Page 84 of Imaginary Numbers

“I know.” It was easier if I didn’t look at her. If I treated this like it was . . . like it was the cutscene in a video game, maybe, something distant from me. Something removed. “I do. And I know none of us got to pick who went to Iowa and who stayed home. And the worst part is that I also know that I won’t be able to shut you out when this is over, because apart from Sarah, you’re the person I trust most in the whole world, and I’m going to be pretty messed up for a while. Maybe for a long, long time.”

“We gave Sarah five years to put herself back together,” said Annie. “We can give you at least that long.”

“I’ve seen Annie achieve the impossible before,” said James. “If half the stories she’s told me about your family are remotely true, maybe between the two of you, you’ll be able to find another way through this. Something that doesn’t end with blood.”

“Oh, there’s gonna be blood,” said Annie. “It doesn’t matter what else happens, there’s gonna be blood, because I need to punch some cuckoos until the clear stuff comes out. And then I need to set even more of them on fire. It’s going to be a fun, horrifying, violent day.”

I kept my eyes on the road. I needed this to end in a way that I knew it wasn’t likely to end. I needed it to find the one path that led to me and Sarah walking away, her back in her right mind, the two of us finally able to be together.

I needed us to win, and I didn’t see any feasible way for us to be able to do it.

The motionless roads blurred by as I pushed the old Camaro’s engine to the absolute limits of what it could handle. It wasn’t like there were any other cars to worry about, and seeing a human police officer would almost have been a relief. It would have been proof that there were a few people resistant to the cuckoos’ collective thrall, at the very least. But there was nothing. I drove, and the scenery changed, and no one came to stop us, not until we were pulling up in front of the university.

I stopped the engine just in time. The collective weight of the entire hive’s cool regard slammed into my brain with all the stress of a wrecking ball, sending sudden, intense pain lancing through my entire body. I shouted, as much in surprise as anything else, and clutched the sides of my head as I tried to make it stop.

Dimly, I could hear Annie shouting for James to grab my head and keep me from slamming it into the steering wheel. That was nice. It was real good of her to look out for me.

There was a flash of something in the collective, bright and sweet and somehow carrying the fruity, acidic taste of Sarah’s favorite drink, grenadine and tomato paste mixed with ginger ale. The weight receded. I sat up, gasping, resisting the urge to feel myself to confirm that my body was still there. Of course it was still there. It wouldn’t have been in so much pain if it hadn’t been there.

“What the fuck?” demanded Annie.

“No anti-telepathy charm.” I rubbed my temples with both hands. “Nothing to keep the cuckoos out. I still can’t hear the hum. Something’s wrong with Sarah.”

“Yeah, she’s gone all Dark Phoenix and started ripping holes in the walls of the world,” said Annie. “We knew that.”

“But she’s still in there,” I said. “I think . . . I think the hive noticed me and wanted to do something to make me go away. Sarah stopped them. She may not be capable of breaking free of whatever fugue she’s in, but she still stopped them from taking me over.”

“How are you sure it was her?” asked James.

“She’s been in and out of my head since we were ten years old,” I said. “I know what her thoughts feel like. They have a taste, almost, like I’m remembering drinking something I never drank.”

“One of her disgusting sodas,” said Annie, in sudden understanding.

I nodded. “Tomato sauce and ginger ale, and just a little bit of grenadine.”

“When we were kids, we used to believe that a drink needed three ingredients to be really fancy,” said Annie, as if that would take the bewildered, borderline disbelieving look off of James’s face.

“How do you know that it’s not some cuckoo cultural drink?” he asked. “Maybe it wasn’t Sarah who let you go.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I have to tell myself it was her, because if there’s any chance we can still get her back, I’m going to do my best to take it. I have to believe there’s still a chance. It’s the only way I can do this.”

“If she’s gone, I won’t make you be the one to kill her,” said Annie.

She was trying to be kind. I knew that. I could see it in her face, the soft, weary lines around her eyes, the downturned corners of her mouth. She was trying so hard to be kind, and nothing about this was kind, and nothing about this was fair, and nothing—nothing—about this was right, or ever could have been.

I opened the car door.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s end this.”

James and Annie followed me to the sidewalk, and along it toward the university grounds. Somewhere, the cuckoo hive was gathering, waiting for us to find them. Somewhere, Sarah was working her way through an equation so big and so terrible that completing it would destroy the world.

We were running out of time, and there were no good endings left. So we just kept walking.

We had barely passed the first building when we saw the first cuckoos.

There were five of them, all around my age, standing silently on a patch of grass with their faces turned toward the sky, like they were looking at a particularly interesting cloud. Their eyes were glowing softly white, not as bright as Sarah’s had been when she tore a hole in reality, but bright enough that I felt safe assuming they couldn’t see us. I motioned Annie and James both to silence and walked faster, until we found a corner we could safely duck around.

“Well, we’re in the right place,” said Annie.