Nebraska was sure Nebraska. Maybe it was just travel fatigue from moving across the country twice in a couple months, but seeing all these new states was losing its luster. Still, Nebraska was pretty, in its Great Plains way. Allendale was a small town. Growing and affluent, it seemed like a nice enough place to lick our wounds and recover. Tall, wide, and intricately designed mansions dotted the road we drove down. I didn’t really get the appeal of Nebraska to live your life in if you made millions, though some of these houses made me think you could live in the cold vacuum of space with them.
Rebecca and Val were still sleeping quietly. Well, my girlfriend was at least. Val was quite the snorer. I spent longer than I cared to admit thinking of ways to gently tease her about it. I felt like we were at a place in our relationship where she wouldn’t try to decapitate me, so a little fun could be had. Maybe what the lady needed was someone to poke a little bit of fun at her.
After ten minutes of driving by mansions, I saw two pastel pink walls, probably around ten feet tall. They were on either side of the road with about twenty feet of grass between them and the path we drove on. No matter how much I tried to look over them, I couldn’t see anything that the walls wanted to keep hidden. Whatever was inside of them, they were completely disconnected from the rest of the world, barring the sky. I wouldn’t have been surprised had the sky started falling, so maybe those walls weren’t worth squat for protection.
“And welcome to your new home, boy and girls,” Shelly whispered, taking care to let the other two get their rest. “Left gate or right gate, Ethan?”
“Does it matter?” When I checked, both gates looked the exact same. Both had large, intricately designed initials reading “E. L.” on the front. Around those letters looked to be a maelstrom of natural disasters. Fires roaring, waves drowning, and lightning striking down. In the center were people with their hands raised, seemingly directing all of the natural phenomena around them. Yeah, I was looking at some flamboyant Luna stuff, and probably not designed by Mrs. Carmichael. She seemed to be a bit more subdued with what we all could do.
“Only if you care which direction we turn when leaving. Housing won’t matter inside. Like the apartments, they’re based on family size. They’re way bigger than the apartments. Even for a small family like us, we’re getting more space.”
“Go left. Left is always right.” I didn’t have a particular fondness for it, but if we went back the way we came, at least we’d get the right turn out. The road looked untraveled to me, though. “We don’t really need more space, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Shelly said, turning toward the left gate. There was a small number pad sticking up from a pole that led into the ground. She punched in a few numbers on it and the gate slowly pulled apart, welcoming us to my third home in a month. “This entire community was made to be a sort of retirement village for Luna higher-ups. There are others in the country, so that was how we split the evacuations. Fewer targets in one spot, to put it grimly.”
“How do you know that we weren’t followed?” I asked, getting worried that we might have been hunted again. “That’s what happened when we went to the Tomb.”
“We’re very confident that all they wanted was to destroy our home there. To send a message and scare us.” Well, Shelly sounded scared enough. I wondered how much she’d be able to let that through to anyone but me when she took Mrs. Carmichael’s place. “They will strike again. I don’t have any doubt about that. After taking our most secure location, I’m not sure how much danger we’ll be in going forward here. Like Val said, McLeod has a thing for the dramatic. I don’t think his pride would let him do something like tail us.”
“His goons, and Val, tailed us before,” I reminded her.
“And look what happened. One is dead, one went traitor, and the other is likely an emotional and unstable mess.” Shelly drove slowly down the small, residential roads. Each house was large enough I had trouble imagining living in one. “I think McLeod is going to keep things a bit tighter under him for a while. Maybe just long enough to, say, infiltrate a fun yacht costume party.”
“You don’t need to convince me more. I already agreed to do it.” It didn’t matter that I wasn’t too happy about it. What was I going to do? Shelly was basically my boss, and more importantly, my older sister. I already yelled at her by mistake. That was as far as I wanted to try pushing my luck with her.
“I know, but I want you to have fun with it. You’ll get to do a costume party with your girlfriend on a freaking massive boat, dude. Even if it’s work, you’re still allowed to enjoy it.” She pulled us in front of the only building that didn’t appear to be a house. It appeared to be some kind of small office. The boring building stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the beautiful homes surrounding it.
“Okay, I’ll try to have some fun with it. You won’t be coming?” I unbuckled and gently shook Rebecca awake. Shelly did the same with Val, who jolted back to the land of the living with a snort and a combat pose that was hampered by her seat belt.
“Not unless my presence is absolutely required. That would be over a week I could be gone, and I don’t want to risk it.” Since the other two were awake, I could tell that Shelly was choosing her words carefully. “Good morning, ladies. Here are our brand-new homes!”
“Home,” Val whispered, like she still couldn’t quite believe that we didn’t team up to kill her when she first appeared in my bedroom. After her fighting off McLeod and escaping with us to help keep us protected, she earned a big vote of confidence from me.
“I love the houses.” Rebecca had her face pressed against the glass. She was totally in awe of the homes. “You had to be very wealthy to have something this nice back in my time.”
“You have to be pretty wealthy to have one of these now.” Shelly unbuckled and exited, the rest of us rushing to do the same. “We just have special circumstances that are letting us stay here. You three stretch your legs for a bit. I’m going to get the housing sorted out.”
It was a clear day, so standing under the sun made me feel warm with just a bit of a bite of cold from the wind. It was a gorgeous day out and I was ready to play catch with Megan or something. It felt like it was too nice for me to not do anything with it. Val shivered, reminding me that we hadn’t gotten the chance to change in a day. She was still just wearing her sports bra and workout pants.
“I don’t have a jacket, sorry.” I tried giving her my best sympathetic look. “But you’re taller than me, so you might not even fit in mine.”
“I’ll be fine, thank you.” Her hugging herself and visible shaking told me otherwise. “This kind of reminds me of home. My first one, I mean. The one that McLeod destroyed.”
“In what way?” Rebecca asked. She looped her arm into mine. If she was upset at all about how I acted on my painkillers, she was good at keeping a secret.
“Flat. Chilly. Nothing but sky.” I felt a touch smug about mistaking it for Big Sky Country when she said that. “I lived in a Prairie Province. Get used to taking shelter from tornadoes, by the way. They get more out here than in the New York mountains.”
“Whatever, at least I’ll get some sunlight in my room again.” I never realized how much I missed having that wonderful morning light.
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“What if they stick you in the basement?” Val’s voice wavered from all her shivering.
“Then I’ll just get to live my lifelong fantasy of being a dungeon-dwelling ghoul.” I had been feeling like that during the stretch I didn’t want to leave my apartment, so I was one step ahead of my plan.
“Just what I’ve always wanted in a man,” Rebecca added. I couldn’t have been happier to meet her relationship requirements. “I wonder if we’ll get to choose our homes.”
I pointed toward a little stand with a bunch of colorful pamphlets in front of the office door. I grabbed three different ones and gave Rebecca and Val one each. “Maybe there’s some info in one of these.”
I was trying to read about amenities, room count, bathroom count, and all that good stuff. Rebecca was losing it over how nice all the houses looked. She stopped me every few seconds to check out one of the homes in her pamphlet. Her reaction to each one was adorable. They were all nice, but I kept losing my own place trying to read about what the homes had in them. Val just silently flipped through hers, her brow furrowed in frustration.
“Oh, Ethan, look at this one!” Rebecca tugged on my sleeve and her eyes lit up like Christmas lights. “It had three floors and it’s right by a park. Maybe it’s a bit tall, but how much fun would it be to have a park right there to take Megan too? It looks like so much fun. The paint is so cute.”
She was right, it did look pretty nice from the outside, though that meant it could have been infested with rats and hornets for all I knew. There was no way we’d need three stories in a house either. “Jeez, it is tall. Is there anything near the park that’s a little bit smaller? I’m sure we could work on getting a paint job you like.” I paused for a second and looked toward the sky. “Wait. Are we really picking out a house already?”
Before I could let the implications of that set in, Shelly stormed back out, looking agitated. “All righty, housing is set up. Val, I’ll drop you off at your place first.”
“Am I living alone?” Val sounded worried.
“Does that bother you? Given your...circumstances, I don’t know how much I can make them budge.” Shelly yawned. Two thick, dark circles sat under her eyes. “The old goons that run this place aren’t thrilled about you walking in here, let alone living here.”
“No, it’s fine,” Val mumbled. She didn’t look fine. “Sorry for the trouble.”
“You can still go and visit people,” Shelly offered, trying to make Val’s crappy predicament sound a little better. “You just have to actually live by yourself for now.”
Shelly herded us into the SUV before we could ask more questions. Val welcomed the warmth from the heater, and it looked like Shelly was about to doze off at the wheel. Before I could ask if she was going to be okay, her head jolted up, she took a deep breath, and clapped her hands together.
“Okay, Val.” She pointed toward the now-warm blonde. “The smallest I could get for you is two beds, two baths, all in a two-story home. I know it’s lonely, so you can invite anyone over that you want.”
“Thank you.” Val nodded, her mood improving some. Shelly gave her own nod in reply and pulled us out of the office’s parking lot.
From what I could see, the plots of land were all about equal and the roads went around them evenly. Each house existed on a sort of island bordered by the roads. I was about to start having small fits imagining letting Megan play with all those roads nearby, but the traffic was almost non-existent. Each house had a sizeable backyard with sturdy looking fences, so if nothing else, I could play with her out there. She was a smart kid. She’d absorb what I would tell her about road safety like a sponge.
A disappointing aspect of the wonderful homes was that they had similar vibes to the Luna complex. Instead of stupid, winding hallways that made everything a bit cookie cutter, the roads did that job. Right as I had just learned my way around those hallways enough, I was forced to move. Maybe learning the roads at Luna Nebraska would make a meteor shower come instead of a superhuman invasion to put me out of my misery.
Every so often, we’d see someone outside, enjoying the incoming warmer weather. They gave us friendly and energetic waves, like we were the first new people they’d seen in years. If what Shelly said about someone needing to be wealthy to live in those homes was true, we might have actually been some of the only brand-new faces those people had seen in ages. Sadly, I didn’t see any kids outside playing in the nice weather, meaning Megan making friends her age was a concern. There had been an elementary school I’d seen in town, which helped my worry there.
“Home sweet home, Val.” Shelly pulled us into the driveway of a house that was a tad quaint compared to the others, if a home that would have nearly broken seven figures to cost could be that. “What do you think?”
“It’s...nice.” Val’s voice caught in her throat. “More than I deserve. Much more than I deserve.”
“I, okay, Val.” Shelly put a hand on Val’s shoulder and looked her in the eye. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four, I think. It was our best guess.” For some reason, it looked like that embarrassed her. “I have no way to be entirely sure.”
“Wow, we’re the same age. Huh.” Shelly clicked her tongue for a moment before shaking her head. “Anyway, you’re still young. You have a lifetime full of chances to make it so you deserve this home.”
“She’s right,” I said. “Lori will be the hard one to make welcome you, and she might not ever do that. She’s justified in her anger. Still, you have to try, and you can’t do that by just moping about it.”
“You’re still a person. People do bad things sometimes. Terrible things, even.” Rebecca just shrugged, like she had her mind made up about her a while ago. She took my hand and circled her thumb in my palm. “If you’re looking to turn your life around, you did a great job by helping us escape. What you really need now is friends, Val.”
“How about this,” I began, squeezing Rebecca’s hand, “why don’t we do a game night at your new house, Val? It can be a bit of a breaking in party.”
“I might just do that, maybe.” Her words were non-committal, yet she sounded pretty sure of it. Then, she frowned. “I don’t own any board games or video games.”
“I’m not sure if any of us have anything after that.” I thought about everything I owned, which amounted to not much. But those were still my things, dammit all.”
“Oh, about that!” Shelly turned around, her excited and tired simultaneous expressions made her look mad. “I got all your stuff, my stuff, Megan’s stuff, and Rebecca’s stuff out of there before the attack.”
“That fast? I saw everything in there when I left that morning.” That was a bit unsettling, but hardly the weirdest things I’d encountered with Luna.
“That fast,” Shelly confirmed. “I tried to get the others’ belongings. I couldn’t make it happen, though.”
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t have anything to lose there except some shirts and jeans. Those can be easily replaced.” Val flung the car door open and shivered when the air hit her. Before shutting the door on us, she poked her head back in. “I’ll be in touch about that game night idea.”
“Does she have a key?” Rebecca asked, watching Val’s tall frame get closer to the door.
“Keys are inside. No one really comes here, so in preparation for this, they’re just leaving keys in the homes.”
I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Considering what we'd just gone through at the Luna facility in New York, more security seemed like it would have been a good idea. If anyone could just casually waltz into any of the empty homes, that meant the world's easiest ambushes could be set up for every resident. If Val was right about her having the only teleportation device McLeod had on hand, that made me worry a touch less. McLeod might've been too proud and arrogant to use the thing. I didn't trust his little minions to share that same foolish pride, especially when one of them wanted me dead on account of me killing her brother. If push came to shove, I got the feeling she would have done anything she could to get her hands on me.
Shelly turned back to us, wiggled her eyebrows, and had a sly grin on her face. That snapped me out of my worried thoughts to a brand new fear. I was afraid of that look on my sister’s face. I was used to it being stern. “What do you have planned?”
Her smirk grew wider. “Now, the parent in me is screaming at me that this might be a bad idea. Any guesses?”
“Hallelujah, we have a meth lab in the basement.” I threw up my hands in celebration, careful not to slam my fingers against the car ceiling. “We’re going to be rich!”
Shelly rolled her eyes. “Ruining my moment means you’re doing dishes for two weeks. No, I managed to get Rebecca in our place with us.”
“No way.” I grinned and nudged Rebecca with my elbow. “How do you feel about that?”
“I’m so happy.” The emotion hit her almost instantly. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, not afraid to show how she really felt. “I didn’t want to cause a fuss, but it was...it was lonely living by myself.”
“Well, you being my brother’s girlfriend and then carrying him to safety puts you pretty high in my favor.” It was so awkward given their positions in the SUV, but they managed to give each other a big hug. “You and Megan are part of the family now.”