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Vee trotted down the street, confident that her master disguise as an Alaskan Malamute was working perfectly. Even if anybody noticed a stray dog in the 1/4-mile walk between the woods and Masha’s house — and even if anybody tried to catch the dog instead of keeping their distance — she’d created a collar around her neck with her mom’s phone number.
She made it all the way to Masha’s front door without anybody stopping her. She jumped up at the door, pawing madly at the door frame as though she didn’t know what the doorbell was and was only hitting it by accident.
Footsteps approached from inside, and Vee planted her puppy-butt on the doorstep as she waited.
Masha’s beautiful face greeted Vee as they opened the door to see her, smiling at first before scrunching their eyes. “Really? Really?”
Vee trotted into the house, looking Masha in the eye and wagging her tongue at them in expectation of kisses.
The joking half-scowl disappeared from Masha’s face, their stunning smile returning as they crouched down and leaned their face into Vee’s, letting her lick their soft, sweet lips. They closed the door behind Vee, kissing her back before pulling away and gazing into Vee’s eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”
Figuring it was safe — none of Masha’s family were anywhere to be seen — Vee transformed into her mostly-human form. “Happy Sweet Sixteen, beautiful!”
Masha cupped Vee’s face in their soft hands and playfully pinched the basilisk-ears disguised as tufts of dyed hair. “You know,” they said, glancing at the living room windows with the curtains closed, “you can be your natural self if you want. Viktor and our parents all gave ridiculous excuses to get out of the house — probably getting last minute party supplies or whatever.”
Vee kissed Masha’s lips as a human before turning into a basilisk. “Did you get the email I sent you?” she asked, referring to the Jabba the Hutt and Princess Leia coloring page that she’d found online and colored in with lots of extra blacks, whites, purples, and yellows.
“It was amazing,” Masha said with a blush. “I’ve already printed a full-size paper copy for my room, and I’m going to print a photo-size copy to keep on my desk at work.”
Vee let herself get lost in her partner’s eyes, wondering what she’d done to deserve having the most beautiful creature in the world fall in love with her.
“Anyway, were you just here to make that joke,” Masha asked, raising their eyebrow, “or do you want to stick around for when my family get back?”
“Hmmm.” Vee thought about going back to Jaime’s to help her and Larry finish setting up the party they were planning for Masha there, but it was only quarter to noon. Larry and Jaime had plenty of time deal with everything themselves if Vee stuck around to shower her partner with kisses. “I think I’d like to see your family again,” she answered, remembering how funny Masha’s 12-year-old brother was last time she’d met him. “They won’t mind finding us in the house by ourselves when they get back?”
Masha pulled their phone out of their pocket. “OK, fine, good point. I’ll let them know you’re over. You wanna grab something from the fridge?”
Vee slithered into the kitchen / dining room. If Masha’s family might be home soon, then she didn’t want to fill up too much just in case she’d be staying for lunch, but surely there’d be something small she could snack on, right? She opened the fridge and grabbed a tupperware of leftover pelmeni soup — her own mami’s empanadas were obviously better, but Masha’s grandma’s pelmeni were still pretty close. All Vee needed next was a spoon and the smallest bowl.
Masha’s parents and brother ran into the kitchen with balloons in hand, yelling “SURPRIIIIIIII—” before seeing Vee slithering to the cabinets.
Vee’s heart froze in her chest. Or maybe started pounding at warp speed — she couldn’t tell.
The clunk of Masha’s phone against the hardwood floor echoed against the silence. “Vee?” Masha said, gesturing their hands at her while keeping their eyes locked on their family. “Over here.”
Vee slithered back, setting the pelmeni on the table and not daring to take her eyes off Masha’s parents or brother.
“Sweetie,” Mrs. Petrov asked her child at what sounded like half-speed, “what is that?”
As Vee scooched up against Masha, they took her hand in theirs. “If this gets bad,” they whispered with an iron in their voice she’d never heard from them before, “run.”
Vee nodded, already planning an escape — turn into her human form, run out the front door to the woods, turn into a large bird, fly to Jaime’s, and stay with her and Larry while she called her own mom and sister.
“Her name,” Masha said to their mother, just barely less than shouting, “is Vee. She’s my girlfriend. I brought her and our other friends to dinner last week. Remember? Dad and Jaime spent hours talking about car parts? Viktor showed Vee and Larry a bunch of the comics he’s been drawing?”
Vee weakly smiled and waved, forcing herself to transform into her human form. She kept her feet ready to turn around and bolt for the front door.
Mr. Petrov’s mouth flapped like a fish, visibly trying to form coherent words.
“Are you an alien?” Viktor asked.
“Uh,” Vee stammered. Sure, Jaime had thought along the same lines the first time Vee told her the truth, but would that description help now as much as it had helped then? “Technically, yes? We call ourselves ‘demons,’ but we’re not like fallen angels or anything, we’re just from a world that happens to be called ‘The Demon Realm,’ and, yeah, it's not technically part of Earth, so I’m not technically not an alien. Would you be more comfortable calling me ‘an alien’ than ‘a demon’?”
“Hey, I’m down with this,” he answered, “but it looks like Mom and Dad are still freaking out.”
“OK, OK,” Mr. Petrov said, holding his hands out. “We’re clearly missing a lot, so would everyone please sit down so we can get caught up?”
“I’ll tell Jaime and Larry,” Masha whispered in her ear. “You tell Luz and your mom?”
Vee nodded, taking her phone out of the fake pants pocket she’d conjured in her leg. She texted her mom and sister “At Masha’s, their family found out I’m a basilisk — seem to be taking it well” before walking to the table. She forced herself to breathe as she took a seat, briefly considering turning back into her natural form — just to make it crystal clear that she wasn’t trying to pretend anything anymore — but realizing quickly that the table wasn’t at a good height for her and that she’d be better off staying in her human form and sitting in a chair.
Mr. and Mrs. Petrov sat down opposite her. They weren’t saying anything else yet — was that a good thing or a bad thing? Masha took a seat next to Vee, taking her hand in theirs, and Viktor sat down last, closer to his parents than to Vee. Was he just trying to make it as easy as possible for him and Vee to talk face-to-face, or was he not as comfortable being close to her as he said he was?
“So,” Masha asked their parents after what felt like an entire minute of painful silence, “Auntie Ivana video-calling me about my newest sewing projects — that was an excuse to keep me in my room for 20 minutes while you all snuck around through the back?”
“She was going to call anyway,” Mr. Petrov answered, still visibly struggling to catch his breath, “but yes, we were multi-tasking when I asked her to call at a specific time.”
Masha nodded, letting out a strained half-laugh. “That’s brilliant. That would’ve been hilarious.”
As much as Vee wanted to keep up the bad impression of casual conversation for as long as possible, she knew that if she wasn’t going to make a run for it, then she couldn’t put off the serious conversation much longer, and it was looking less and less like she’d need to make a run for it. “Sooooo, do you want me to start with the parts I was telling the truth about last time? Do you want me to start with the other parts first? Should I just try to keep everything chronological?”
Mrs. Petrov let out a deep breath. “Would you please start with the parts you told us the truth about?”
Vee nodded. “My name really is Vee, I really did run away from where I’m originally from, and Dr. Camila Noceda really did adopt me.”
“OK, OK,” Mr. Petrov muttered. “Does your mom—” he started to ask before trailing off.
“She found out I’m a demon pretty quickly, and that’s actually one of the big things I couldn’t tell the truth about last time. Remember how we said Luz introduced us because she and Masha already knew each other from Reality Check Camp?”
“Yes,” Mr. Petrov said while Mrs. Petrov nodded.
Vee felt Masha’s hand squeeze her own in reassurance, and Vee squeezed back. “Luz never actually went to Camp.” Vee transformed into her impression of her sister. “Luz ran away to the Demon Realm,” she said in Luz’s voice. “I was already living on the streets there, so when I saw a human, I snuck around to find the portal she came through, and I ran away to the Human Realm. Someone showed up and I turned into Luz, but it was her mom looking for her. She took me to Camp thinking I was Luz, and I spent the summer learning how to live in the Human Realm as a human.”
Viktor snorted into his fist. “That sounds perfect!”
Mrs. Petrov snickered under her breath as well, smiling a much warmer and less-strained smile than she’d been trying to give so far. That had to be a good sign, right?
“Seriously,” Masha said with a grin, “Vee was like ‘what is this new world like? How am I going to avoid getting caught? How am I going to learn how everything works?’ and then Dr. Noceda was like ‘Luz! Time to go to Live As A Human In The Human Realm Camp,’ and Vee was like ‘OK’!”
“OK, sure, but—” Mr. Petrov stammered.
“How did she find out that I was a shapeshifting demon who’d stolen her runaway-daughter’s identity?”
Mr. Petrov sighed. “Yeah, that.”
Vee transformed back into her own human form. “I think they’d actually want to be here to go into the specifics about that part.”
“Fair enough, I suppose,” Mr. Petrov said with a nod.
“I can say that it didn’t go to great at first, but the second Luz found out about me, she jumped headfirst into doing everything she could do to help me, and she got her mom comfortable with me really quickly.” Her face warmed as she thought again about how amazing it was that she’d found a mom and sister so quickly who’d love her so much.
Then her heart started twisting as she thought again about how she’d hurt her friends from Cabin 7—or rather, how her friends had gotten hurt, as they still insisted she describe it—when things got more complicated. “And then when Luz came back from the Demon Realm, I thought I couldn’t see Masha or our other friends again because they were part of Luz’s life and I needed to give everything in her life back to her. Luz eventually wore me down and convinced me to try telling them the truth because she saw the kids from Camp as my friends and she wanted me to have them back.”
“I was starting to get suspicious anyway,” Masha said with a smirk. “I’d already noticed that Luz was avoiding me and our other friends from Camp, and even when we ran into each other, she seemed like a completely different person. Then, a couple of weeks after I got my job at the historical society, this beautiful girl—” They pinched Vee’s basilisk ears, and she felt herself blush. “—jumped through the door ready to fight until she noticed that Jacob Hopkins wasn’t the curator anymore. The first thing I noticed about her was that her eyes were colored weird, and I thought she was just wearing cool contact lenses. Later, I realized that the last time ‘Luz’ from Camp was acting like herself, she was wearing colored contact lenses I’d never seen her wear before, and she was having me send her to the Historical Society when Jacob Hopkins was still the curator.”
Mrs. Petrov raised an eyebrow. “And this was enough for you to decide that you’d first met a shapeshifter disguised as Luz, then met the real human Luz, and then met the shapeshifter again?”
“I hadn’t quite gotten there yet,” Masha admitted, “but I definitely thought there was something weird, and I was hoping to see either Luz or this girl again so I could ask them what the whole deal was.”
Mrs. Petrov stood up from her chair. “How about we all take a minute to catch our breath, OK? This is, well, a lot, but is there anything else absolutely crucial to add right now?”
Vee bit her lip. “I think we pretty much covered the important parts, if you need a break.”
“Actually,” Masha said, “I think we should add something else first.”
Vee tilted her head at them. What had she forgotten that they was about to remind her about? Should she have said something about Jacob? She hadn’t thought he was important to worry about for a while — last she’d heard, he was still in jail awaiting trial for breaking into the mayor’s office with a crowbar and a bottle of mustard.
Mr. Petrov let out a breath. “Go ahead. What is it?”
Masha leaned over and wrapped their arms around Vee, brushing their face right up against hers and making her blush. “Just in case everyone’s getting overwhelmed by the whole ‘demon from another world thing,’ I want someone to ask my girlfriend a question about what she’s like as a person.”
What had Vee done to deserve having the most wonderful creature in the world taking such good care of her? It felt like she was about to melt into a puddle at any moment.
A hint of a smile started growing on Mr. and Mrs. Petrov’s faces. “So, Vee,” said Mr. Petrov, pointing to the bowl of leftovers Vee had set down, “you really did like the pelmeni we made for you and your friends last time?”
“I loved it,” she said, trying to nod with Masha’s beautiful face pressed up against her own. “I was actually hoping to ask someone to show me how to make it sometime — if I ever came over for a long enough visit.”
“Really,” Mrs. Petrov said with a smirk as she glanced towards her son. “I’m glad someone appreciates the work that goes into it.”
Viktor’s thankfully-empty mouth dropped. “What did I do?”
Mrs. Petrov shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing. Just made a big deal about how you wanted to make dinner and tricked your father and I into being proud of you for doing it yourself, only to find out too late that you’d raided the emergency supply of frozen dumplings instead.”
Vee rolled her eyes at the memory of a similar conversation that had happened the last time her mom had let the Cabin 7 gang come over. “I’m glad he and Jaime didn’t get a chance to be bad influences on each other — she’s got this whole thing about maduros being ‘inefficient.’ My mom insists that this description isn’t a hate crime, but I’m not sure I believe it.”
“What are maduros?” Viktor asked.
“Well, to hear Jaime tell it,” Masha answered, putting as much sarcasm onto Jaime’s name as they could manage, “you know how plantains are a kind of banana that’s harder and not as sweet as the yellow bananas you eat by hand, right?”
Their parents nodded, but Viktor just said “Ok?” with a tone of confusion that made Vee wonder if he’d ever been in a supermarket before.
“Now,” Masha continued, “maduros are plantains that are sliced and fried in oil to make them softer and sweeter, which Jaime describes as ‘a lot of extra work to go through for a less-healthy banana.’”
Mr. Petrov furrowed his eyes. “I’ve never actually heard of that dish myself, but I can already tell that this is exactly what Viktor would say about it.”
“And you know what? Jaime’s right!” Viktor crossed his arms over his chest. “Bananas are perfect exactly as they are, and this is a hill I will die on!”
Masha nodded. “Then I’m glad you’re dead,” they said, to which Viktor stuck his tongue out at them.
Vee’s phone buzzed. She glanced under the table to see a text from her mom: “OMW. ETA 20 minutes.” She replied “Thanks” and spelled out a smiley-face with a colon and a close-parenthesis. How had Masha calmed everybody down so perfectly so quickly that Vee already wanted to get back to joking around about bananas instead of still being terrified?
Still, Masha’s parents probably deserved a heads-up that they were about to have more company. “Hey, my mom just said she’s on her way over, is that OK?”
Mr. Petrov nodded. “It’s probably for the best,” Mrs. Petrov said. “I can’t imagine how worried she must be about how we’re treating you. Will she be staying for Masha’s party?”
“Well, she’s 20 minutes away—” As she said this out loud, Vee realized that the clinic was at least 30 minutes away, right? Maybe her mom had made a typo. “But if she gets here and sees that you were comfortable starting the party with me here, wouldn’t that make her feel better than if everyone was awkwardly waiting around for her because of me?”
“Oh, no!” Masha laughed. “That means we’ll have to have cake sooner!”
“Very well then. Viktor?” Mrs. Petrov asked. “Can you give us a hand bringing everything in?”
As Vee and Masha were left alone in the kitchen, their phones buzzed together — Larry had just texted “Jaime and I can be there in 10 minutes.” Vee, smiling that she somehow had so many amazing people trying to take such good care of her, answered “Mom’s already on her way.”
Jaime added “Should we head to the store for bleach and acetone just in case?” and Vee, deciding not to ask for any scientific details yet, simply answered “No.”
Putting their phone down, Masha cupped Vee’s face in their hands and gazed into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
Vee nodded. “I think so.”
They leaned forward and rested their warm forehead against Vee’s. “But you get out the second you think you’re not, got it?”
“Got it,” Vee whispered, trying not to break down crying on what was supposed to be Masha’s big day. She’d had a hard enough time in the first couple of minutes when she didn’t know if she was safe, but now that she was thinking about it again, she found herself more overwhelmed by the fact that it looked like she was still safe after all. Was it going to feel like this every time she found out she could trust somebody new?
Viktor brought the cake to the table, and his parents brought bags of Chinese take-out. Masha seemed genuinely happy as they started digging into their noodles — Vee hoped they weren’t just putting on a brave face to hide that they were still afraid for her sake. They’d only get a 16th birthday once, and Vee hoped she hadn’t ruined it for them after every incredible thing they’d done for her.
As everybody ate, Vee started getting texts from Luz, and she had to talk her sister down from creative battle-plans that sounded even more extreme than whatever chemical-warfare Jaime had suggested first. By the time Mrs. Petrov started serving cake, Luz’s, Jaime’s, and Larry’s texts all started to calm down — Vee couldn’t tell if they were more confident that she wasn’t in danger or if they were more confident that her mom would be enough to take care of the danger.
“So,” Mr. Petrov asked with a quizzical look on his face as he looked at his phone, “alien shapeshifter who has impersonated human beings?”
Vee immediately decided that she would not be going with that if she ever decided to change her name again. “Yes?”
Mr. Petrov held his phone out to Vee — it was showing footage from the door-cam from earlier. “Why were you being an Alaskan Malamute?”
Vee snickered before she could stop herself.
Masha buried their face in their hands. “Because I was a dumbass and she wanted revenge.”
“What’d you do,” their mother asked, “trick her into watching The Thing?”
Vee kept quiet, fighting back a smirk.
“You did WHAT?” Mr. and Mrs. Petrov said over each other.
Viktor looked up from his slice of cake. “Sorry, what thing?”
“Can I tell him?” Vee asked with a giggle. “Can I tell him?”
“Fine,” Masha mumbled into their hands.
Vee rubbed her hands with excitement. “So, my childhood in the Demon Realm was, um—” How could she put this delicately? “—not good. I know I’ve kind of touched on a bit of this, but do you all know the Marvel character Rocket Racoon?”
Viktor almost choked on his mouthful of half-chewed food-stuff as his parents gasped in horror.
“Yeah, that. Anyway, Masha and I told the rest of our friends the truth, and at one point Larry asked if I’d like horror movies with how bad my real life’s been. I figured it would probably depend on the movie and on the day, but yeah, I thought I’d want to try some.” Vee felt a fresh smirk grow across her face as she glanced at her partner. “Masha, literally only thinking about ‘what’s the greatest horror movie’ and not ‘what’s the greatest horror movie about,’ immediately blurted out that we should watch The Thing first.”
Viktor’s eyes scrunched. “Wait, that was a title?”
“Yes, and it’s the least informative title in the history of all titles, so I had to ask what it was about. Jaime answered, in the most clinical, matter-of-fact, deadpan-est monotone you can imagine.” Vee decided to transform into Jaime for this part. “‘Yeah,’” she said in Jaime’s voice, trying to keep her Jaime-face as straight and bored-looking as possible, “‘it’s about how alien shapeshifters who impersonate humans are evil and we need to kill them before they kill us.’”
Viktor burst out laughing until he almost choked again. He dug his wallet out of his pocket, then handed a dollar to his dad while he looked straight at Masha. “Wow, you fucked up!”
Mr. Petrov, visibly fighting back a grin himself, pushed his son’s hand away. “Keep your money, kiddo. That one’s on the house.”
“So how did Masha react when Jaime pointed that out?” Mrs. Petrov asked with a smirk.
Vee rubbed her hands with anticipation, grinning as she remembered how quickly Masha’d started panicking. She decided not to bother shifting back and forth between Masha’s and Larry’s forms to recreate the rest of the conversation, and not just because turning into Larry always made her feel icky. “So Masha went completely speechless, slapped their mouth shut, and their face got super-pale for a fraction of a second before blushing furiously. Larry was more diplomatic than Jaime, asking if maybe after The Thing, would I want to watch a slasher movie about a plain-old, regular human as the evil monster. Masha started talking at a thousand miles an hour about how we should start with one of those first, but really, seeing how embarrassed they were when they realized how spectacularly bad their idea was made me want to give it a try anyway, so I insisted we start with that one.” And Vee was still glad that they had — that movie had turned out to be terrifying in the best way she could’ve imagined.
“I thought today was supposed to be my birthday,” Masha mumbled into their hands as Vee shifted back into her human form. “Aren’t you all supposed to be nice to me on my birthday?”
Mr. and Mrs. Petrov’s phones beeped about a second before a pounding started on the front door — Vee’s mom must’ve arrived. Mr. Petrov stood up and walked with startling speed for someone inside a house. “Please, come in,” he said over the creaking of the door.
Vee looked over her shoulder to see her mom in scrubs walking into the kitchen — not much taller than the teenagers, but still giving the impression of towering over the adults. She hurried over and embraced Vee, holding her warm and safe for what must’ve been at least an entire minute. “I’m so sorry it took me so long to get here."
Vee nodded into her mom’s shoulder. "Thanks, Mom."
"And you're sure that everything’s OK?”
“Everything's perfect,” Vee said, heart still melting from how her incredible enbyfriend had already done such an incredible job of standing up for her when everything had started to get scary and how her mom was now taking care of her too.
Her mom sighed in relief and kissed her on her forehead. “Gracias a Dios.”
“Wait.” Mr. Petrov did a double-take. “You’re leaving already?”
Vee’s mom rolled her eyes. “That was ‘thank God,’ not ‘thank you and good-bye.’”
Vee and Masha both face-palmed, and Victor giggled into his hand.
Mrs. Petrov stood up, holding her hand out. “Welcome, Dr. Noceda. We’re, um, we’re sorry to be meeting under circumstances that must’ve had you so worried.”
“Thank you. I understand today must’ve been quite a shock to everyone?”
“At first, yes.”
“Well,” Vee’s mom said with a sigh, “I’d apologize for any trouble, but that would be a lie — my only concern is my daughter’s safety.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Petrov. “I understand.”
“And I trust that you understand why my daughter needs to be careful? What’s at stake if certain people find out too much about her?”
“My father fled the Soviet Union when he was 19,” Mr. Petrov said with the same iron in his voice that Masha had used on him.
“Oh,” Vee’s mom whispered.
“He taught me some shitty lessons that I wish for Masha’s sake I’d unlearned sooner,” he continued, casting a regretful half-glance at his eldest child, “and I pray that I can help him unlearn those lessons himself someday, but I’ll never regret what he taught me against blindly trusting governments run by cowardly little men who hurt innocent people to make themselves feel big and strong. Vee’s secret is safe with us.”
Vee didn’t notice she’d started crying until she felt Masha’s soft fingers wiping her tears away.
“That’s very good to hear. Thank you.” Her mom looked down at her. “I’m glad you said you feel safe here, but would you at least like me to wait in the car for whenever you’re ready to leave?”
Vee shuffled in her seat. Would it make her mom feel bad to tell her that Cabin 7 already had other plans for the afternoon? Wait, what was she talking about? Of course her mom wouldn’t mind — she’d been at work when the thankfully-not-an-emergency-after-all came up. “Actually, Masha and I were already planning on biking over to Jaime’s house after everybody’s done here. Is that still OK?”
“Of course, mija. I’ll let the clinic know it was a false alarm and that I’m on my way back after all. Masha?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for taking such good care of Vee. You have my permission to date her.”
Masha’s face twisted into the cutest mix of pride and confusion Vee had ever seen on them. “I thought you said I already did.”
“I was lying then for the sake of her feelings,” Vee’s mom answered on her way out, “and now I’m telling you the truth for the sake of yours.” She looked up at Mr. Petrov. “Vee told you I run a veterinary clinic, right?”
“… Yes?” Mr. Petrov asked.
“Good. Maybe I could give you a tour sometime? We have a nice hot cocoa machine in the waiting room. Do you enjoy hot cocoa?”
Why did Vee get the impression of a coiled rattlesnake from her mother’s tone of voice?
“Of course,” said Mrs. Petrov. “Who doesn’t?”
“Lovely. And maybe I could give you a tour of our surgical suite,” Vee’s mom continued as she left the kitchen, sounding more and more chipper with every word, “so you understand that if anything happens to my daughter, I will turn each one of you into 206 doggie chew-toys. ¡Adios!” The front door clicked behind her.
Silence.
“Wow,” Viktor said in barely more than a whisper. “Somebody woke up this morning and chose violence.”
His mother rubbed his shoulders from behind his back. “You’ll understand if you’re ever a parent someday. Vee, would you like to join us in the living room while Masha opens their presents?”
Vee looked into her partner’s beautiful, smiling face, and knew she wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. “I would love to.”
“And, uh,” Mr. Petrov stammered, “would you like us to close the curtains first?”
Vee’s breath caught in her throat. Was he asking if she wanted to join them in her basilisk form now that she wouldn’t be sitting at a table? “Do you mean it?”
“Unless you’re not comfortable like that around us yet?”
Vee stood up from the chair, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she transformed back into her natural form. She hadn’t gotten scared transforming into Luz or Jaime, so why did this scare her so much worse? Still, knowing that Masha was here for her now, that her mom had been there for her a minute ago, and that her friends and sister were just a phone-call away helped her more than she thought she could ever thank them for.
Before she could open her eyes, she felt Masha’s lips against hers, and she leaned in to kiss them back. She pulled away and opened her eyes to see that Masha was crying tears of what she hoped was joy. “I’m sorry everything got so scary back there,” she said as she put her hand up, wiping Masha’s tears just as they’d wiped hers. “I’m sorry your birthday got messed up.”
Masha put their own hand up to hold Vee’s hand against their cheek. “Finding out that there’s a new place you can be safe, that there are more people you’re safe with, is a better present than anything I could’ve asked for.” Traces of a smirk started growing on their lips. “But I do also want actual presents, so how about let's make sure Jaime’s not going to crash the party with any chemical weapons, and then let’s catch up with everybody else?”
Vee nodded, checking her phone to make sure Jaime wasn’t hiding outside the front door — she wasn’t — and she texted her family and Cabin 7 that everything was OK after all. Masha took her hand in theirs, and she slithered alongside them into the living room to celebrate a perfectly normal birthday with people that she was perfectly safe with.