Regina's sitting across from me as usual, staring at me as she sips her glass of iced water.

"I guess I'm just looking forward to a vacation," Mom says, her voice sounding sluggish. She and Dad both have low eyes, like they may fall asleep at the table at any moment. "I don't know."

She picks at the strings of spaghetti doused in sauce. It's nowhere close to how my real mom makes it. My mom bakes her spaghetti with cheese, ground beef, and sausages. This looks like pasta.

"Yeah." He yawns as he spins his fork over a mound on his plate, making the noodles wrap around it. "I don't know. After the way things went at the site, I may need one; yeah."

He lifts the food to his mouth as Regina sets her cup down. When I finished showering, she quickly did the same to get the beer smell off her, but no amount of soap or toothpaste could mask the smell for me. No one else seemed to notice.

Regina looks around the table, then at Michelle, who's sitting beside her, pouring a bottle of hot sauce on her breadstick, and then she cuts her eyes at me. Her light eyes seem dark as she stares at me like a snake, and I glance at our parents, hoping they see her, but it's just us.

She blurts out, "Leila knows what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Williams' cow," and when she gets the attention she craves, she takes another sip of water like she was holding that information in all day.

"Leila," Mom calls me, and my nostrils flare as I turn my head to her beside me, sitting on one end of the table. "Is that true? What happened?"

I look up at the bowl fixture over the ceiling light, and I take a breath to calm myself. Regina and I hadn't talked since our argument, and I didn't plan to be the bigger person.

"I don't know what she's talking about," I say while shrugging and shaking my head. I catch them all looking at me; Dad and Michelle are no longer chewing.

Regina sets her cup down again and forces a cough to say, "Liar." I glare at her through the slits my twitching eyes are creating, but she doesn't look intimidated. "Mom, Dad, I heard her and Keenan say somethin' about killin' that cow." Michelle's eyes widen at me, and with the same expression, Dad looks at Mom. "Now, I tried to talk to her, but all she does is lie and lie some more."

"And all you do is drink and drink some more." Regina side-eyes me, her face telling me not to rat her out. "I'll bet it wasn't your first time asking Aunt LaToya," I interrupt myself by slapping my hand over my mouth.

I don't regret snitching on her for drinking beer, but I don't mean to say any names. I was content, knowing I was leaving soon and this family would go on like I never existed, but just in case, I didn't want to leave everyone hating each other.

"Excuse me?" Regina looks at him, but he's talking to me. She and I share a glance, and for once, I see her hazel eyes soften like a child pleading for mercy. I almost feel sorry for her.

I smirk at her, and her eyes flash wide. I know she thinks I'm about to tell on her, but instead, I say, "I don't know why I said that. None of it's true—Dad, not the cow, and not the drinking thing."

"We're not stupid, Leila." We turn our attention to Mom. She has a stern look and is still holding her metal fork. "Regina, we'll deal with you in a second," she says while looking at her and pointing her finger. She turns her head back to me. "But you, explain yourself."

As I stare back at all the faces around me, I suddenly feel—strange. It's not a stomachache or nausea kind of weird. No, it feels like I'm surrounded by mannequins or robots.

I look down at my plate of warm, untouched spaghetti, and my furrowed eyebrows relax when I see what I can only describe as grey clay shaped to look like food. It's like those printed burgers from Spongebob, but spaghetti.

When I lift my chin, my heart feels like it stops in my chest, and with a yelp like a hurt dog, I jolt back in my chair, the legs rocking against the dining room floor.

Regina's hazel eyes are whiter than chalk, locked on me and not blinking at all. I look around, and my heart flutters before beating somewhat normally again when I see that everyone else is normal.

Then I look at Regina, and her once all-white eyes are now off-white around her hazel irises. She's staring at me with a scrunched-up face, watching me tremble and stare like I'm in a horror movie.

"I don't feel good," I say, and Regina rolls her eyes as she leans back in her chair.

"World-class actress over here." She extends her hand to signal toward me while looking at Dad. Michelle glances at her, then turns to Mom, who's reaching her hand out for me. I let her place the back of her palm on my forehead, and she nods at her husband.

"She has a fever." Regina stares at me with her mouth open. She can't possibly think I can change my body temperature. I look over at him, and he nods at her. She drops her hand and gives me a forced smile. "Go lay down. We'll talk before you go to school."

***

The next morning, I'd woken up at five and couldn't go back to sleep. It's not like I wanted to sleep anyway. My mind was racing; all I could think about was everyone finding out that me and Keenan aren't from here, and thinking about it now makes my stomach turn. He's right; I don't know anything about any of this, and because I'm so clueless, I could get us killed or experimented on.

I mean, if I were some weird, evil lab guy and I found out that two teenagers were able to time-travel and crash from the sky, I'd want to monetize off of them too.

I look to my left when I hear someone clapping in the hall. Seeing Regina walk through my door while smirking makes me roll my eyes back onto my reflection in the vanity.

Because I fell asleep as soon as I laid in bed, she and I hadn't talked since dinner; and frankly, I wanted it to stay that way because she almost made an already bad situation worse.

"If it isn't Halle Berry herself," she says mockingly, then crosses her arms. I furrow my eyebrows at that name, my head lowered as my eyes dart left and right across my woven baskets of plastic jewelry and lipgloss.

Who? She must mean Halle Bailey, but she's like—Michelle's age, so how would she even know her?

"You know, you may've fooled them or distracted them for now, but trust me when I say that I won't let this go." I narrow my eyes at myself before slowly turning to face my sister. She's scowling like I offended her, and I can't help but wonder what her real issue is.

Did I really take away her sister, or does she know I'm not supposed to be here in general? I know what Keenan said about the universe creating a timeline for us; I still don't understand that, but what if it's more than a dead cow?

"Why do you care, Regina?" She raises an eyebrow and drops her arms.

She's wearing a basketball jersey that hangs down to her thighs, boyfriend jeans, and Converse. She even tied her braids into a ponytail with a sweatband around her forehead.

Her school has a game that she hasn't stopped talking about since the moment when Mom and Dad got home, up until she had to sit across from me at dinner.

"Oh, I don't know. Most serial killers start by murderin' animals," she says questioningly, and my eyes widen. "So, maybe I don't wanna ignore it if you're out there stabbin' animals just because."

We stare at each other with my jaw dropped and my breathing jagged, but while my heart is pounding against my chest, she doesn't look anything but angry.

I mumble, "I didn't stab anything," and she tilts her head with her lips pursed.

"Okay, well, what'd you do?" My eyes jump from one of the hazel ones locked on me to the other and flicker back and forth between the two.

Beep, Beep!

"I gotta go," I say in the same low voice without looking at the yellow bus waiting for me.

"Mom said she wants to talk to you," she reminds me, and my stomach feels like it dropped. I don't know how I can avoid telling the truth without not speaking altogether, and I know that'll only make things worse. "Michelle or Dad will drop you off at school afterward."

I take a few steps away from my vanity, my legs wobbling like they'll give out at any moment, and when I reach my bed, my knees buckle. Sitting on the edge, I stare at my knees and the frayed ends of my cut-offs.

"What's the matter, Squeak?" She walks toward me like a villain watching their victim or a lion stalking its prey. "You feelin' sick again?"

"Regina, go get in the car," Mom tells her, and we turn our heads to look at her at the door. She's wearing a burgundy turtleneck with her arms exposed, black slacks, and black flats. She carries her thick purse on her shoulder, heading toward us as Regina gives me a dark look. We watch my sister walk past her, but only I see her stop at the arch and face me. Mom's back is to her, so Regina leans over to glare past Mom's body. "I'll be quick," she says, stealing my attention. I glance at Regina as she continues down the hall before turning my eyes back to Mom. She sits beside me at the foot of the bed and takes a deep breath. "I'm only gonna ask you once, Leila, and I promise you, if you lie, there'll be a problem, but if you tell me the truth, I may not even put you on punishment." I let my eyes bounce between hers, my breathing gradually picking up. She narrows hers, and her dark brown irises send chills down my spine. "Did you do something to the Williams' cow?"

I shake my head no, my mouth slightly open, and my lips dry from the air conditioner.

She lifts a brow, and I immediately gulp, then I say, "No." When she raises both brows, I stammer, "N-No, ma'am, I didn't do anything." She nods with her lips pursed, her head turning toward the door. She knows I'm lying. I've lived with my real mom all my life, and even she did that when she caught me in a lie. "I didn't do anything, seriously! I mean, really think about it: how could I put a hole in their front yard?"

She looks at me when I ask that rhetorical question, but her eyes still lack emotion, like she doesn't believe me.

"Leila, I don't know what that lady was talking about—seeing something fall from the sky or whatever—but one thing you'll learn when you have kids of your own, is how to tell when one of them is lying to you." My face relaxes, and even though I'm unintentionally giving her puppy-dog eyes, her cold aura doesn't change. She looks at the door and yells, "'Gina," which makes me flinch and look down at my dingy sneakers.

"Yes, ma'am?" She springs to the door as if she were standing there the whole time, and judging by her twitching mouth, I can tell she was eavesdropping and laughing to herself.

"Just what I thought," Mom mumbles. In her regular volume, she says, "After school, you and your sister are to come straight home. I don't wanna hear nothing about going to a friend's house or staying after class for whatever reason. No. When them buses pull into the parking lot, get on them and come home." Suddenly, that look of superiority is gone from Regina's face. She takes a breath to say something, but Mom raises her finger to her glossed lips. "Do I make myself clear," she asks against her polished, red finger, and I watch my sister's shoulders deflate before she nods.