Page 1 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
PROLOGUE
Alice
It’s notmyfault Aston Devereux Wallingford the Third has such a punchable face. Maybe his parents should’ve been concerned about that instead of perfecting the bloodline, or whatever the fuck it is rich people care about anymore.
I barely suppress my eye-roll when his “not really a question, more of a comment” reply to Professor Achebe goes on for four whole minutes. She’s tolerating him—shehasto, with the amount of money the Wallingfords contribute to the university—but even her poker face is starting to crack.
“So that’s why I don’t really trust the Ranscuro Study,” he finally concludes, settling back in his chair and shooting me a smug glance. I smile at him, baring my teeth. He knows as well as anyone else in this room that the Ranscuro Study provided groundbreaking information on extraterrestrial biology.
It’s just thatI—Alice Blythe, a twenty-nine-year-old second-term PhD student with a factory foreman dad and post office clerk mom—have authorship on the published paper and he doesn’t.
“Must be hard to swallow when everything’s been handed to you,” I mutter under my breath, closing my notebook.
“Fantastic thoughts, Aston,” Professor Achebe manages with a tight smile. “Thanks for sharing. Well, class, on that note, let’s call it a day.”
I’m sliding my notebook and planner back into my backpack before she’s finished her sentence, eager to leave. The light slanting through the room’s huge windows is already the glimmering gold of late evening, making all the antique wood sparkle like it’s been freshly polished. I sigh. It’ll be a late night in the lab. A fresh specimen delivery is coming in—the new, unnamed genus that collapses into dust twelve hours after harvesting—and it would be great to microwave some soup and get another cup of coffee before heading in. My stomach’s been rumbling for two hours now, and I don’t know the last time I slept for an appropriate amount of time. But such is the life of a fully funded PhD student with three classes to teach, thirty hours of lab work each week, and, of course, my own coursework to handle.
Which is a nice way of saying I’m hanging on by a fucking thread.
“Alice,” calls a singsong voice just as I’m slipping through the door, out into the relative safety of the hallway. I don’t even turn around, don’t give any indication I’ve heard Aston at all. I just keep walking, hefting my backpack up my shoulder. The repair on the left strap is fraying again. I’ve already sewn it back up at least three times now.
Too late to do anything about it, I hear his rapidly approaching footsteps on the worn hardwood floors. The next second, fingers grip my arm and wrench me to a halt.
“What the fuck,” I snap, turning on my heel to find Aston grinning at me, his blond hair in its perfect coif, leather loafers gleaming in the late afternoon light coming through the big windows lining the hallway.
“No rebuttal?” he asks, pouting. “You know I love our debates.”
“I’m not in the mood,” I tell him, feeling the rubber band of my admittedly limited tolerance stretch further and further. Before it can snap, I yank my arm from his grasp and turn to leave.
“Is it because you can’t keep up?” he wants to know, still in that teasing, singsong voice. “There’s no shame in that. It was nice of the old man to include you in the study.” Aston pauses, and my throat feels like it’s closing off. Before I can reply, he continues, eyes narrowing.
“But I’m not nice, Alice, and I’m not afraid to tell you the truth,” he says, stepping closer—tooclose. My blood pounds as my hands curl into fists. “People like you don’t belong here.”
Maybe if I’d slept more than three hours last night, I’d just keep walking. Maybe if I’d had time to eat lunch, or if I didn’t have five texts from my landlord asking about the rent payment, or if there was more in my kitchenette than canned soup from the bodega, my better senses would prevail.
But instead, that rubber band inside me pulls taut and snaps. And then, of course, I wheel on Aston Deveraux Wallingford the Third and punch him in his stupid fucking face.
Chapter 1
Alice
One Month Later
My pager pings just as I settle into the scuffed plastic chair, the rich scent of coffee filling my nose. Out of instinct, I almost reach to snatch it off my belt until I remember there won’t be any urgent communication from the lab or exciting test results.
Because I’m not a PhD student at OrthCon University of Technology and Sciences any longer. Punch the wrong guy, and everything disappears overnight, it turns out. Doesn’t matter how incredible Professor Emilio Ranscuro thinks I am or how excited the Alien Biologies Department chairwoman is about my ideas. It only matters that the Wallingfords can’t possibly send their baby boy to school with a girl who can (sort of) throw a punch.
I still find it annoying that no one wants to admit hefucking deserved it, but whatever. My pager pings again, and I realize it’s probably just my parents, wanting to let me know they’ve safely arrived at their next destination. For now, I ignore it, shaking the computer mouse awake. The pad beneath it is peeling, the wrist pillow gummy with wear. I wrinkle my nose and pull the mouseoff the pad entirely, placing it on the fake wood table instead. With a sigh, I plunk my backpack between my knees, digging past the eviction notice slips for a granola bar I swear I tossed in there a few weeks back and never ate.
Triumphant, I emerge from my quest with the bar in hand, though it’s more like loose granola in a plastic sleeve at this point. Food is food, so I tear it open and begin to chew as I boot up the internet. Even all these years after the Reformation, connecting still takes a few minutes—though part of that’s due to all the VPNs this internet café runs.
Out of habit, I heft my pockmarked, sticky-tabbed copy ofThe Joy of Cookingonto the table, rattling the mug and saucer of another customer a few computers down.
“Sorry,” I mouth when they glare in my direction. I clear my throat and push the book away. I don’t know why I brought it. I’m not going to look. I promised myself I wouldn’t. Also, I promised thegovernment, and there’s no way they weren’t made aware of my expulsion. Can’t imagine another reason I’ve seen so many suits skulking around my apartment building.
I’m just here to email the bursar and get my tuition reimbursement. That’s it. And I only came to the Halal Brothers’ Café because it’s close to my apartment and because I like Habib, the little orange cat. Amir and Ali, the owners, are nice, too, though I can tell they hold me at arm’s length. Or, at least, they used to.
Back when I used to practically live here, before I started the program at OrthCon. Before the suits at Sector came to say hello and basically told me I could go legit and channel all my “boundless passion” into a not-so-covertly government-funded research program at the city’s prestigious university…or I could go to jail. And by jail, I’m pretty sure they meant a black site. Stuff’s plenty different now after the Reformation, sure—but some things neverreallychange.
