Inborn (The Birthright Book 1)

Chapter 1

I hate midnight drills. There, I said it. I hate waking up out of a dead sleep to someone pounding on my door. I hate hearing someone half asleep say, "Wa–(insert yawn here)–ke up, Roz." I hate getting out of my cozy bed nest to sleepwalk after them. I hate not needing an explanation. Everyone in the Brandt family knows the deal. It's time for an escape tunnel practice session.

I guess what I hated the most about it that night was I had a test at school first thing the next morning in my least favorite subject–algebra. But we had these drills regardless of early morning exams or work schedules or anything else. When we complained, my dad always said emergencies never considered what else you had going on in your life. What kind of emergencies? Don't ask me. When I asked, I never got specifics. The answer always fell under the blanket response of, "We're unique. We can't afford to be complacent."

And we are unique. Very unique. Aliens for ancestors unique.

That night, I started moving automatically, afraid to shut my eyes again, though they begged me to, because I knew I'd fall asleep in seconds. When I made it to the hallway, going more by memory than sight, I saw my older brother heading downstairs and got in line, stopping behind my parents at the basement door. The house was dark, but I could make out my mom leaning her head on my dad's shoulder. "I hate you," she said groggily. He kissed the tip of her nose.

We were all accounted for, so my dad placed his palm on an invisible sensor to unlock the door in the middle of what looked like just a wall on the side of the staircase, and we filed through once it slid open. I went first, then Xavier, and finally my parents. Built-in emergency lights guided our way into our second, hidden basement, where we kept all our dirty alien secrets.

Seriously, though, it's where we housed our crazy nonhuman technology. My brother built his inventions, for good or bad, there. And it held the door to our secret tunnel.

My dad's an architect, and he designed it. On the surface, he specialized in modern design and renovation, and usually worked on private homes. In reality, he designed underground, nonhuman structures like our tunnel. He'd worked on some bigger scale projects around the country, too, including what amounts to an embassy of sorts closer to home in Boston.

Like the door to the basement, the door to the tunnel was invisible and required the palm print of one of us to unlock and open. Once you were inside, though, it wasn't that simple. The tunnel was actually a maze with several dead ends if you didn't know the path out. Some of them actually circled you back to the start. In case someone did manage to get in, they'd have a hard time following. Especially since most of the dead ends came equipped with what amounted to booby traps. Nothing deadly, but you might end up imprisoned or knocked unconscious. I know because I'd messed up in various drills.

We followed more emergency lights and the flashlight my mom held as she marched in front of us, our dad pulling up the rear. After about a mile or so of yawning and blinking to stay awake, I almost crashed into Mom. We'd reached the end, a ladder leading to the surface. Mom went first, gave the all clear, and one by one, we crawled up through a hatch on the floor inside a shed. Mom flashed the light around while I brushed off my pajama pants, new ones that I regretted wearing that night. I stared at our emergency SUV, backpacks, and supplies, including flashlights, canned food, and blankets. Our first place to run to was a safe house in the mountains. But we'd never had to.

We'd reached our destination alive, so I seriously hoped we could go back through the tunnel and go back to bed. But we never knew with my dad. When my brother got his license, he actually made him drive to our safe house. Another time, we all had to put on our backpacks filled with supplies and walk a path around our property to one of the main roads. I think someone passed us once we got there. I can't even imagine what they thought watching four people in PJs with backpacks plodding along the road. Maybe they thought they imagined it.