Resonance (13 page)

BEGIN

SECOND

MOVEMENT

CHAP
TER TWENTY-TWO

B
LOOD POURED FROM SIMON'S NOSE.
some­one in the crowd shrieked, reminding me that our reunion—and my punch—had been a very public one.

“What the fuck?” he snarled, cupping his hand against his face.

I scrambled away. “Who the hell are—” I started, then thought better of it. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Simon Lane, obviously,” he said, taunting even as he tried to stanch the bleeding. “I thought you wanted me to come home. That's what I kept hearing, anyway. Hell of a greeting.”

He grabbed my wrist, dragging me toward him again. The sound of his frequency—an exact match to the Key World—scrambled my brain for a moment.

But only a moment. I thrashed, stomping on his foot with my boot. He let go, and I turned so my back was to the crowd instead of the wall. Dangerous to be so exposed, but more dangerous to be trapped.

“Del?” Eliot said from behind me, half-appalled, half-­delighted.

A circle formed around us. Simon pinched his nose and scowled. “What's the problem, Delancey?”

“You,” I spat, ignoring the crowd. All the digs my classmates had made about me in the past—every whisper, every snide remark, every hushed rumor—were repeated now, loud and clear, aimed directly at me.

I didn't care. All I cared about was that the Simon in front of me was wrong. Completely wrong, and impossible, and an impostor. “You're the problem. You walk in here and expect me to believe nothing's changed? I'm not stupid. Everything's changed, especially you.”

“He hasn't,” Eliot said softly, urgently, hands on my shoulders. “It's him, Del.”

“No, it isn't.” My eyes burned. “What do you want? Why are you even here?”

Lazily his eyes traveled over me, from the crown of my head to the tips of my boots. But those eyes—the cold, dark blue of deep water—weren't appreciative, but calculating. The kind that would root out your softest places and scrape them clean. “There's no place like home.” He glanced around at the crowd, then back at me. “Let's finish this somewhere more private. The equipment room, maybe?”

“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” said Principal Sayers. “Fighting is an automatic suspension, as you're both aware. It's good to see you, Simon.”

“It's good to be back.”

•   •   •

Ten minutes later I was sitting in my usual spot in the office, my hand throbbing in time with my head. This time Sayers had
closed the blinds, shutting me out. Through the door I could hear the impostor pleading my case—an impossible situation veering further into unreality.

“The rules are very clear, Simon. Physical fighting, no matter who instigates it, is an automatic suspension for both participants.”

“She wasn't fighting,” he said. “It was my fault.”

“I have at least twelve witnesses who say otherwise. There's not a mark on Delancey, and you should be in the nurse's office right now, getting your nose checked out. At least let them bring you an ice pack.”

“She punched me, sure. But I deserved it. I might have gotten a little . . . carried away . . . when she kissed me. If you know what I mean.”

There was a pause. “You're saying you made an unwanted advance toward Delancey Sullivan, and she was defending herself?”

“It won't happen again, sir.”

“I should hope not”—a frosty note entering his voice—­“because that, too, is a suspension.”

“The thing is,” the imposter said, “I'm not technically a student. Not until I re-enroll. You can't suspend me.”

A few minutes later the door swung open. “Delancey, based on Simon's account of the incident, you will not be suspended. I do need to ask if you'd like to press charges against him, however. Should I call the authorities?”

“God, no,” I said. “He won't try it again.”

“Then you're both free to go.” Sayers massaged his temple
as if a migraine was brewing. “Simon, I will assume that once re-enrolled,
you
will be a model student. There will be no warnings or second chances. For either of you.”

I murmured my understanding alongside Simon. He reached out as if to take my arm, but I jerked away.

“Locker,” I said. “I need to get my stuff.”

He tipped his head in acknowledgement.

“Is it broken?” I asked, gesturing to his nose.

He touched it gingerly. “I don't think so.”

“I'll try harder next time.”

Eliot sprang up from the bench as we emerged from the office. “Are you suspended?”

“No,” we chorused, and I glared at the imposter.

“Good,” Eliot said. “I don't know how we'd explain this to your parents. I don't know how to explain it to me.”

“He's not Simon,” I said, grabbing my coat from my locker and heading outside. “Does that clear it up?”

“Less than you'd think,” Eliot replied.

“I'm Simon,” the guy said. “Just not the one you're used to. Never bothered you before.”

I ignored him.

“Del,” Eliot said. “His frequency matches perfectly.”

Simon looked at me. “What gave it away?”

I tapped the corner of my mouth. “Every Simon I've met has that scar. Who are you?”

“Simon Lane.”

“That's not possible,” Eliot said as we strode toward my
house. “The definition of an Original is that there's only one of them.” A thought struck him. “Are you a twin?”

He scoffed. “Twins with the same name. No. But you're getting warmer.”

I shoved him. “This isn't a game, asshole. Tell me who you are.”

“I'm the Original. The one you get all hot and bothered for? He's the Echo.”

C
HAPTER TWENTY-THREE

G
RIEF IS LIKE A BLACK
hole. every pang of sadness, every minute of loss, I'd stuffed down in my core, until the pain coalesced into something dark and dense and power­ful, drawing me in more deeply, until I was too numb to escape.

Now the black hole threatened to turn itself inside out, emotion bursting from me like a supernova, wiping out everything in its path.

“You're the Original?” My throat was so tight I could barely breathe, but laughter erupted anyway, wheezy and high-pitched. I tried to swallow it, but it just kept coming, taking over my chest in jagged gasps, a cross between a sob and a scream. I shoved him into a thorny-looking shrub and stalked away, Eliot chasing after me.

“We need Addie,” he said.

“I need a baseball bat,” I said. The taste of . . . whoever the guy was . . . lingered. I spat, trying to get rid of it. “And a toothbrush.”

“His frequency checks out. I think he might be right.”

“Simon is not an Echo,” I shouted. “Simon is real. He's alive. And he's waiting for me to find him.”

“We already found him,” came a voice behind me. “Why do you think I'm here?”

“You're a Free Walker.” I didn't bother hiding my scorn.

“If you're going to get picky, a Free Half Walker. But close enough, yeah. When we lost . . . Ms. Powell, you called her?”

I nodded. “Is she . . .”

“Dead,” he confirmed, and the mocking note dropped away.

I pressed my fingers against my eyelids as he continued. “When we realized the meeting had gone sideways, they sent me. Your contact managed to escape. You're damn lucky they didn't get you.”

“I ran,” I said numbly. “Took a chance and landed in a boxcar. The guard chasing me missed the train and died.”

“So I heard.”

“Free Walkers work in cells,” Eliot said. “They should be cutting off contact, not sending help.”

“They should. But Del's special,” he said, giving the word an unpleasant twist. He turned to me. “And so is your boyfriend.”

“Special how?” I demanded.

“We need your help.”

“Fine. Take me to him, and I'll do whatever you want.”

“Not that simple. There are things we need to take care of here. Seeing your Echo can wait.”

We'd reached my house, the driveway empty. I considered slamming the door in his face, just to make my point. But if he was my only link to the Free Walkers, I couldn't shut him out. Not yet.

Once we were inside, I tossed my bag and coat on the floor, then whirled to face him. “I don't care what you say. Simon's real.”

“Real, yes. Original, no.” He turned to Eliot. “You analyzed his frequency during the anomaly, right?”

“I did,” Eliot said, hanging up his coat on the rack, his words careful and deliberate. “He resonates at the Key World frequency.”

“So do I,” Not-Simon pointed out. “But when you ran a deep analysis on him, you found a flaw, didn't you?”

“That's not proof,” Eliot said. “Echoes resonate at an entirely different pitch. His tries to shift, but self-corrects each cycle.”

“Guess you're not the genius everyone says. He's been here so long that he's taken on the Key World frequency, but his true frequency keeps trying to get through—the flaw is the alternate pitch, trying to reassert itself and failing.”

“I don't care what his frequency sounds like,” I said. “He's an Original. That scar—the one you don't have—every one of his Echoes has it. If you're the Original, shouldn't they be scar free?”

“It would depend on when the branches were formed,” Eliot mused. “And when he got the scar.”

“He was a baby,” I said desperately. “He made a grab for Amelia's cat and it took a swipe at him.”

“Makes sense,” Eliot said. “An event that early would affect most of his Echoes.”

“Because,” I said with a pointed look at Not-Simon, “he's an Original.”

“He's the Echo that will destroy the Consort. Why do you think the Free Walkers have been watching him so closely? It's not because they think he's dreamy.” Not-Simon lounged against the kitchen island and gave me Simon's charming, mischievous smile.

“It's his dad,” I stuttered. “Gil Bradley was important, and that means Simon's important.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” I trailed off. “Because he can Walk?”

“All hybrids can Walk. We can't hear pivots—not even me—without a device. But we can cross them if a Walker guides us. We can even manipulate the threads.”

“There are more hybrids?”

“In the Key World? Some. We're kind of a rare species.”

“Pregnancy's hard for female Walkers to sustain,” Eliot said. “The change in frequencies is dangerous for the fetus. But for the men . . .”

“Male Walkers can father children with Originals, and the pregnancy proceeds normally. And every one of their Echo children carries the Walker gene. So technically, there's a lot of us. Just not a lot of Originals.”

“That's not proof!” I shouted.

The angrier I got, the wider he smiled. It ripped something inside me, to see the face I loved turn cold and mocking. “How about this? Your Simon never noticed you, did he? For
years.
You guys went to the same elementary school, and he didn't even know your name. Either of you.”

“We don't hang in the same circles,” I said. Next to me, Eliot looked dismayed. “I didn't like it, but it's not actually a surprise.”

“Isn't he supposed to be charming? Everybody's favorite guy? Friends with the entire school? The only two people he ignored . . . were the Walkers.”

“He knows my name now,” I said.

“And when did he learn it? When did he look at you—actually
look at you, not through you or around you or past you?”

“Park World.”

“That was the anomaly,” he said. “The anomaly and the fact that he's a sucker for sad little kids, since he was one. Poor fatherless Simon Lane, always wondering why people leave.” He shook his head in disgust. “Here, in the Key World. When did he look at you?”

I closed my eyes. Impossible to think with that face in front of me, cruel and enthralling. “Music class. Ms. Powell paired us up, and he turned around and—”

“His legs banged into yours.”

“You were there?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Synaptic Resonance Transfer,” Eliot murmured.

He nodded. “SRT lets him see his Echoes, and I'm looped in too. It's stronger between us because our frequencies are nearly identical. He touched you, and then he saw you. Sound familiar?”

I couldn't speak.

“He kept getting my name wrong,” Eliot said. “I thought he was being a dick.”

“He was,” Not-Simon said with a grin. “Let's see . . . what else? I have perfect pitch. Simon's tone deaf because his frequency's off. He couldn't find middle C if his life depended on it.”

Something was shifting inside me, some rearrangement of everything I'd known, like tectonic plates shaping the earth. It took all my concentration not to let the pieces scatter completely.
Eliot stepped in, taking over while I tried to find my footing on the newly treacherous ground.

“That's anecdotal,” Eliot said coolly. “Unlike Del, I need something verifiable.”

“The flaw. You've verified that already. It's the frequency of the Echo he came from.”

“How'd he get here?”

His expression hardened. “Ask him.”

“I thought you had all the answers,” Eliot pointed out, arms folded.

“Doesn't mean I'm going to give them to you.”

“Fine,” said Eliot. “Can you at least tell us what you're doing here?”

“I told you—we need Del to help us find something.”

“The map frequency? The one in my grandmother's journal?” I asked. “I've already got it. Take me to Simon and it's yours.”

He looked startled. “You figured it out?”

I nodded, finally feeling smug.

“Well, bully for you. But we've already got that one. We need the other two.”

“Two?” Eliot said, and smacked his forehead. “Of course. Three notes in a chord; three signals to triangulate the frequency.”

“Congratulations, Einstein.” Not-Simon turned to me. “We need Monty's part of the frequency. Since you're the only one who has access . . .”

“Not an option,” I said.

Eliot held up a hand, like a traffic cop. “Where does the map lead?”

“Get me those frequencies, and I'll tell you.”

“You want her to retrieve a frequency to complete a map, but you won't tell us where it leads? Del, you can't be okay with this.”

I paused, toying with my pendant. “Who has the third signal?”

Simon's mouth twisted, a smile gone wrong. “Gil Bradley.”

“Your dad's dead.” I paused, realizing how insensitive it sounded. I couldn't be that callous toward someone with Simon's face. “Sorry.”

“I know. We'll take care of it after we get Monty's part.”

“I want to see Simon,” I said. “Not after we unlock the map. Before.”

“I'm not here because I'm a nice guy, Del. The Free Walkers don't work that way. Get the frequency from Monty, and then we'll talk reunions.”

“Monty won't give us the frequency,” I said. “Trust me on this.”

“Why not?”

I looked at Eliot, who waved his hands in a “might as well” gesture. “He wants me to help him escape the oubliette. He won't give me the frequency until he's free.”

Simon dragged a hand over his face, the gesture so familiar my heart squeezed. “Guess we're gonna have ourselves a prison break.”