Do us both a favor, Sarah. Don’t try to find a way out of this. You know it’s only what you deserve.
P.S.: Her name was Amelia.
I stared at the screen in silent horror for a long moment before I turned and looked toward the door.
Someone was out there waiting for me. Someone had been able to come close enough to home to threaten my family.
The danger wasn’t over yet.
Eleven
“Never go anywhere unprepared, unarmed, or unaccompanied. The difference between success and suicide is often a matter of prior planning.”
—Evelyn Baker
Getting ready to leave the living room, wondering if stupid things are any less stupid when you know that they’re a really bad idea
MY MIND WHIRLED AS I tried to think through the implications of the email. It was a threat, absolutely: someone who just wanted to sell me Girl Scout cookies wouldn’t have told me not to ask for help. I didn’t know how a stranger could have made it past the gate, but there are always ways, for someone determined enough.
They’d told me not to call for help, not even telepathically. I’d been careful, though; there was no way my system had picked up a virus from the email, not with all the firewalls and barriers I had in place. I could send Annie an email, and—
A chat window appeared at the bottom of my email client. Don’t even think about it.
My gut twisted. Who are you?
The person you’re about to come outside to see. Don’t try to send an email, Sarah. I’ll know. Get up and walk away. Don’t make a fuss. Do it now. Or else.
Or else what?
Or else there will be consequences.
If I’d had a heart, that last word would have been enough to make it seize in my chest. “Consequences.” That wasn’t the word of someone who was playing around or making idle threats. That was the word of someone who was willing to do serious damage to get what they wanted.
My parents raised me to know my own worth and value myself as an individual. But nothing—nothing—would make me more important than the rest of my family. I couldn’t let it. Part of what separates me from the other cuckoos is knowing, really knowing, that other people matter. An ordinary cuckoo couldn’t be lured outside by a word like “consequences.” I . . .
I had to go.
Carefully, I stood, leaving my computer where it was. Annie would know something was wrong when she came down and saw it sitting there unattended. I don’t like other people using my things. I never leave them out in the open if I have any other choice. She’d notice. She had to notice. Someone would notice.
Someone would notice I was gone.
I walked slowly toward the kitchen, and through it to the front door. The temperature outside had dropped even further, becoming just shy of freezing. I could feel it, but it didn’t affect me the way it did the true mammals. Wherever we came from, it was a much colder place.
I paused when I reached the edge of the porch, mentally reaching out into the yard, looking for any mind that didn’t belong there. I found him near the fence, a silent, unremarkable presence that had somehow managed to go unnoticed until I started looking. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Awareness of his presence came with awareness of the static that had been growing in the back of my mind, lighter and more subtle than I expected it to be, a fizzing, bubbling proof of presence.
I resumed walking. Every step took me closer to that unknown mind. It came further and further into clarity, resolving from a presence to a person to a cuckoo. There’s a certain sharpness to a cuckoo’s thoughts, like biting into a strawberry and suddenly discovering that it’s actually a lime. They tingle and fizz and even burn.
These thoughts didn’t quite burn. They were sharp, yes, curling in on themselves like the fronds of a fern, protecting themselves from being read. I could see their superficial lines. Nothing more. They were too deeply rooted in the man they belonged to, and they didn’t want to let their secrets out.
I walked silently toward him, wishing my inhuman capabilities had come with some good, old-fashioned night vision. Part of the question was answered when I reached the fence: the man who’d emailed me wasn’t inside the boundaries. He hadn’t managed to get past the gate. Instead, he was standing at the very edge of the trees, a pale blur in the darkness, lit by the glow from his cellphone screen. He glanced up, raised one finger to signal me to silence, and returned his attention to the phone, finishing whatever message he’d been preparing to send.
“You know, it’s rude to demand someone come outside and then ignore them,” I said.
Don’t speak. His words were clumsy, distorted, like he was pushing them through a wall of water. They might hear you if you speak.
Who are you? I demanded.
His head snapped up, eyes glowing white. I resisted the urge to take a step back. I’d known he was a cuckoo, known he had to be a cuckoo, but knowing and seeing are different things.
Like the female of our species, male cuckoos all look essentially alike, pale-skinned, dark-haired, blue-eyed. We were designed by the same evolutionary forces, intended to survive the same environment. To someone whose brain was designed to process the information, his face would look enough like mine that he could have been my brother, and dissimilar enough that if we’d held hands and walked down the center of a mall together, no one would have looked twice. Oh, the ones who looked once might think we were a little narcissistic for dating someone so similar, but they wouldn’t jump straight to a bad conclusion.
Two cuckoos in the same place is a bad conclusion, almost always.
He was wearing jeans and a dark sweater, helping him blend into the trees. Amusement colored his distorted tone as he replied, You can call me Mark. You want to come over here and hold my hand? This would be easier if you were touching me.
I’m not touching you. The thought was revolting. How are you here?
You really don’t know anything, do you? It’s amazing. It’s like finding a diamond in the middle of a chum bucket. You have to wipe off all the gore before it can shine.
I narrowed my eyes. A faint wind rose around me, fluttering my hair. I know enough to know I want you gone.
Mark made a small scoffing sound. It was the first audible noise he’d made since my arrival. It’s cliché, I know, but make me.
I couldn’t. He knew it, and I knew it, and so we were at an impasse. Or maybe not. “I don’t have to make you,” I said aloud, enjoying the way he tensed at the sound of my voice. “All I have to do is call my family.”
“Funny,” he said, his own voice pitched low and tight to keep it from carrying across the grounds. “I was under the impression that you cared about them.”