He made ahmsound.
“What?” I wadded up the burlap bag and tucked it under the pitchforks in the truck.
“I can’t guarantee you’ll be back here any time soon.” He got into the truck. I got in too.
“I don’t need your guarantee. I can negotiate my own life, thank you.”
“You’ll be claimed by House Gray.”
The lights on the old truck cut a watery yellow swath through the creeping dusk as we made our way to the barn.
“Yes. And I’m sure House Gray will want me to do . . . something for them.” I glanced over at him, looking for a clue as to what they might want me for.
“Something,” he agreed.
Not helpful. Okay. Fine.“After I do that, I’ll come back here. Home. Where I belong.”
“You’re galvanized. You belong to a House.”
“I have a House.”
“House Brown? That loosely connected group of drifters, failures, and malcontents doesn’t count.”
“You fought for those malcontents once, Mr. House Gray.”
“I’ve never stopped,” he said. “I just know when to change tactics. Do you understand that out of all the experiments, trials, and advances over the past two centuriesno onehas succeeded in creating a new galvanized?”
“Well, there’s me.”
“Yes. There’s you. Unregistered, un-Housed—and Brown doesn’t count,” he said before I could argue. “Until this morning, unknown to any of us. If you are made different enough to feel, then an awful lot of people will go to extremes to find out just what makes you tick.”
“What, like showing up on my doorstep, bleeding and claiming I need protection on nothing but a message from a long-dead parent? Didn’t think I was all that special.”
“I didn’t say she was alive. Just that we had a message from her. Andrareis the term I’d use.”
“Well,raredoesn’t mean I’m going to roll over and let a House tell me what to do. I stand with Brown.”
He grit his back teeth together so hard, the muscle at his jaw popped out.
I pulled up in front of the barn, which was set just a short ways off from the house, and wondered if he was the yelling type.
“How many friends?” Abraham asked, not yelling.
“Are malcontents?”
“How many of your friends are in the path of the heavy equipment?”
“A dozen families,” I said.
“Tell them to pack and leave. It’s the safest thing to do.”
“They won’t listen. It’s their land and they intend to stay.”
“How far out are the machines?”
“Thirty miles. There’s still time.”
“For what?”
