Chapter 14
AUGUST 2027
My parents were terrified when they got home to find a note from me on the refrigerator and six messages from SymboGen security on the answering machine, asking with increasing levels of thinly-veiled anxiety if I would please contact the office. Not calling Mom and Dad to tell them about the sleepwalkers in the yard turned out to have been the wrong decision, at least from a “preventing panic” standpoint. Getting the call from the Lafayette Police Department must have been the last straw. They were convinced something had happened to me, and in a way, they were right. It just wasn’t anything I was in a position to talk about.
My parents were waiting when Nathan and I pulled into the driveway, and they were out of the house before we even managed to get out of the car. The first thing I saw when I slid out of the passenger seat was my father’s grim expression. He didn’t say a word as he surveyed the damage the sleepwalker—and Tansy—had done to Nathan’s car. The passenger side window was a spider’s web of cracks, and there were dents in the door, hood, and roof.
Mom was standing next to him. She didn’t look grim, more distraught, like this was something she’d been waiting for since the day I woke up in the hospital.
The sound of drums had never seemed louder, or farther away. “Dad—” I began.
“Nathan, I think it’s time for you to go.” Dad’s voice was very calm. That was a warning sign all by itself. “I’m sure Sally’s had a long day, and we still need to talk to her before she can go to bed.”
I hugged
“That may be true, but we won’t be discussing them tonight,” said my father implacably. “Go home, Nathan. Sal will call you when she’s free to talk.”
“Um… when will that be?” I asked.
“If you’re lucky, before you’re thirty,” said Mom, speaking up for the first time. “Goodnight, Nathan.”
“Goodnight, Ms. Mitchell,” said Nathan, his shoulders drooping. He knew when he was beaten. “Sal, I’ll talk to you soon. I love you. Don’t go out alone.”
I nodded to show that his message was received, still hugging the book tight against my chest. “You, too,” I said. Then I walked away from his car and past my parents, up the front walkway to the house. I was inside by the time I heard his engine turn over, and I didn’t see him drive away.
I waited in the living room until my parents came inside. The pause gave me time to put my thoughts together, and I thought that I was ready when they arrived. “What happened today—” I began.
Dad cut me off with a single sharp jerk of his head. “We are not discussing this right now,” he said. “The new security system will be installed tomorrow. Your mother and I will be staying home to oversee it, and we will review our new household rules before one of us drives you to work. One of us will also pick you up. You will come straight home after your shift at the shelter is finished. This will continue for the duration of your punishment.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, too bewildered to be really annoyed. Annoyance would come later, when I was alone in my room with time to think about what had just happened. “Are you
“Yes,” he replied coldly.
“You can’t ground me. I’m an adult.”
“We are your legal guardians. I don’t care how old you are: while you are under our roof, you will live by our rules,” he said. “If you have a problem with those rules, we can discuss adjusting them after your punishment is complete.”
“How long is that going to be?”
“The foreseeable future,” Dad said. He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Too stunned to do anything but obey, I dug my phone out of my pocket and dropped it into his waiting palm. He closed his fingers around it, pulling it out of my reach.
“Now go to your room.”
Through all of this, Mom didn’t say anything at all. She just watched me, with an expression of such profound disappointment on her face that it made my chest ache. I looked between them, my shoulders sagging. I had the book; I had the scrambler. I could have told them everything without any fear that SymboGen would overhear.
All I said was, “Goodnight,” before I turned and walked down the hall to my room.
Joyce was standing in her own doorway, watching my approach with dark, sad eyes. She shook her head as I passed her, and mouthed, “You fucked up,” silently before she vanished into the shadows of her room. I sighed and kept walking.
Beverly was curled up on my bed when I stepped into my room. She raised her head, tail thumping twice against the mattress. I closed my door, dropping my bag on the floor and setting the copy of
Beverly’s tail thumped the bed again.
“Good dog.”
I was exhausted and overwhelmed by my day. I climbed into bed with my clothes still on. Beverly shifted positions so that her nose was tucked into the curled palm of my hand, and I fell asleep feeling her breath against my skin.
When I woke up the morning after our visit to Dr. Cale’s secret lair, I found myself a prisoner in my own home. The new security system not only controlled the doors and windows; it extended to the side gates, and it could be locked down hard by anyone who controlled the master codes—specifically, my mother, father, and Joyce, all of whom were deemed “responsible enough” to decide whether poor little Sal could be allowed to go wandering around the neighborhood unprotected. The sliding glass door to the backyard had been replaced with a wooden one. Beverly now had an electronic collar keyed to the brand-new doggie door, and she could use it to come and go during the hours when no one was home. From the perspective of the security system, I was no one.
The new security extended to the wireless network and even the television, both of which had been locked down. I couldn’t get on the Internet at all, and I couldn’t access any of the news channels—just movies, children’s
