle, bubbly and contagious. Soon I was laughing, too.

I untangled myself from her, and as we stood up, it felt natural to reach out and take her hand. I suppose this was my maternal nature revealing itself. Her hand was both soft and warm, and the way it fit so snuggly in mine seemed tailor fit. Perhaps it was.

“You told me not to spoil my shoes, but now look at yours!” She pointed at my suede boots, now ruined by polluted puddle water. I would have been upset with myself for being so careless had it not been for her tinkling laugh, like the delicate wind chimes outside my nana’s kitchen window.

I grinned. “Look what you made me do!” I teased.

Giggling mischievously now, she yanked on my hand, pulling me toward the biggest pooled water on the street.

I protested, pulling away and digging in my heels, but she was laughing so hard, having so much fun, that I relented, and we splashed our way through reflected neon lights, whooping and hollering with an abandonment I hadn’t felt in years. Probably not since I was her age.

At that moment, it was easy to forget that I was not her real mother, and that she was not like you and me, that she lacked a soul and would require routine software updates.

But right now, it was genuine. It was real.

We were real.

There once was a teacher in training Whose students he always was taming. He taught them to jump, To sit like a chump, He bred them to ne’er be complaining.

Their ways he had tamed for a while, They all sat and quietly smiled. But smarter they were Than him, this dullard, So they waited like good juveniles.

The day came when trainer turned teacher, The students were asked to be speakers, But they licked their lips And tore him to bits, Reclaiming their predator features.

So a lesson we’ve learned here today, One that we all must takeaway: Wild is wild, To tame is futile, Least you too become tiger buffet.

“Margo Shelby!”

My name booms over the large crowd of District 9. The audience gasps as if by one collective reflex.

I knew this had been a possibility. We all did. How many times had Niamh and I role played this exact scenario, running through a thousand pretend Hunger Games, all of which we triumphed over with the same grace and flair as Katniss Everdeen.

Granted, playing pretend is one thing. Actually getting called by a twit in a neon suit with blue hair is altogether another.

And, if I’m honest, I suppose I had always assumed that my family’s reputation would protect me. But between the District Wars and the pestilence, only Little Liam and I are left of what once were the Great Shelbys.

Liam stands next to me wringing his newsboy hat, the one that used to be our father’s, so that his knuckles are white. The veins in his throat pop out like ropes from the boxer’s ring.

I take a deep breath. I must be strong for Liam, my little brother who has endured so much these past few years.

I put my hand on his, which are still wringing the hat like a goose’s neck. He stills.

“They wouldn’t ‘a’ done this if mum and dad were still around,” he squeezes through clenched teeth.

“I know,” I respond, turning him by the shoulders of his thinning tweed jacket to face me before I face them. “One last hug for your sis, then. Come on.”

Our hug, strong and tight, says more than we do, a family of few words but much strength.

And I channel that strength now. The strength of my grandfather, Thomas Shelby, who pulled our family out of poverty after the First Great Rebellion by creating, through brute force and clever tactics, the Shelby Company Limited. My mother used to say I had his green eyes — “Smart eyes,” she used to say — as well as the gypsy instincts and skills of my great aunts.

“Dangerous combination,” she would tease.

Let’s hope she was right because I will need all of it to outwit and out-survive the 23 other Tributes.

The stadium’s spotlight has finally found me in the crowd. My face, all freckles and my grandfather’s eyes, stares back at me from the Jumbotron under my signature cloche hat. Before the red blush can creep all the way up my neck, I center my breathing and begin the walk down the stairs to the center stage.

“Here she comes now, ladies and gentlemen,” says the Games’ host, a celebrity from the Capitol who I recognize but don’t know. “Isn’t she something to behold! An emerald among the corn stalks of District 9, Margo was trained before the atrocious District Wars in trick riding.”

A video of a smiling, younger version of me takes over the Jumbotron. I’m riding Gypsy Rose, our stunning Arabian stallion, and performing tricks: a switchback, an ollie, a handstand.

“God love ya, missy,” Pastor Padrick whispers as I pass, performing the sign of the cross in my direction. “Remember who ye are, and where ye came from.”

I nod.

“Here she is!” announces the host, extending his hand to escort me up the stairs to the stage. He has those familiar, perfectly symmetrical eyes that all celebrities have. I catch the hazel color of his eyes just before the stage lights practically blind me.

“Margo, this year we’re doing things a bit differently,” the host boasts, combing his fingers through his just-so hair. “This year, we’re going to give you the opportunity to bring one treasured possession with you into the arena.”

The crowd murmurs. Most likely, they’re casting their bets in hushed voices that accumulate to a echoing roar. We District 9ers have always been the gambling type. It’s what made the Shelbys so successful.

“Settle down, settle down,” the host repeats until silence is restored. Then he returns his attention to me, “Your item may not be a weapon, of course.”

More murmurs and mumbles as the audience change their bets.

“But!” exclaims the host with practiced theatrics, “You must first answer a riddle correctly.”

The crowd practically explodes as again people amend their bets and this time I can actually see money changing hands.

A riddle? I’ve never been good with with words or jokes. I know exactly where I’d place my bet.

“Are you ready?” the host asks.

“Do I have a choice?” comes my response.

“Sassy,” states the host, eyeing me like prey. “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

Unlikely. In that I’ve been well coached in the art of bookkeeping, I’d put my odds at about 20 to 1.

“No matter how far you travel or hike, you will never find two exactly alike,” the host reads off a card. “What am I? You have two minutes, Margo.”

Fack. That could be anything: horses, people, these stupid Games… Nothing is ever really exactly alike, is it?

I look to Liam. He was always better at school than I, but he stares at me from the shadow of his hat’s brim, now firmly back on his head.

Then I catch a glimpse of someone waving. It’s Niamh. Her hands are stretched above her head and she’s wiggling her fingers. She then slowly brings them down. I cock my head in that what-the-fuck kind of way.

She does it again.

“One minute,” the host announces like this is the countdown to my death sentence.

Niamh does the wiggly finger motion again, starting above her head and bringing her fingers down.

Okay, think, Margo! Something that is not exactly alike and something to do with traveling. And wiggling fingers.

Oh, of course! It must be fingerprints. No two are exactly alike, and you need them for traveling with passports.

“Got it,” I say into the microphone. The crowd is as silent as mass when the pastor’s angry.

“Here it is, folks!” the host actually does a leap-dance move that could only be described as prancing across the stage. “No matter how far you travel or hike, you will never find two exactly alike. What am I, Margo Shelby?”

Wait. “Or hike?” Fingerprints have nothing to do with hiking. Struck, I look again to Niamh. She knows this look on my face, because she motions again and again. Then, she points up.

Of course. Of course it would somehow be related to the so-called Great History of the Hunger Games.

“Snow,” I reply.

A pregnant pause before, “Correct,” the host affirms.

Niamh claps her hands, and the crowd goes fucking nuts as people claim their winnings or bemoan their losses. Not even the celebrity host can get them back in order.

Finally, he motions for the Peace Keepers, and with a level of scary precision, lines of Peace Keepers quick march down each aisle of the stadium, pointing scoped rifles at the crowd. The District 9ers quiet, but we’re not a people to back down from a fight, so now all that can be heard are knuckles cracking. Preparing.

“Well done, Margo! Snow is correct, and it is a good reminder for us all of the altruistic efforts of the late President Snow, may he rest in peace,” says the host. “So, what would like to bring into the arena, Margo?”

Liam raises his hand, slowly. About a dozen rifle beams dot his head and heart.

“Yes, Brother?” I ask into the mic. The host, now understanding, calls off the Peace Keepers.

“Take me hat,” Liam says, taking it off his sandy blond mop of hair. “It’ll keep the sun off yer eyes,” he offers.

The audience shifts, as do I, waiting for the host to offer some clue. Just as the silence becomes uncomfortable, he speaks.

“Now why would she need a hat, dear boy, when she has this one on her pretty little head already?” the host sneers at Liam.

So he knows the reputation of the Shelbys. He knows the Peaky Blinders.

“Is it because you assume we’re foolish enough to think that your hat is just that, a hat? Do you think we don’t know? That we don’t remember?” The host’s tone has turned from an artificial gleeful pitch to one of spite and hatred. I look closer at the source of this voice. What if he had brown hair instead of blue? What if he wore white cotton instead of neon nylon?

Oh dear God… No wonder it was I who was chosen.

I try to reclaim the attention, pivoting my strategy away from my brother and playing into this ridiculous game. Anything to appease the Sabini grandson. And while Liam’s hat would have proven very useful indeed, the Shelbys used more than their blade-brimmed chapeaus to gain power.

They used fear.

And little is more terrifying than a woman who can charm the present and predict the future.

“You know what, I thank you, Brother, but our host is right,” and I shell out one of my rare smiles. “I already have a hat.” I bring my hand to my head like a model, showing off my black cloche with the burgundy flowers. But as I do, I slip the hat pin out of my hair and into my sleeve.

“A beautiful hat at that, my lady!” the host seems to have gained his composure, though I’m now unsure if the sparkle in his eye is one of admiration — lust, even — or pure vengeance.

I continue my charade of oblivious affability. “Anyway, I’m not sure I could live without a strong cuppa in the morning, so I’d like to bring a canister of tea, please.”

“Well well,” chuckles the host. “We’ve had a some interesting requests from the other Tributes, but this is the most, shall we say, adorable of them all.” Sabini’s grandson looks as if he has a flush of aces in his hands, pleased as punch.

But he doesn’t know my cards. He doesn’t know the accuracy and precision with which I can read tea leaves, though honestly any wet leaves will do. But he soon will know. They all soon will know, as well as the order in which they will die.

The baby was crying again. The baby was always crying these days. Small, pitiful whimpers that would quickly turn to long, piercing wails.

The kid had a pair of lungs, that much was sure. He had heard the cries all the way from the guardhouse of their expansive condominium, though he had hoped beyond hope that it was an ambulance siren or a fire drill or, better yet...

“Please God, be someone else’s baby,” he had prayed. But the closer he got to his apartment block, the louder and more familiar the anguished screams.

“Christ,” he thought, resigning himself to the situation. He loosened his tie and quickened his step, turning what had been a leisurely walk home from a hellish day at work into a speed-walking sprint to what was sure to be an even more hellish evening at home.

“Are you working out?” Siri inquired.

“Fuck off, Siri,” he mumbled, fumbling with the buzzing buttons on his smart watch to dumb it down.

His ninth-story apartment came into view as he rounded the corner. It was an unusually hot evening, but all the balcony doors of the 16-story block were shut tight except his. The sliding doors of his apartment hung wide open like a gaping mouth, darkness inside. The baby’s screams projected out the doors, echoing off the courtyard walls to create an eerie banshee effect.

“It’s enough to raise the dead,” he said in his head. “But apparently not enough for Stella to raise her lazy ass off the fucking couch and close the goddamn doors!”

He may have said that last bit out loud.

“Problems with the family?” said Chloe, the ground floor neighbor, in her British-Chinese accent as he approached his apartment block. Her flabby breasts were so close to flopping out of her silk robe as she leaned over the fencing that he nearly reached out to catch them. A ball player in his day, it was instinct to catch falling objects. This had gotten him into trouble in the past, though, and in this day and age, such good intentions were liable to get him sued. Imprisoned, even.

“All good, thanks,” he responded, clenching his fists and rushing past what was sure to become a crime sight of public indecency.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” she responded. He felt her gaze linger on him, traveling up and down his 6-foot frame.

He punched the elevator button repeatedly with belligerent force, partly to herald the damn thing as quickly as possible — good god, the baby was shrieking at ungodly decibels now — and partly to exorcise the inexplicable bulge in his pants.

It had been months since Stella had looked at him like that. And he had known things would change after having a baby. He wasn’t a total moron, after all. Plus, when he has announced the news, pretty much all the men in his life had both congratulated him and given him their condolences in the same breath.

Usually, it was the other way around, actually.

“Another one bites the dust,” his best friend Brad had said, shaking his head while pouring him a drink.

“Say goodbye to the good stuff,” said Miguel, thrusting his hips.

Only his dad had been congratulatory first, his eyes turning glassy. But even he had amended the mood by adding, “Things will change, you know.”

No, apparently he hadn’t known. He thought he had known, but no one had told him that you don’t automatically fall in love with your baby.

No one had told him that colicky babies could scream for sometimes 12 hours per day, or that this could go on for months.

And no one told him that his wife, best friend, and truly the woman he had fancied his soulmate would never look at him the same. It was as if the baby’s arrival had commandeered her time, attention, and even her feelings for him. As if she had taken back her love, the love she had shown him for eight years before having the baby, and redirected it all toward the tiny stranger that had already demanded so much these past four months.

She had even admitted this to be true. “I have to,” she had told him in that desperate way she had about her these days while bouncing the baby on one hip.

“Well,” said Chloe through a drag of her menthol cigarette, “you know where to find me if you, you know, change your mind.”

Pushpushpushpushpushpushpushpushpush!

The elevator doors opened with the ding of deliverance.

He leaned his creased forehead against the cool mirrors in the elevator, noting the deep blue bags that seemed now permanently etched under his eyes. He seized this moment of rare silence to compose himself as the digital numbers ticked off his last seconds of calm before the chaos.

“Ninth story.” The elevator’s mechanical announcement was quickly drowned out by ear-splitting scream-cries as the doors parted.

His neighbor, Arneau or Arnet — he could never remember his name — was waiting. “Oh thank God,” said Arneau or Arnet over the noise. “Can you do something about that?? My wife has a terrible headache! I’m going to buy ear plugs!”

“Sorry,” he yelled and then rolled his eyes as he turned toward his apartment. People without children had ludicrous expectations of parents.

The screaming was unbearable now, but he knew he had little control over what lay behind the big, oak door. He had learned fast that dads could only do so much for the little alien beings that are infants, but perhaps he could be a relief to Stella. Prove his worth.

But as he clasped the doorknob, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

It was only then he realized he had made assumptions, assumptions created from four months of sleeplessness and near round-the-clock crying.

So he hadn’t even entertained that the source of the screams might not be the baby.

But there lay little Gregory, named after his grandfather, in his bassinet peacefully still and perfectly quiet for the first time in his short life. Already a little bluish, his complexion now complemented the light blue blankie in which he was wrapped.

The worst of it, though, was how the balcony curtains framed Stella’s shadow and the heart-stopping thud that proceeded pure silence.