UnSouled

That left only one viable option. Sonia.

When Risa arrived a few weeks ago, there were customers in the antique shop, haggling with Sonia over an unremarkable end table. Risa strategically meandered down another aisle, marveling at how so many items could be precariously perched on one another and yet not fall—empirical evidence that Ohio is not prone to earthquakes.

Finally the couple had left, struggling with their table, for which Sonia offered no help beyond, “Mind the step; it’s crooked.” Once the rusty hinges on the door squeaked closed, Risa stepped forward, presenting herself to be noticed.

Sonia pursed her lips when she saw here there, perhaps affronted that she had snuck in unobserved. “Something I can help you find?” Sonia asked.

Risa had been a bit tickled that Sonia didn’t recognize her right away. And when she finally did, the old woman let out a howl of uncharacteristic joy and dropped her cane so she could wrap her arms around Risa.

And in that moment Risa realized it was the closest she might ever come to knowing what it felt like to be home.

Now, two weeks later, Risa finds herself playing Wendy to the Lost Boys, for lately, it seems the only AWOLs who are getting as far as Sonia’s are boys, attesting to the sad fact that more female AWOLs are falling prey to parts pirates and other bottom-feeders.

When Sonia tells Risa she has “visitors,” Risa starts up the stairs apprehensively, but she picks up her pace as that apprehension turns to excitement. There are very few people Sonia would send Risa upstairs for.

She doesn’t dare hope which of those few people it might be, because she doesn’t want disappointment to show on her face if it were someone like Hayden or Emby, both of whom she’d be happy to see, were she not hoping for something more.

She flies through the open trapdoor, almost banging her head on the edge of the floor panel, and she sees him right away. She says nothing because for an instant she’s sure it’s her imagination. That her mind has pasted Co

“Risa?”

The voice isn’t coming from Co

Risa finds her head begi

Risa can’t reconcile what she’s seeing: These two separate parts of her life juxtaposed upon each other. It feels as if the universe itself has betrayed her. Exposed her, leaving her raw and vulnerable to all attacks. She didn’t leave either Co

“Wh-what’s going on here?”

Cam, still dazed by the sight of her, takes a step forward, only to be fully eclipsed by Co

“Hi,” she says, with such weak impotence she’s angry at herself. She clears her throat, and only now notices there’s someone else here as well. A girl she doesn’t know, who, for the moment, is content to observe.

With the prospects of this grand reunion fizzling like wet fireworks, Sonia raps her cane on the ground in frustration to get their attention. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she says. “Give us a love scene worthy of the ages, or at least a viral meme.”

“Happy to oblige,” says Cam, so arrogantly Risa wants to slap him.

“She wasn’t talking to you,” Co

This isn’t how this moment was supposed to be! Over these many months, she had pictured her reunion with Co

Cam has come out from behind Co

It’s the girl—that unknown quantity in the room—who comes to her rescue.

“Hiya, I’m Grace,” she says, pushing between Co

“Yes—that’s what the stylist who did it said,” says Risa, a little flustered by Grace’s barrage of enthusiasm.

“So is there stuff for us to eat in that basement down there, ’cause I’m starved?”

It’s only later that Risa realizes how effectively Grace’s rude intrusion completely defused an explosive situation. Almost as if she had pla

61 • Cam

This changes everything.

The fact that Risa is now smack in the middle of it all forces Cam to have to reevaluate his goal as well as his methods to achieve them. As a fugitive himself, he needed this shaky collaboration with Co

Cam has to admit that from the moment he met Co

The plan, from that moment on, was to get to know Co

But now that Risa is actually here, Cam feels like he’s been reduced to being an ape having to pound his chest before her to win her affections. Is that all it comes down to, then? Primitive mating rituals sublimated to appear civilized? Perhaps—but Cam knows he’s a step forward in human evolution. A composite being. He has faith that his internal community will galvanize to outshine Co

Sonia does not bring them down to the basement with the AWOLs-in-hiding.

“They’ll tear this one apart the second they see him.” She points her thumb at Cam like she’s hitching a ride.

“Talking about someone in the third person is rude,” Cam tells her coolly.