"I'm late! I've got to —~'’

“Billy is covering for you. Madison, you $0 need to take a break and Madison's mind was like a broken engine trying to turn over, with lots of “whirring” and “clanking” but no real output.

“I've got to go. Billy has appalling taste in music," she muttered, again trying to push past Heda and the doctor to stand up.

“Seriously, he has Barry Manilow on tape. Barry . . . Manilow!"

"Madison --"

"I've got to —-"

"Madison!" Heda shouted, kicking in her Gift and putting her hands on Madison's shoulders. The bat shifter was now officially grounded.

"You NEED to process this. William Hannity -—"

"Don't say it!" Madison shouted, her eyes tearing up.

“Don't say his name, don't talk about what he said --"

"Madison, he's waiting in the lobby. He really wants to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to him!" she screamed.

"Tell him to take his damn son and his damn wife and his damn money and get out of my damn life!"

"Don't you at least want to find out —'

“no!

"Miss Adler," the doctor said, "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you continue to —-"(]

"No, don't make her go," Madison whimpered, burying her head against the girl's chest.

"I just . . . I just don't know what to do."

"Madison, what happened at the hearing . . . shifters all over campus have heard about it by now, and so have their friends and parents and just about anyone they could get a hold of. You aren't going to be able to hide from this."

"Do you Madison started, then sniffed and blew her nose into Heda's shirt.

"Sorry."

“It's okay," Heda said, taking some of the tissue offered by the doctor and handing it to her girlfriend.

"Do you have any idea what it was like?" Madison began again.

“Of course you don't. You have the perfect parents and the perfect family and the perfect life. I don't blame you, but that's not what my Life was. Every orphan I knew dreamed that a family Like yours would come along and take them home. Some nice rich family where everyone is smart and pretty and everything. Then a few years goes by, and you're willing to do without the rich or the pretty or the smart.

Then you just want someone who will give you a room and a birthday present. Know the only present I ever got in foster care? A beat-up suitcase to put my stuff in so that I could, and this is a quote, "Get the hell out' the day I turned 18. Any dreams I ever had of having a family died a long time ago, and I'm not going to let the damn Hannitys rip my heart out again."

Heda held Madison's head and comforted her as best she could.

"You know I'm behind you no matter what you decide," she said, “but Mr. Hannity doesn't seem like Alvin at all. He was so mad at them and ... he's been pacing a trench in the floor out there. He wants to know for sure, like as in a paternity test, but he's willing —-"

"You know this is bullshit," Madison interrupted.

"This is just the biggest Trojan Horse of them all, and they're waiting to laugh. It's just coincidence."

Heda steeled herself for another potential fit.

"It would be one hell of a coincidence then. Two blind shifters, a one in ten-thousand condition for us, being born in the same city on the same day, with one of them mysteriously dying while the other shipped to another state against all reason to be put up for adoption? Madison, his wife is a complete sociopath. I've barely met her, but I can tell this is the kind of thing that she would do."