"No. I'm just surprised. I didn't realize. Were you injured somehow?"

"No. I had a bacterial infection. Worse than most. Antibiotics weren't touching it, and by the time they were able to get a Restricted Antibiotic Waiver, I had already lost one leg. This one, actually." She runs her fingers over her stump and grimaces. "I guess the first is hardest to lose."

"Your other leg is artificial, too?"

"And my arms. I also had some organ damage, which is why I have to take this mountain of medicine." She swallows a handful of pills and downs them with water.

My eyes shift from her stump to her hands. "They look so — "

"Real?"

I nod.

"I hear that a lot. Amazing what they can do these days." She pulls up her sleeve, and I can see a barely perceptible line where artificial meets real skin. "They even customized it with my original moles and freckles."

"Yeah," Gabriel adds through a mouthful of food, "she has a whole constellation on her other arm." Ethan doesn't say anything. He just watches me while he eats.

"Sure, nice cosmetics, but I still have phantom pains. It's only been six months, so I am hoping that will go away, too. The biofeedback treatments worked on the others but not on this one for some reason." She stops rubbing her stump and picks up her sandwich. I watch her artificial fingers delicately bend and adjust around the bread just like they are real. I am aware of prosthetic devices, but I think this is the first time I have seen them so close. The skin looks as real as my own. Allys glances at me, and I look away. I already have one strike against me by showing up Ethan. I don't want another by ogling her. They've invited me into their circle. I want to stay here.

I sit back in my chair, trying to look relaxed. A small dining area is carved out of one corner of the market. It holds two small tables, each with four chairs. They're crowded next to the juice aisle. Gabriel and Allys both got ready-made sandwiches from the refrigerated section. Ethan bought an apple, a bean and cheese burrito, and a bottle of milk. Even though he invited me to come, he seems reluctant to talk to me. I'm trying to keep my mouth shut, but since I'm not eating, it isn't easy.

"What about Dane?" I ask. "I thought he was hungry."

Gabriel smirks. "Dane doesn't eat with us."

"Because we're freaks?" I ask.

"Speak for yourself!" Ethan snaps. His voice is loud and pocks the air between us.

I don't know what to say. I didn't mean that I thought he was a freak. I was just repeating Dane's words, but I'm afraid to even explain that. I might appear like I'm correcting him again.

I look out the window, a jammed-up feeling growing inside. Am I going to cry? Or is it something else? My eyes are dry, but I feel like something wants to burst out of me. I focus on the empty road outside. Hold back. Hold it in. Keep your mouth shut, Jenna. Keep it shut. Shut. Shut.

"Well, Dane was certainly right about one thing," I say, turning from the window to look straight into Ethan's eyes.

"What's that?" he asks, daring me to answer.

"You do have a magnetic personality."

Wonderful timing, Jenna. Now is not the time for my attitude to come out of hiding.

Gabriel stops chewing, and his eyes grow wide. Allys sets her sandwich aside. Ethan sits, stunned, like I just slapped him across the face. The tension holds us like a shock of electricity and then something odd happens. Allys chuckles. A little snort at first. And then a deep expelling of air that comes all the way up from her belly. Her laughter snags Gabriel, and puffs of air fill his cheeks, and then in the next breath, Ethan and I are snorting, too, unable to maintain our scowls. Pieces of bread fly from Gabriel's mouth, and we all howl louder, until finally Allys says, holding her stomach, "I like you, Jenna."

My laughter subsides, and I hear her soft voice over and over in my head until I just sit there with satisfaction wrapping around me. I like you. That's what she said. I like you, Jenna.

Ethan's eyes are softer now, gently focused on mine, like the day I first saw him at the mission. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to be a dickhead."

Dickhead? Another word I've lost. It must mean annoying or small-minded.

"I didn't notice," I say, which brings another small chuckle from him.

"Dane pushes our buttons," he says. "Especially mine. Most of the time I try to ignore him."

"We're different from others," Gabriel says, like he is admitting something. "But that doesn't mean we're freaks."

"Dane has a way with words," Allys adds.

Ethan swigs down a big gulp of milk and brings the bottle down like a gavel. "Dane has a way with everything."

"He keyed Ethan's truck last week," Gabriel explains. "No one can prove it, but weird things always seem to happen around Dane."

"He's missing something. I mean, really missing something," Allys says.

Gabriel shakes his head. "He's not like us."

"He's not like anyone," Ethan says. "That's probably why he's in school with us. In that sense, he's right. We all have reasons for needing to come to a small alternative school. My theory is Dane's already been kicked out of every school within a thousand-mile radius."

"At least," Gabriel confirms.

I don't know what to say. They seem to be releasing every frustration they have about Dane, and yet I found him interesting. Blunt maybe, but something about him intrigues me. Maybe his honesty? He's the only one who bothered to tell me that I walk funny. Why didn't Claire? And what exactly is funny?