"We will all face the judgment of our actions one day. Our old misdeeds won't ever leave us."
-Alexander Ovis

ESTHER

Just like in the olden days, Kayleigh Winter has the right to a fair and speedy trial, so now that my family and the other representatives from Hicksmon are here, the World Alliance has scheduled Kay's trial to take place two days from today.

I sit atop an orange rock and look out over Jordan as the sunsets. I'm doing the thing where you sit in a place, looking contemplative, and wait for the person you want to come and talk to you to show up already. I'm waiting for Milo. I want to see what, if anything, can be salvaged here. But then Isla comes up behind me and sits on an adjacent rock.

"I forgot how pretty it is here," she says. I don't respond to her attempt at small talk. "You must really hate us to have run away the way you did, and I get it. I totally get it. I knew the whole time, we all did—about you at least—, and I should have said something. I need to tell you something that might help you understand why I never told you that you were mine, biologically."

I think about walking away right then, but I try to take a page from Calliope's page and hear Isla's side of the story. "Fine," I reply.

"The whole war was complicated. Ugh, sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. Of course, it was complicated, it was war. Let me try again, on a smaller scale." She takes a deep breath. The bottom of the sun is touching the horizon now. "The situation I was put in was complicated. For a long time, I thought that Daniel was dead. He had been taken and he hadn't come back, so in the apocalypse, that usually doesn't mean you're going to get a happy ending. So then your biological dad came into the picture, Nate. And he was suave and he was obnoxious and he paid attention to me, and even though I hated him for everything he did to me before his death, losing him was still one of the hardest losses I've ever had to face. I had to put him down, so to speak. Did you know that?"

I shake my head.

"He was there, bleeding, trying to tell me something, and...." She chokes up a bit, and I turn to see tears welling up in her eyes. "He took my hand, took the gun, and pressed it to his head. He nodded, and I knew what he needed me to do. He is the only person I have ever shot to kill, but I never saw it as killing him. I was doing the humane thing." She wipes the tears from her cheeks, and takes another deep breath to continue. "Anyway, when I was at Cooper's estate, I saw this video he made for me, explaining everything, and... Nate saved me. He saved Daniel. He saved everyone in the bunker, and for that, I loved him. There were a lot of complicated emotions there with Nate. Daniel knew that, I knew that, even Nate knew that. So when you came along and you were our child, I didn't want everything to be any more complicated. Eleanor wanted another child, she was carrying you, and she had already lost so much. We all decided it was best for all of us. Nate is memorialized in other ways, but the complicated emotions between he and I didn't need to be memorialized in you. That wouldn't have been fair for you. Or me. Or anyone involved really. I hope you don't hear this all as an excuse, because I loved your biological dad in so many ways and I love you in so many ways too. But you were always meant to be Eleanor's daughter."

By now, tears have filled my eyes too. "Was it fair for me to not know who my real parents were, though?"

She tilts her head slightly and smiles, a mannerism she must have picked up from Beatrice. "Family isn't always by blood, Esther. Some people have crappy parents, some people hate their siblings, some people are adopted. You can't choose who is related to you, but you choose who your family is. Eleanor is your mom. You have my genes, bless your soul, but you are not my daughter. And honestly," she says, "you are lucky. Eleanor is the best mom you could ask for. She is supportive, she is kind, she is loving, she is nurturing. Stop complaining and just be appreciative that your family loves you so much that we would travel half-way across the world in the apocalypse to get you."

Tempest was always referred to as my cousin, because in our family, we hardly ever honored blood ties as the sole means for relationships. Now I know she is actually, by blood my cousin. Eleanor was always referred to as my mom, but now I know she is really not related to me by blood at all. But she carried me. She hurt her body for me. She nursed me. She raised me. She put up with my tantrums and she helped me learn right from wrong. She guided me through my studies and helped me understand that knowledge is power. Now that I have the knowledge of my real DNA make-up, I'm letting it have power over me... it should be the other way around, like everything else in my life right now. Everything is the other way around now.

"You're right," I say. "I'm sorry."

Isla scoffs. "Seriously? Is that some of Nate's classic sarcasm?"

"No... some of Eleanor's classic modesty."

She pushes herself off the rock adjacent to mine and sits beside me, her arm around me as the sun finally ducks below the horizon. The sky turns purple above the desert and the ruins, as I hold my aunt.

"I want to see my mom now," I say. "I have some apologizing to do."

"Yes, missy, you do," Isla says, and together, we walk back into the World Alliance headquarters to find our family.

***

It's the morning of Kay's trial.

I spent all of yesterday with my family, minus Beatrice since she was being prepped for the trial, and to take our minds off of all of that, we took a day trip to the Dead Sea. I spent the early afternoon and into the evening floating atop the water with no effort, soaking in the nutrient-rich water, and enjoying my time with my family. It was then that I brought up Tempest's current predicament.

"After the trial, we can go to Japan and see if the FTL drive they used to launch into space can be manipulated to get us to Janus with them," Julian said.

We had stopped on the bank of the Dead Sea to eat an early dinner, all of my closest family members together: me, Mom, Joe, Isla, Daniel, Celia, Julian, Todd, Declan, and little Xenia and Toben, who spent their time building sand castles.

"What exactly is our purpose?" Isla asked.

"To get Tempest," I replied.

"Why?"

"She's not happy there. She's afraid the ship will explode."

"If they get to Janus with the new FTL drives, they may be able to avoid any of that, as long as everyone stays calm," Daniel said. "I think us joining them would only cause panic, like what happened back home."

"We have to do something," I pleaded.

"We will see," Joe added.

"Another planet could be cool," Declan joked. "Maybe it's way better there."

"Or maybe it's some kind of void, like we suspected when Robert's crew came back with amnesia," Daniel whispered.

They all took a moment to silently process everything, and then Mom responded, "We will see what we can do for Tempest, Ava, and Ian."

And that was that. Today is for a more immediate issue, an issue we have to settled before moving on physically or mentally: what to do with Kay.

"All stand for Judge Lucas Amman," the bailiff bellows.

We all rise in our seats, even Kay, who sits with Calliope a few rows in front of me. Beatrice is the representative for the Defense along with a separate lawyer.

Milo sits with Kay and Calliope too, which is the reason I haven't been able to talk to him at all since the day I spoke with Kay: He's working to protect her.

My stomach twists in knots. What will happen at this trial?

Hours pass, and statements from Beatrice and Kay are exchanged. I hear the same stories I've been told over and over again. Kay wanted to expose the truth. She wanted everyone to know about the explosives. Beatrice didn't know about those. She wanted to protect the Perfect generation from discrimination based on their DNA. No matter how Calliope presents Kay's best efforts, all I think is that no matter what Kay's intention was, she broke the law and committed treason. She went against what the entire community of Appalachia, not just Hicksmon, agreed upon when they first created the union of Appalachia. What she did was against the law. There's no way Calliope can manipulate anyone into looking past that.

Then the jury tells the judge that they are ready for a verdict. "How do you find the defendant?" the judge asks.

The entire room goes silent. Even my breath stops.

"We find the defendant guilty," the first juror reports.

At first, a wave of relief rolls over me, and sighs ripple through the room. But as Kay stands up to be escorted back to the World Alliance detention center, a war cry pierces through the calm. I turn back toward the cry, and see a band of six darkly-clad bandits it looks like, standing by the doors of the court room and aiming large guns in front of them.

Screams rip through the room and everyone instinctively gets down, hiding behind the seat backs.

"We've come for our sister," a male voice shouts from the back, and then the six bandits make their way down the center aisle, aiming their guns at each of the rows of ducked observers, including me and my family, as they pass.

"Hand her over," the male voice commands. There's a pause, and then I hear the bandits crying, "Go, go, go!" Their feet pound against the floor as they run, dragging a handcuffed Kay out of the courthouse with them.

The last bandit out ensures no one follows them by spraying a round of bullets over our heads, and more screams follow. "Never forget the Quails," the person shouts, this time sounding more like a female voice, or a younger male. "Rotmo will rise!"

Then the door slams shut behind the Rotmo bandit, but we all stay down as gun shots continue outside of the courtroom.

Rotmo is no longer just a rumor, and Kay's treason must have empowered them to find more of their siblings now that the DNA listings have been revealed. Worst of all, though... now Rotmo has a dangerous weapon in Kay. Now they have someone who can hack into any program she'd like. And that's a scary thought.