“When she turns sixteen...they’ll come for her.” The worst part wasn’t the terrible secret between her parents that she’d overheard, it was that she turned sixteen today. “Hel-lo?” Startled, Shawna dropped her apple. Her friend, Tara, was waving her arms like she was signaling a rescue plane. “How was space? You back now?” Shawna nodded. Despite the day being warm and beautiful at Bozeman High, a chill prickled up her skin. “So, anyway,” said Tara, “your mom and dad found you? Did I really just hear that?” “That’s, um.” Shawna forced herself to swallow the bite of apple she’d been chewing on for the last minute. It tasted like wax-paper. “That’s what I heard them say.” “And your mom kept you cuz you were a ‘sign’”—Tara made asterisks in the air with her black Lick-Irish fingernails—“and your dad was desperate?” Shawna nodded again, tucked a rebellious strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and felt her throat constrict. “You only wanted her because of that thing,”
