The dead bird staring at me from our mailbox isn't even the weirdest thing I've found this week. That honor probably goes to Victor's letter, which is burning a hole in my pocket as I carefully close the mailbox and hurry up our front steps. I found it when I got back from the Residence Inn. Or at least, that's the story I'm going with.

  I'm not super jazzed about lying to Mom and Dad, but explaining that I snuck out to visit my sociopath grandfather after specifically being told not to seems like a conversation that would end with me grounded until I'm thirty. Plus I've got this tracker bracelet that supposedly logs my location, but I'm pretty sure Mom just checks if I'm at home or not at home, not the exact GPS coordinates. Hopefully.

  The front door opens before I even get my key out. Dad's standing there in his bathrobe, leaning on his cane, eyebrows raised in a way that makes my stomach do a little flip. He doesn't look angry, exactly. More... disappointed? Tired? Hard to tell.

  "Have a nice meeting with Lily?" he asks, holding the door for me.

  "Yeah, just the usual. I've got the mail," I say, holding up the pile of envelopes. "And, uh, there's a dead bird in the mailbox. Stabbed through with something."

  Dad's eyebrows go even higher. "Stabbed?"

  "Yeah. Like someone shoved a spike through it. Super gross." I try to sound casual, like finding impaled birds is just a weird thing that happens sometimes.

  Dad frowns, taking the mail from me but leaving the bird where it is. "Your mother's in the kitchen."

  Great. Just great. Two-parent ambush. But I need to give Mom Victor's letter anyway, so I head to the kitchen, trying not to look like someone returning from a forbidden visit to a sociopath motel.

  Mom's at the kitchen table with her laptop open, surrounded by notes from Harrisburg, stuff from work... things she doesn't usually bring home with her. I look around, half-expecting to see a glass of wine. But, no, the wine bottles are on top of the fridge. Alright. Her reading glasses are perched on the end of her nose, and she's got that little furrow between her eyebrows that means she's deep in concentration. She looks up when I enter, and her expression does this weird thing where it tries to be several emotions at once.

  "Mail came," I announce, as Dad sets the envelopes on the table. "Also, there's a dead bird in our mailbox. Something punched a hole right through it."

  "A dead bird? With a hole in it?" Mom's attention sharpens, her testimony notes instantly forgotten. "What do you mean 'punched a hole'?"

  "I mean someone or something stabbed it. Clean through. Big hole on one side, smaller hole on the other, like someone pushed a cone through it." I dig in my pocket and pull out Victor's letter. "Also, um, this was in there too. It has your name on it."

  Mom takes the envelope, her fingers going still when she sees the handwriting. "Victor," she says quietly. "Hold on, a dead--" her face squishes into itself like she's eating a lemon. "This is a lot to deal with at once, Sam," she almost growls, sounding very suddenly angry. She blows out air, hard, and then starts breathing through her nose. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three. "Okay. The letter."

  "Yeah." I shift my weight from one foot to the other. "I didn't open it or anything."

  Dad appears in the doorway behind me, creating the perfect family triangle of awkwardness. Nobody says anything for a long moment. I can practically hear the unspoken accusations buzzing in the air between us.

  "I should probably go get rid of that bird," I say finally. "Before it starts to smell or something."

  "I'll get a bag," Dad says, moving toward the cabinet under the sink. "And gloves. Don't touch it with your bare hands."

  I watch as he pulls out a brown paper grocery bag and a pair of yellow rubber cleaning gloves. He hands them to me with a look that clearly says we're not done with this conversation.

  Back at the mailbox, I carefully pull on the gloves and reach for the bird. It's a robin, its feathers still glossy but its body stiff with rigor mortis. The puncture wound is even more disturbing up close - clean-edged and precise, like it was made by something incredibly sharp. Not a bullet hole, not a knife wound. Something else.

  As I'm dropping it into the bag, I notice our neighbor Mr. Perez across the street, doing the exact same thing with a bird he's pulled from his own mailbox with a pair of tongs. He catches my eye and holds up his bag with a grim expression.

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  "You too, huh?" he calls.

  "Yeah," I call back. "What the hell is going on?"

  He shakes his head. "They're all over the neighborhood. Mrs. Kim found three in her yard. Something's not right."

  When I get back inside, Mom is on the phone, Victor's letter still unopened on the table in front of her. Dad's at the kitchen sink, washing his hands like he's prepping for surgery.

  "--Yes, punctured clean through," Mom is saying into the phone. "No, not like a gunshot. More like... impaled on something. Yes, we found one too." She listens for a moment. "All over Mayfair? Have you called animal control?" Another pause. "Okay. Yes, please keep me posted. Thank you."

  She hangs up and looks at us. "That was Mrs. Richards from around the corner. She's getting reports of dead birds all over the neighborhood - all killed the same way. Impaled on something sharp."

  "This isn't some random disease or poisoning," Dad says, drying his hands. "Someone's doing this deliberately," he says, as if it's the least interesting news today.

  "But why?" I ask. "And how? There must be dozens of them."

  Mom shakes her head, her eyes drifting back to Victor's letter. "Your guess is as good as mine."

  "You should probably read that," I say, nodding toward the envelope, trying to change the subject from one thing I don't want to talk about to another thing I don't want to talk about. "I'll, uh, go check in with my friends, see if anyone else has found birds."

  I retreat to my room before they can object, pulling out my phone as soon as the door closes behind me. The Auditors group chat is already blowing up:

  Tasha: Anyone else hearing about impaled birds??

  Maggie: Nothing in Bridesburg but my cousin in Holmesburg found three in her yard this morning. All stabbed through with something.

  Lily: Lucy says the Titans are getting reports all over Tacony. Same MO - birds with spike wounds.

  I quickly add to the conversation:

  Me: One in our mailbox. Same thing - hole punched clean through it. Mom says they're all over Mayfair.

  Tasha: This is definitely not natural. Someone's doing this deliberately.

  Amelia: But who? And why birds?

  Tasha: My first impulse is one of the Daedalus escapees. But who would even bother to come to Philadelphia when the Canadian border is right there?

  There's a pause in the chat as we all consider this.

  Me: Maybe. Ask Lucy if the Titans have any leads. This is too organized to be random.

  Tasha: Looking into prison breaks with similar signatures. Will update.

  I toss my phone on the bed and flop down beside it, mind racing. Dead birds impaled everywhere, Victor's letter, my parents' weird behavior – it's like the universe is throwing puzzle pieces at me but they're all from different puzzles.

  A soft knock at my door makes me sit up. "Yeah?"

  Mom opens the door partway, her expression unreadable. She's holding Victor's letter, now unfolded.

  "You okay?" I ask cautiously.

  She nods, though she doesn't look particularly okay. "I just wanted to..." She pauses, seeming to reconsider. "Animal control is on their way to start collecting the birds. They're calling it a 'coordinated incident of animal cruelty' now, not an environmental issue."

  "Someone's definitely doing this on purpose," I say. "The wounds are too precise to be anything else."

  Mom lingers in the doorway. "Sam, we know you went to see Victor."

  My stomach drops. "I--"

  "The tracker," she says simply. "We didn't say anything last night because it was late and we were all exhausted. But we need to talk about this."

  I brace for the lecture, but instead, Mom just looks tired. "I'm not going to ground you or yell at you. I'm just... disappointed that you felt you needed to lie."

  Somehow that's worse than yelling. "I'm sorry," I mumble. "I just wanted to know more about him. About that side of the family."

  Mom nods, her eyes dropping to the letter in her hand. "I understand curiosity. But Victor is... not someone you should be around unsupervised." She hesitates. "He wanted me to know that someone arranged his visit. Someone sent messages to his phone, set up the hotel room, even arranged time off with his dispatcher."

  I know this, of course. "Someone wanted him to find us? Like, specifically set him up to visit?"

  "That's what he says." Mom folds the letter carefully, tucks it into her pocket. "He thinks whoever did it was trying to cause disruption in our family."

  "That's... weird," I say, trying not to sound evasive.

  "Yes." Mom looks at me for a long moment. "Well. I need to get back to work. We'll talk more later."

  After she leaves, I grab my phone again, open it, and... set it back down, turning to stare out my window instead. Trying to ruminate my way through the idea. Watching the alarm blink silently on the edge of my windowsill. Something about this feels targeted, deliberate. Those aren't just random wounds - they're signature kills. But who's signature? And what are they trying to say?

  My fingers drum restlessly against my thigh. There's a mystery here, and I'm stuck in my room instead of out investigating. The tracker bracelet feels suddenly heavier on my wrist, a constant reminder of the restrictions I'm under.

  I send one more text to our group:

  Me: Video call later? You guys can chill in the hall, I think if I leave the house my Mom is going to be the one impaling me.

  The responses come quickly:

  Lily: 4pm tomorrow work?

  Maggie: I'll be there!

  Amelia: Can stop by after classes.

  Tasha: I have stuff tomorrow. I'll also video call in.

  At least I can still do this - coordinate with my team, try to figure out what's going on. I might be restricted, but I'm not completely sidelined. Maybe there's something useful in the Morrison collection.

  I glance at my window, at the motion sensors Mom installed, watching them blink at me like an accusation. I can almost swear I see someone standing on the rooftops, but I blink again, and it's gone, like an eye fuzzy.