"The war was characterized by secrets and lies. I wouldn't be surprised if Gunther had a whole host of other projects outside of his secret lab in Cooper's estate."
-Dr. Valencia

ESTHER

It is commonly known by all curious teenagers that if you want to know your parents' secrets, you pretend to be asleep. I was escorted to my room after Cam's spontaneous combustion and after my subsequent emotional explosion. I mean, how does someone spontaneously combust?

At first, all I could feel was the heat of the fire on my skin and the heat of fear and distress inside me from everything that's happened since the genetics were posted by my ex-best friend Kay. Then, all I could feel were Milo's and Isla's hands on me, guiding me back home. Then, somehow, all I could feel was the weight of my body falling onto my bed. Everything felt like a blur. I don't remember Milo leaving. I don't remember falling asleep. But it played into my now perfect alibi if anyone downstairs tries to catch me spying.

I crawl out of bed to get a better ear on the situation, and sit with my back to the wall to the left of the stairs on the second floor landing just as Declan comes through the front door. I peer around the corner to take a look. He's holding a medical report, and Dr. Valencia follows in behind him. Where is Milo now? Then they walk into the living room and out of view. I rest my back again against the wall.

"Anything?" Beatrice asks.

"You're not going to believe this," Declan replies.

I hear papers shuffling, then a nearly silent "What?" from Beatrice.

"What is it, Mom?" Isla asks.

"See for yourself."

Papers rustle, sounds of shock ripple below me, and finally, my fake mom asks, "What does this mean for Esther?"

I perk up.

"It means," Daniel starts with a sigh, "that we need to test her to see if she is one of the Perfects that had this programmed into their genes. In fact, we should test all the Perfects so this doesn't happen to any of the others."

"Why is this happening now, though?" Todd asks.

"It looks like Gunther set it to be triggered by puberty and to be available to go off as soon as the rush of hormones from puberty calms down. It depends on each individual, but the spontaneous combustion happens when the body becomes overly worked up by stress or anger or whatever," Declan explains.

What are they talking about? Did Gunther somehow genetically engineer all the Perfects to explode after puberty if we get too upset? That can't be what they are talking about!

I feel my cheeks flush, but if what I'm understanding is correct, I have to calm myself down. I practice my breathing exercises Isla used to go over with me before tests... before I knew she was my mom. It makes sense that I would need the same calming exercises she does, now that I know I must have inherited her hot temper.

Breathe in, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. In two, three, four, and out, two, three, four.

"So, not only do we need to DNA test all the Perfects, but we also need to take a test of their hormone levels to see if any of them are ready to go off?" Isla asks. I can hear in her tone that she could use her own breathing exercises right about now.

"Right," Declan says. "And we should probably start with the kids who are taking it the hardest, so they don't... you know."

"Kids like Es," my fake mom adds.

"Yeah," he agrees, "and Kayleigh, since she's the one who opened this can of worms. Really, any of them who might not be happy about the people they were made from."

"But Esther doesn't have any reason to be upset about being Isla and Nate's biological offspring," my stepdad Joe says. He missed the whole drama at graduation, because he was on call at the clinic; but he's apparently been sufficiently filled in.

"She shouldn't," Beatrice corrects him, "but there is still a big adjustment for her. She grew up believing that Ellie was really her mom. Any of the Perfects who grew up in that same scenario should receive the same treatment."

I'm not sure why it is this comment that does me in, but it is, and for the first time all day, I'm not mad. I'm upset, dejected, ready to give up. It's only now that I realize how much of my identity, of the person I grew up believing I was and could be, was fake. Not fake... engineered. How much of me was created, not by love, but by Gunther Quail.

I think back to the first and only time I questioned my mom's legitimacy as my mother, when I was seven. I asked her about her husband before Joe, and when I put two and two together, I realized that whether I was his daughter's or Joe's, I would look more like Daniel. I would have tanner, richer skin instead of my pale skin. I would have darker hair, instead of my blonde. My eyes would be brown like Mom's and Daniel's instead of green. But for whatever reason, I never thought about it after that moment. Come to think of it, I never really cared all that much. It didn't matter that I didn't have a "biological" dad, because I had Joe, Daniel, Declan, Todd, Isla, Celia, Julian, and Milo. And Kay... before today. I had a family already, so I never thought to look for anyone else.

But now I feel like all of that was fake. Everyone in my family—with the exception of Milo and Kay before today—knew the truth about me, and kept it from me. Now I don't know who I am or where I belong, and while I want to believe I belong with Milo, I know I can't stop him from going to Petra. And I can't come with, which will leave me here alone... no, sorry, not alone... with my fake family who lied to me and Kay.

"Let's at least give Es until the morning," my fake mom says. "She's had a rough day."

My old family downstairs agrees, and conversation begins to die down as they start toward their own homes. I crawl back into my room, careful not to make a sound, and lie in my bed in case Fake Mom comes in to check on me. But while I lie there, awake, unable to fall asleep even if I wanted to now that I know that I have the power to spontaneously combust like Cam, I make a decision.

The only way I can keep myself from spontaneously combusting is to remove my stressors from my life: Kay and my family.

The only way I can survive is to run away.

Tempest is in Japan right now... I could somehow find my way to her. Besides, she ought to know that Perfects explode too. Despite having two parents who are her actual biological parents, she's a Perfect too. I'll find some of our other groups and other allies and use their technologies and modes of transportation to get to Japan. From there, I'll have to run away again, since Ian and Ava are bound to tell on me; but at least once I'm gone, my family can't hurt me anymore. And I can't hurt them by exploding, literally or figuratively.

Fake Mom does, in fact, check on me, and I immediately shut my eyes, even though my back is to the door, until I hear the door close. Once I hear Joe's stair lift come to a halt at the top of the stairs, accompanied by the subsequent shutting of their bedroom door, I begin packing.

Just the essentials upstairs and some survival gear from downstairs. I move as quietly as I can, so I don't wake any of them. I don't plan to say goodbye, otherwise, they'd try to stop me. No goodbye to Fake Mom or Joe or Isla or Daniel or anyone. They'll survive, but I might not if I stay.

The only goodbye I have planned is for Milo, and even he won't know the full truth.