Cogent

TWENTY-EIGHT

"I think you're ready."

"For what?"

"The truth."

Lenny told him everything. About her research, and her other kids. The ones she'd failed to protect. "You're in danger," she'd said. "Lakewood isn't safe for people like you."

People like me, he'd thought, her words coming across like a scrambled radio signal. What did that mean?

"The cogent ones," she'd explained, putting a name to it for the first time. "The people who have the ability to appeal to the minds of others. You can...convince them of things. Can't you, Noah?"

He'd looked at her then and stared, openly afraid, openly hurting. Just...open. "I can't control it," he said softly, shaking his head. "It just...happens. I mean, I make it happen. And I don't want to, but I don't have a choice. There's this-this thing that talks to me and I can't get it to stop until I do what it wants."

She nodded as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. "That's the compulsion. You all have it. It's part of your cogency, like a side-effect. But you can make it stop, Noah. You have that power."

"How?" his fingers had gripped the edge of the chair so hard that his nails scraped against the wood. "How do I do that?"

"I can teach you. But you have to trust me."

***

"You have to trust me." Tess was staring at him, her eyes watery with regret. "Lenny told me to look out for you."

He couldn't tell if she was being honest or not. She'd already lied to him, and that was usually enough to convince him to get out while he still could. Part of him wanted to have nothing more to do with her. The other part...didn't feel that way at all.

"You're a liar," he said accusingly, avoiding her gaze.

"Yes, I lied. Kind of. But I didn't do it to hurt you."

"How did you even know who I was? I came to your house, remember?" he recalled the day that he stumbled into the place where he used to live, examining the ashes in the fireplace. He'd wandered in there on his own. "And besides, you just moved here. Lenny...died before you even got here."

Tess looked down, biting her lip. "I was in the rehab program that Lenny ran at the community center. The one for, um, troubled teens. She met a lot of us there. Our cogency gets us in trouble."

Noah's gaze shot up. Our cogency, she'd said. "You mean...you can...you have...it?"

She peered curiously at him. "It? 'It' isn't a disease, Noah. Our cogency is a gift if we use it the right way. Like I did...with you."

"What are you talking about?" he dropped his eyes and inched closer to the door, his fingers twisting around the handle. He was ready to jump out and make a run for it if he even sensed she was going to try something.

"I reached out to you. That's why you came back here to this house. It's not that hard to do with practice. I'd tried before but you made it more difficult. It's harder to do with people who are guarded like you."

"You-you got in my head?" he demanded, feeling sick. Violated. Terrified. How could she have done it without him even knowing?

Now you know how it feels, don't you? All your defenses penetrated, and you didn't even know...

"How did you know this was my house?" he demanded.

"I didn't. That was just a coincidence, I guess," Tess sounded genuine. But there was no way to tell.