Sharp pain shot through my right hand. It was undoubtedly broken, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about it for long. Soon enough, I would be home. Maybe not with a good host or any host at all, but at least I would be home. 

No use worrying about hypothetical hosts right now. I had to deal with Dr. Swanson. He would likely wake up within a few minutes and immediately try to come after me again. 

I retrieved zip ties from Leah’s room and tied Dr. Swanson’s wrists and ankles before moving his gun far out of reach. Gritting my teeth against the urge to groan about my throbbing hand, I splinted it with a paintbrush and gauze. That did little for the pain but would at least keep me from accidentally trying to use the hand and making it hurt worse. I took more Advil and Tylenol than the recommended dose, but it didn’t really matter given where I would hopefully be in a matter of hours. 

Celest’s voice in the other room gave me pause. “I’d like to report a- I’m not sure what to call it, but my husband came after me with a tranq rifle, and I knocked him out and zip tied him. What should I do?” She paused. “Okay, thank you.”

When I came out of the bedroom, she was coming down the hall. 

“The police are coming for Henry. I’m supposed to wait outside for them. Wait in your bedroom until I say it’s okay to come out.”

“Okay.” I returned to the bedroom to work on my disguise. It had to be something attractive but also modest enough to cover the scars. Alternatively, I could cover them in makeup. I might look a little crazy wearing a miniskirt in late fall, though. Red turtleneck and jeans it was. 

I snuck out to grab a hairbrush, hair product, and a spray bottle of water from the bathroom. It wasn’t hard to make Leah’s hair look nice; after being washed, it had large natural curls that looked even better with a little product. I used makeup to cover the few scars on my face and put on a pair of sunglasses to complete the look. Sunglasses were likely unnecessary this late in the year, but they could be seen as a not-so-crazy fashion statement. 

“She’s crazy,” someone—presumably Dr. Swanson—shouted from the living room. “She attacked me. Please, just stop her before she hurts my wife!”

“Don’t be stupid. She was only defending herself,” Celest shouted back. 

I moved to the door just in time to hear a man say, “You told the dispatcher you knocked him out.”

“W-well, yes, but only because I didn’t want an arrest on her record. She’s still recovering from a major car crash, and it’ll be hard enough for her to get back into normal life without an arrest record. I know I shouldn’t have lied, but please don’t punish her for it. She didn’t-“ 

“Ma’am, there’s no reason for us to arrest your daughter. She defended herself without using excessive force.”

Dr. Swanson let out a guttural shout. “You don’t understand. There’s a parasite controlling Leah’s brain. It made her attack me.”

Celest sobbed, but it wasn’t as sincere as her crying yesterday. “He hasn’t been the same since Leah was hurt. He keeps saying crazy things about alien parasites, but I never thought he would try to shoot my poor baby. He needs serious help.”

“I see. I’ll take him out to the car. My partner will talk to your daughter.” 

Before I had time to rehearse my reaction, there was a knock on the bedroom door. Tucking the sunglasses in my pocket, I forced my eyes to water. 

“Who is it?”

“Officer Gray.”

I opened the door to see a lean woman with cat ears and a police uniform. “How can I help you?”

She pulled out a notebook and pen. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Yeah. My dad’s been acting really weird lately, and last night he and Mom got in a huge fight, and she kicked him out, but about half an hour ago, he came back with a gun. I thought it was a normal gun, like with normal bullets, so I was really freaked out. He charged at me, and he was shouting something about aliens, and he aimed the gun at me, but I’ve been watching these self-defense videos, so I know it’s not that hard to knock someone out if you hit their jaw in the right place. Anyway, I hit him, and he was knocked out. Then I tied his hands and feet so he couldn’t do anything to us before you guys got here.”

Nodding, she looked at my hand. “When did that happen?”

“When I hit him.”

“It’s probably broken. You should have that checked out.”

“I will.”

She put away her notebook. “If any of you decide to press charges, we’ll need you to come down to the station to give a statement. Otherwise, you shouldn’t have to worry about your dad for a while. He’ll be taken to the psych hospital in Sandy.”

“Thank you.” I wiped my eyes. 

After she and the other officer had left with Dr. Swanson, I felt guilty. The officers would undoubtedly make a report about this, meaning there would be an official record of Leah’s miraculous return. In a town this small, everyone would know before long. Celest would be overwhelmed with heart-breaking questions after I left. People who might’ve supported her in her grief would instead be congratulating her on the supposed return of her daughter. I could imagine few things more painful than needing to go through that kind of loss in secret. 

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t put my guilt into words, exactly. I knew there wasn’t much I could’ve done differently without letting myself be killed, but still… I’d played a part in the difficulties she was going through. 

“It’s okay.” She absent-mindedly patted my shoulder. “You did what you had to. I- I have to make some calls before the news gets out. My family would never forgive me for keeping this from them.” Without a word about whether “this” meant Dr. Swanson’s violent episode or Leah’s revival, she disappeared into her bedroom at the end of the hall. 

I went back to primping in Leah’s bedroom. Using contour and highlight, I managed to make my face look sharper than it actually was. It wouldn’t have fooled Celest, but it might fool the twins, especially with the sunglasses. I put them back on before modeling in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door. Not a bad disguise, if I did say so myself. It might actually get me to the portal today. 

Hmm. What would I do if I did get to the portal? Would I leave Leah’s corpse at the threshold and fly through on my own? That would likely traumatize the poor Ethan. Not to mention, Leah’s second death would certainly become serious news. I could just go through the portal first and then disconnect from the corpse, but there would be no way for Celest to get Leah’s body back. Bodies weren’t especially important to me—or most arytas, for that matter—but they were to most humans. 

The baroness lessons that had been drummed into my head for a decade made me feel like an idiot for worrying about any of this. Who cared if I ruined a human’s life in my quest to get home? I would be home, Celest would be here, and I wouldn’t have to see the consequences of my actions, much less deal with them. It was ridiculous to care about someone else’s feelings, especially when caring put myself at risk. Had I always been this soft, or had Leah’s memories affected me more than I’d thought?

Tashi would say I’d always been soft, physically and mentally. She was right. Of course she was right. Only a deformed hatchling like myself would care about anything except getting home right now. 

There was a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Celest holding a pair of small hair scissors. “I’d best finish cutting your sutures before we go.”

“Good idea.” I turned my back to her and took off my shirt. 

She pulled back my wing to prod at the base. “Here’s where it gets tricky. I see some normal sutures, but there are these… things holding you in place. Some look like smooth white worms, and some look like claws. I don’t know how to remove those.”

“Don’t.” Wincing at how loud I’d spoken, I tried again in a softer voice. “The worms and claws are my appendages. If it’s absolutely necessary to remove some, I can regrow them, but losing more than a couple would make it impossible to control this body.”

“I see. That makes this simpler.” She guided me to sit in the desk chair as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Hold as still as you can. Some of the threads are tied around your appendages.”

“I will.” I slowed my breathing and heart rate to minimize movement. 

She worked in silence for several minutes before moving to work on the other side. “I think I’ve gotten them all.”

“Let me check.” I lay face down on the bed and tried to retract my belly hooks and tendrils. They were tender from being tied in place, but as far as I could tell, they all retracted like they were supposed to. Everything went dark and quiet. I reconnected and sat up. “Yeah, I think you got them all. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.” She stood. “If we’re going to get to Lucille’s by ten, we’d best leave now. It’s a half-hour drive, and you’ll want to be a little early just in case.”

“Makes sense.” I took one last look at Mark and Ethan’s pictures to make sure I could recognize them. Not that it would be hard--one had icy blue scales and tiny antlers, and the other had gray skin and an elephant’s ears. Leah didn’t have many memories of people with such obvious physical oddities, so they couldn’t be too common.

I followed Celest out to the car, and we set off.