Brakes locked. The van skidded sideways across the wet gravel of the driveway, tearing up a strip of dormant grass before slamming into the oak tree in the front yard.

  CRUNCH.

  No airbag deployed. Frankie’s head whipped forward, her forehead cracking against the steering wheel.

  White light burst behind her eyes, drowning out the thrum.

  She kicked the door open. Stumbling out onto the lawn, the world tilting on its axis.

  The fog on Seashell Avenue was different. It pressed against her skin, clammy and suffocating, smelling of copper and wet earth.

  The house sat in the center of the mist.

  The yellow siding was dull in the gray light. The porch swing moved slightly in the wind. Squeak. Squeak.

  But the front door was wide open. A rectangle of absolute darkness.

  “Mom!” Frankie screamed.

  The heavy air swallowed her voice instantly.

  She sprinted up the walkway. Her sneakers slipped on the slick concrete. She scrambled up the porch steps, grabbing the railing to pull herself forward.

  She burst through the doorway.

  “Mom, I’m—”

  The words died in her throat.

  Frankie skidded to a halt in the entryway. Her chest heaved, lungs burning, throat tight.

  In the living room, the furniture lay shoved to the edges of the room. The carpet absorbed water that seeped from nowhere. Mold. Wet wool.

  And the walls…

  The walls were breathing.

  Thick, translucent veins of glowing blue lines pulsed beneath the wallpaper. They throbbed in time with the headache splitting Frankie’s skull. Thrum-thrum. Thrum-thrum.

  “Mom,” Frankie whispered.

  To her left, against the wall, a cocoon.

  It wasn’t just resin. It was alive. Gray tendrils were feeding into Leilani Rivera’s skin, pumping fluid into her veins. It pinned her to the plaster, wrapping around her legs, her torso, her arms. Only her head was free.

  Her chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked hitches against the restraint. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the center of the room.

  “Frankie,” Leilani croaked. Her voice sounded like dry leaves. Cracking. “Run.”

  “Shhh,” a voice said.

  Frankie turned her head slowly.

  In the center of the room sat the floral armchair.

  Sitting in it, legs crossed at the ankles, was Captain Daria Heather.

  Her white naval uniform was spotless, a blinding contrast to the muck and gloom of the house. Her blonde hair clung to her head like cobwebs. Her hands, resting lightly on the armrests, were smooth—too smooth. Like marble.

  She looked like a high-definition image projected onto a dirty screen.

  “You’re late.” Daria said.

  She didn’t move her lips.

  It vibrated in her skull. A thousand whispers.

  Frankie took a step forward. Her hands curled into fists. Her heart hammered. Heat flushed her skin.

  “Let her go,” Frankie said.

  A small, polite smile curved Daria’s mouth, but failed to touch her eyes.

  Her eyes were twin stars of electric blue. No whites. No pupils. Just void.

  “Why?” Daria asked mentally. “She is comfortable. She is… integrating. Preparing.”

  Frankie roared.

  She lunged.

  She crossed the distance in a heartbeat. She aimed a punch directly at Daria’s face.

  But she hit an invisible wall.

  Six inches from Daria’s nose, Frankie stopped. The air turned heavy. Crushing. Force slammed into her, freezing her mid-strike.

  Frankie strained, her veins bulging. She pushed against the invisible barrier, her knuckles trembling.

  Daria didn’t flinch.

  “Sit,” Daria commanded.

  The force threw Frankie backward.

  She flew across the room, smashing into the coffee table. Wood splintered. Glass shattered.

  Frankie rolled, coming up in a crouch, ready to spring again.

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  “Stop,” Daria said.

  The pressure increased. An invisible weight crushed Frankie’s shoulders.

  Frankie fell to one knee. The floorboards creaked under the stress.

  “Frankie!” Leilani screamed, struggling against the resin. “Leave her alone!”

  Daria stood up.

  She rose not with muscle, but moved like oil. Smooth.

  She walked toward Frankie.

  “Interesting,” Daria said. The voice in Frankie’s head was curious, probing. “You are not like the others. Meat usually breaks. But you…”

  Daria stopped a foot away. She tilted her head.

  “You are dense. Your biology is… cluttered.”

  She reached out a hand.

  Frankie tried to bite it. She snapped her teeth, eyes flashing red.

  Daria pulled back slightly, amused.

  “Different,” Daria noted. “You have the taste of the old enemy. The Leech-Walkers. Vampires.”

  “How do you know them?” Frankie asked under her breath.

  “We encountered them once on another world. We tried to assimilate them to our colony. But their minds were too strong like you.”

  Alien vampires? Seriously?

  “I’m not one of them,” Frankie spat, sweat dripping from her nose as she fought the pressure. “I was born here. Cursed, but I fight the darkness.”

  “And yet,” Daria said, “you share their darkness. You share their hunger.”

  Daria crouched down. Her face was inches from Frankie’s. She smelled like ozone and ancient dust.

  “We are alike, you and I,” Daria said.

  “I’m nothing like you,” Frankie snarled. “You’re a parasite.”

  “Parasite?” Daria laughed. Static hissed through Frankie’s brain. “We are the cure. You are the fever.”

  Daria stood up and walked to the window. She looked out at the fog.

  “Let me show you,” she said.

  The pressure on Frankie’s shoulders eased slightly.

  Then, the vision hit.

  As something ripped her mind out of the living room, Frankie gasped.

  Darkness.

  Cold. Space.

  Hunger. A planet cracking. Glass towers. Cold geometry.

  Impact.

  Water. Crushing pressure. Silt.

  Hunger.

  God, the hunger! To exist. To be matter again. To feel the sun.

  The vision snapped off.

  Frankie fell forward onto her hands, gasping. Tears streamed down her face—born of an ancient, crushing loneliness.

  “We are not invaders,” Daria said softly. “We are refugees.”

  Frankie looked up. Daria was watching her.

  “Our world is dust,” Daria said. “We cannot survive in the vacuum. We need matter. We need hosts. We are the consciousness without form. You are the form without purpose.”

  She gestured to Leilani.

  “Look at them. These mammals. They live for eighty rotations and then they rot. They squander energy on isolation. Fear. Greed. The singular self.”

  Daria walked over to Leilani. She stroked Leilani’s cheek. Leilani flinched, sobbing quietly.

  “We offer them eternity,” Daria said. “When we take a host, the mind is not destroyed. It is… integrated. Absorbed into the Colony. They become part of the song. They never die. They never feel alone.”

  “You kill them,” Frankie said. “You melt their bodies and wear their skin.”

  “We optimize them,” Daria corrected. “We strip away the weakness.”

  She turned back to Frankie.

  “But you… you are already optimized.”

  Daria extended a hand. The blue energy around her fingers pulsed invitingly.

  “You are a Hybrid. You have the durability of the Leech-Walkers, but the soul of a human. You can withstand the signal without breaking.”

  “So what?” Frankie asked, bracing herself against the floor. “You want to eat me too?”

  “No,” Daria said. “We require a Node. A bridge.”

  Frankie froze.

  “The Colony needs Queens,” Daria explained. “Processors to manage the drones. To direct the terraforming. I am the first. I need a second.”

  Frankie saw herself standing atop a crystal spire in the center of a transformed Norchester. Her skin pale, her eyes blue. She felt powerful. Connected to every drone, every drop of fog. No more fear. No more hiding secrets from her mom. No more worrying about college or money or death.

  Peace. Silence.

  “Join me,” Daria said. “Accept the gift. We will scour this world clean of its chaotic, messy life. We will build a paradise of order. And you… you will never have to fight again.”

  Frankie looked at Daria’s hand.

  To put down the burden. To stop being the “freak” who had to save everyone. To just… belong.

  She looked at the vision of the future.

  Then she looked at her mom.

  Leilani was crying. She was just looking at Frankie with pure, terrified love.

  “Frankie,” Leilani whispered. “Don’t listen to her. Whatever she is saying is not true. You are just a girl. My girl. You can fight her.”

  Frankie looked back at Daria.

  She remembered the feeling of Damon’s hand in hers. The taste of salt water. The smell of frying spam on a Sunday morning.

  Messy. Chaotic. Temporary.

  And real.

  Frankie stood up.

  She wiped the blood from her forehead.

  “You know what your problem is?” Frankie asked.

  Daria lowered her hand. The curiosity in her blue eyes dimmed, replaced by a cold, stillness.

  “We do not have problems,” Daria said. “We have solutions.”

  “Your problem,” Frankie said, “is that you think loneliness is a disease.”

  She took a step forward, fighting the pressure that Daria was re-applying.

  “We like the mess,” Frankie said. “We like the noise. And yeah, we die. But at least we call it dying. We don’t call it ‘optimization.’”

  “You reject the gift?” Daria asked. Her voice dropped. The thrum deepened, shaking the pictures on the walls.

  “I reject you,” Frankie said.

  She locked eyes with Daria.

  “And get away from my mom.”

  Daria sighed.

  “A pity,” she said. “I thought you were different. But you’re just another Leech-Walker.”

  She flicked her wrist.

  Force slammed Frankie against the wall.

  Daria turned to Leilani.

  “If you will not join the Colony,” Daria said to Frankie, “then you will feed it.”

  She placed her hand on Leilani’s chest. The cocoon tightened.

  “Mom!” Frankie screamed.

  She pushed off the wall. The vampire speed flared. The world slowed.

  She grabbed the nearest thing—a heavy ceramic lamp—and threw it.

  It hit Daria in the back of the head.

  It shattered.

  Daria didn’t even stumble. She slowly turned around. Her face smoothed into a blank void.

  “Fine,” Daria said.

  The air in the room changed. The pressure vanished, replaced by a crackling electric charge.

  Daria’s mouth stretched down, nearly tearing her cheeks. A hiss echoed from her throat.

  “Let us see how durable you really are.”

  Frankie raised her fists.

  No friends. No silver. No backup.

  Just her mom watching.

  “Come on,” Frankie roared.

  Daria attacked.