HOW MANY ANSWERS YOU SEEK ARE JUST A PART OF YOU, WAITING TO BE FOUND?
The game has changed.
Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human in New York while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought wit...
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IT WAS SHORT HOP UP THE STAIRS.
Mark stiffened when we entered the room, and Ginny even pressed pause. Kutoyis looked up at Sadie, his eyes smoldering.
I was about to speak, to politely introduce the two, when Ginny caught my eye and shook her head. Wait, she mouthed.
Kutoyis and Sadie stared each other down for a few, stifling seconds, then he reached out his hand to her, and she took it. Instantly the two jumped as if stunned by an electric shock.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Kutoyis said. His voice cracked with emotion.
Sadie nodded.
"Someone want to share with the class?" Mark asked.
Wiping tears of venom from her eyes, Ginny said, "They can feel each other. They can tell that they're the same."
THEN A NUMBER OF THINGS HAPPENED QUICKLY. BECAUSE I WASN'T ONE OF the three kids in the room who could tell what others were thinking and feeling, I didn't understand them.
Sadie and Kutoyis stood still, staring. Which probably meant they were talking to each other in their minds.
Then Ginny said, "I'll get him," and bolted out of the room. I had no idea which him they were after, but I did know they were talking to one another silently.
Seconds later, Sadie followed her, and Kutoyis was on her heels.
Mark and I followed, confused.
"Tell me everything," Kutoyis said as the two chased each other out of the house. "Do you know what you are?"
"No," Sadie said. They were running now. "My family are witch-like creatures that can evolve into nosferatu and vieczy, like the Winters, but everyone says I'm an exception. There is a theory that I am half-human because I have scars from wounds that healed. Do you have wounds? Scars?"
"No," he said, "but we should experiment with that later to see if I react the same way." I shook my head behind them at this suggestion. Just what Sadie needed: someone with as little regard for his safety as she had for hers.
We stopped about two miles into the forest, where Ginny stood next to Ben, who appeared to have been crying. "This is Ben," Sadie said. "Touch him. See if he feels the same."
"Can someone tell us what's happening?" I asked, as Mark and I were still totally in the dark. Ben looked as if Ginny hadn't explained anything to him either.
"Sadie wants to see if Kutoyis feels the spark because he's a Survivor or because he really is like her. If Ben feels the same, this connection they're feeling is a Survivor one. If the connection exists only between Kutoyis and Sadie, then we're onto something," Ginny explained, as if irritated by our stupidity. (Sometimes when Ginny spoke it sounded like she wanted to add "duh" to every phrase.)
Kutoyis laid his hands on Ben.
"Nothing," he said. "Familiar but not the same. It's only Sadie." Kutoyis grinned from ear to ear, something I'd never seen him do before. He turned to me, threw his arms around my neck and hugged me. "You were right, Gold Heart. There is one just like me."
