Resonance (25 page)

His mouth followed the paths his hands had traced, slow and deliberate one minute, light and playful the next, and it felt like
the world was spinning away from me, a tumble of cravings and impulse. I pressed against him, suddenly aware how much I had to lose and desperate to be as close to him as possible.

He must have sensed it, the moment when the want turned from dizzying to overwhelming, because he drew back, the cool air rushing between us.

“Hey,” he said, skimming his fingers along my shoulder, brushing my hair from my face. “Come back.”

“I'm fine,” I said, shaking my head.

“Fine isn't enough,” he said. “We don't need to do this tonight.”

But we did. And I wanted to. Needed to, actually, needed to have this night with him. There wouldn't be any Echoes of this moment. I could never travel back or capture it again, and I wasn't going to let it slip from my grasp.

Every person is the result of an entire universe's worth of choices—moments that coalesce into a life, and a life that unspools in a meandering, unpredictable line. It's the easiest thing in the world for two people to miss each other, by minutes or miles, which makes the moments when they don't miss—when strings and paths connect—even more precious.

It shouldn't happen, two people finding each other, recognizing the strange, unique harmony between them—but every once in a while, it does, because love is a singularity. Like Simon himself.

I traced the muscles in his arms, tried to memorize him like I would a new piece of music—the patterns, the rise and fall, the
way each part flowed into the next. I burned this memory into my brain: Simon, eyes closed, breathing ragged, mouth blurry from our kisses.

I leaned in, molding my body against his, and his eyes snapped open. “Del,” he said, voice careful and hoarse. “I told you . . .”

“And I told you yes,” I reminded him.

He paused, then reached for the bag he'd brought with him, fumbling through the pockets until he emerged with a small foil square.

My mouth fell open, but I finally found the words. “Seriously? You've been on the run for weeks. When did you have the time—”

He grinned. “The infirmary doesn't just stock glucose solution and Band-Aids, you know. Figured I should be prepared.”

“You're like a Boy Scout. An R-rated Boy Scout.” I matched his smile. “I approve.”

“I'm glad,” he said, and pulled me closer than I thought was possible, until he had memorized me, lips and hands and teeth and tongue, gentle and clever and thorough, until my skin felt like starlight, my limbs heavy and soft with want.

“You're sure?” he asked, hovering over me. I nodded, but he didn't move, sweet and serious and utterly mine. “Say yes.”

“Yes.”

His mouth curved upward. “Now say please.”

“You first.” I ran my nails lightly down his back and watched the heat in his eyes blaze anew.

And then neither of us said anything intelligible for a long, long time.

•   •   •

The light was changing, bringing the world back with it. Simon lay across from me, head propped on an arm, his free hand sliding along my hair with slow, languorous strokes.

“You okay?”

“Very,” I said, leaning in to kiss him, warm and drowsy.

“You don't regret it?”

“God, no.” I laughed a little. “It's not like I expected.”

“In a good way? Please say in a good way.”

“I thought . . . it would make me feel complete.”

“It didn't?” He sounded insulted, or worried, or both.

“I don't think part of me was missing,” I said slowly. “I'm still me, all of me, but I'm part of us, too, and we're . . . different. Something new, and more. Like our song. There's a melody, and the harmony, and they both sound okay on their own. But combine them, and it's more than a series of notes. It's music.”

He drew me back against him, wrapped an arm snugly around my waist. “You told me once that I saw you.”

“You do.” I loved the weight of him, the way his body curved around mine, our legs tangled together. Sleep was taking over now—I heard it in his breathing, in the timbre of his voice, low and gentle as a sunset, even as light peeked through the curtains. I pulled the quilt over our shoulders and sank into him. “You see me like nobody else does.”

“You know what I see? Every time I look at you, every time I touch you, do you know what I see?”

I shook my head, afraid to ask.

“I see our future.” He kissed the nape of my neck. “I love you for a lot of reasons, Delancey Sullivan. But that's the biggest reason of all.”

I laced my fingers with his and said nothing. The tears in my throat made it impossible to speak.

•   •   •

Simon slept—and snored, as it turned out. It didn't matter—nothing short of a tranquilizer would have let me sleep. The sun climbed higher, but before it had left the horizon, I slipped out of bed.

Simon stirred, but I tugged the covers up around him, breathing in the scent of sleepy boy, nutty and warm, and he fell still again.

I dressed as quietly as I could, picking up the discarded trail of clothing, my breadcrumbs taking me farther away from him with every step. My chest hurt, like someone had struck me dead center, and the ache intensified as I tied my shoes and pulled on my coat. I left my bag in the corner and my pendant on the dresser. I wouldn't be needing either anymore.

Rose sat at the kitchen table.

“There's coffee,” she said. “It's instant, but I made enough for two.”

“He's never going to forgive me.”

“You wouldn't forgive yourself if you didn't.”

“Does Monty know?”

Her smile was sad and gentle, and more genuine than any she'd worn before. “He knows me,” she said. “After all this time, he knows who I am. He just won't admit it to himself. People have a nearly unlimited capacity for self-deception. We all have lies we tell ourselves.”

Original Simon had told me the same thing, and it struck me that just as I was more Monty's than my parents', he was more Rose's than I could ever be.

“What's yours?”

“That this is how it has to be.” She traced the wood grain of the table with a thumbnail.

I leaned forward, nearly knocking over the coffee. “There's another way?”

She lifted the mug with a shaking hand. “We're Walkers, Del. There's always another way.”

“What is it?” Because if there was another way to save those Echoes, I would do it. Simon or the multiverse: I knew the right choice. I was making the right choice. I'd wanted to be a Walker, and a true Walker—not one tied to the Consort, but one who understood both the gift and the burden of our abilities—would save the world. But I was also the girl who loved Simon Lane, and was loved by him, and I was still trying, desperately, to reconcile the two halves of myself.

But maybe I could love Simon best by saving the Echoes; by showing him that he was alive, and so were his people, and their existence was worth sacrificing myself for.

Rose drank, swallowed, set the mug down, and folded her hands. “I don't know. And I cannot allow myself to look for it, or I will search forever, and never act, and the world will crumble in the face of my inaction. Absolutes are easier. Hesitation is like cracks in a teacup, and all the righteousness leaks out.” She met my eyes. “What's your lie, Del?”

“I'm brave enough to do this.”
What about
our
infinity?

“And why do you tell yourself that?”

“Because I need to believe I'm that person.”

“It's not a lie,” she said, standing. “Let's be off.”

C
HAPTER FORTY-ONE

I
TURNED MYSELF OVER TO
the consort with the scent of Simon clinging to my skin and his words tucked close to my heart.

“When we enter,” said Rose, “it's important you don't fight. They'll take us into custody immediately. If you resist, they're likely to use force.”

“They'll use force anyway,” I said, remembering Monty's cell in the oubliette, the wincing stiffness of his movements. Smart, I thought, to have passed on the coffee this morning. My stomach twisted.

Rose didn't disagree.

The city was gray—gray pavement, gray buildings, gray sky. The cars sprayed gray water along the sidewalks as they sped past. The pivots that gave Chicago its familiar pulsing rhythm sounded muffled and low.

“Does it sound like there are less of them?” I asked.

“It's been a long time since I was here,” Rose said. “But it would make sense that they would start the Tacet close to home.”

“When will Prescott and the others come?”

“Hard to say. We'd planned to move quickly, but I would
anticipate the Consort has enacted new security protocols. It will take time to find a way around them. In any event, I can't give up information I don't possess.”

“I thought you had people inside.”

“We do, but we can't risk exposing them too early.”

“Yeah. We wouldn't want them to go out on a limb,” I said.

The smooth, familiar edifice of CCM came into view, and Rose's demeanor changed. Her spine straightened; her chin lifted—the exhausted woman I'd seen at the table was suddenly the cool, defiant leader once again. “They'll separate us, of course. Hold us individually, question us and try to match up our stories.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Anything you like.”

I must have looked startled, because she shrugged. “They'll get it out of you, Del. You haven't been trained to withstand an interrogation. You don't have the clearance to know anything truly damaging.”

“I know about Simon.”

“Not his location. Not the extent of our plans.”

“That's why you said I was a security risk.”

“It's the one thing we couldn't let you give away. Every Walker in the Consort will know about Simon soon, but we need the element of surprise.” She tucked my hair behind my ear and straightened my collar, the way my mom always did. “Nothing you can tell them will hurt the Free Walkers, Delancey.”

Frightened people tend to hyperfocus. They think staring down danger will hold it at bay. But that focus locks them in
place, like a deer in the headlights, blind to the wolf sneaking up from behind.

Rose was frightened, no matter how calmly she was marching through the Loop. Intent on protecting the Free Walkers, she didn't consider there were others who needed protection—or she didn't care.

“Addie and Eliot will be in danger,” I said. “And the minute they figure out who Simon is, they'll go after Amelia.”

Rose shrugged. “Simon is smart enough to move Amelia to safety. As for your sister and the rest . . . you offered them a choice, and they stayed behind. It's regrettable, but the decision was theirs to make.”

They were pawns. I'd fled in part to protect the people I loved, to take them out of the battle. My return endangered them all over again. I'd thought this would be a simple solution—­painful, but effective. Instead I'd made things exponentially more complicated.

She sighed. “Your best bet is to be as forthcoming and consistent as you can. If Lattimer believes you're telling them everything of your own volition, he may not feel the need to dig deeper. Your biggest asset is that people consistently underestimate you, Delancey. They think you're a reckless, impulsive girl.”

“And what do you think?”

“I agree.” Her smile was humorless but not unkind. “It makes you dangerous, your willingness to act out of passion and belief. And it makes you powerful. I wish . . .”

“What?”

“I wish we'd had more time,” she said softly. “For all that we can play with the fabric of the world, time eludes us. It's like bottling starlight. I would have liked to get to know you, Del. Monty was looking for me, but he was also trying to save you from a life as a Cleaver. He wanted better for you.”

Somehow I doubted this was the future he'd hoped for. “What's he going to do now?”

“I've left him the location of the safe house. He'll take Simon there, then wait out the attack in the First Echo.”

Rose was kidding herself if she thought he'd sit idly by. But wondering about Monty made me think about Simon asleep in the bed, our future playing out in dreams, waking to find I was only a memory. He must have figured it out by now. He must be frantic and furious and sick. I could envision it, because it was exactly how I had felt when he'd cleaved Train World.

“Del,” my grandmother said, bringing me back to the moment, with its muffled pivots and damp concrete and gray skies. CCM stood a few feet away.

I nodded.

“Be brave,” she said, and pushed open the door.

•   •   •

I'd expected CCM to be on some sort of lockdown—extra guards, a deserted lobby, tension ratcheted unbearably high. But we walked in, same as I had every week for the last five years. The only sign of a change was the quiet intensity of my classmates' conversation as they huddled in the corner, waiting for their weekend training to begin.

“Remember,” Rose said. “Don't fight.”

The problem with abandoning your family for almost twenty years is that when you come back, you don't know them at all. You don't know, for example, that the surest way to get me to do something is to tell me not to do it.

“Rosemont Armstrong for Randolph Lattimer,” Rose said, stepping up to the guard desk and laying her hands flat on the counter. “I'm afraid I don't have an appointment.”

END OF SECOND MOVEMENT

BEGIN

THIRD

MOVEMENT

CHA
PTER FORTY-TWO

T
HE GUARD GOGGLED AT ROSE
for a split second and drew his weapon, the same kind of Taser I'd used on Lattimer.

“Stay right there,” he said in a low voice, keeping the gun on us while he reached for the phone. “Do not move. Do
not
move. Hands where I can see them,” he said, jerking his chin at me.

I stayed perfectly still.

“Del,” hissed Rose. “Hands.”

“He told me not to move,” I said, my voice ringing out across the tile floors.

In the corner, the buzz of conversation ceased. I swiveled toward my classmates and my fear ebbed slightly.

“Del? Del!” Eliot sprinted across the room, Callie and the others at his heels.

“Stand back!” the guard shouted. A swarm of black-and-white uniforms burst out of the door behind him.

“Why are you—” Eliot cried, as a guard shoved him away. “What are you doing?”

“The right thing.” Another guard wrenched my arm behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder in a white-hot line. I struggled, and he twisted harder.

“Delancey!” Rose snapped. She was kneeling on the floor, hands already zip-tied together behind her back. “Settle down.”

The hell I would. I thrashed and kicked and scratched, breaking free for an instant. Running was futile, but I wasn't going quietly. It was time to make myself known.

I met Eliot's eyes, dark brown and anguished, and tried to smile. A crowd was forming, but another set of guards herded them toward the opposite corner, barking orders.

Someone pinned my hands behind my back, forcing me to the ground. My cheek slammed into the floor. I heard the crack of bone on marble, Eliot's shouts, Callie's cry of outrage. The guard shouting at me to be still and Rose begging them not to hurt me. I bit someone's forearm, and then pain shot through me like a sunburst, and I stopped fighting.

A pair of gleaming dress shoes and pinstriped dress pants approached. The wearer crouched, but my muscles wouldn't obey me, so I couldn't turn my head to see who it was.

Someone grabbed me by the hair, lifting me up to inspect my face.

“Delancey,” Lattimer said, as warmly as you'd greet an old friend. “Welcome home.”

•   •   •

I woke in the same room where I'd met with Monty. At least I assumed it was the same room. Interrogation cells might all look alike, and I'd never seen it from this perspective, stretched out atop the steel table.

If I'd wondered what the metal loops in the side of the table
were for, now I knew. Thick leather straps held my hands and feet in place. My coat and shoes were gone, though my clothes remained. I took comfort in that, especially since I'd stolen one of Simon's T-shirts.

I lifted my aching head and looked around, then immediately wished I hadn't. To one side of the table a metal cart with wheels and drawers stood next to the wall, like you'd see at the dentist's office. I couldn't tell what was on the tray, but I was betting it wasn't a bubble-gum flavored fluoride treatment.

Sinking back onto the table, I shut my eyes against the relentless glare. The silence was tangible and expectant. The buzz of the fluorescent light overhead and my fast, shallow breaths only underscored the quiet. I was alone.

Not for long. Someone would come in to interrogate me. To untie me. I'd have to pee eventually, and then it struck me that they might not even let me have a toilet. Humiliation was probably part of the plan.

I tried not to cry. The camera overhead was recording everything, the red light like a winking eye. Lattimer was no doubt watching me, waiting until I was weakest to come in and dig out the answers he wanted.

Rose was wrong. No amount of helpful volunteering on my part was going to protect me, or convince Lattimer to go easy on a reckless, impulsive girl who had stolen his enemy from under his nose, humiliated him in front of his people, and Tasered him for good measure.

But the camera was still observing me, silent and mocking,
so I forced the tears to retreat. I was sure I'd need them later.

They'd taken my watch. I had no idea what time it was. I wondered where Rose was—if they'd tied her down like me, or if she was allowed to sit in a chair, given her age and her quiet defeat. I wondered if she was still alive, and if so, what she was telling them.
I'm rich in secrets.
They'd mine her for information until she was hollowed out.

I pressed my back against the table, trying to feel each individual vertebra. Simon was probably out of his mind with worry. Would he try to find his Original? Slip away from his security detail and approach Addie? He wouldn't be that stupid. The Consort was bound to be watching my family. He might try Amelia, but I was betting his Original had already moved her. Too much risk to let her stay at home. The other Simon might be cold, but Amelia had put cracks in his icy veneer.

Maybe the Free Walkers would rescue us. They'd have to move soon, before Rose spilled their secrets and set them back another twenty years. I wondered if they'd tried to rescue Simon's dad, who hadn't spilled anything.

I'd never even seen a picture of Gil Bradley. He'd set all of this in motion—the swapped children, the First Echo—and I didn't know what he looked like. I could guess: tall, like Simon, with the same rangy build and dark hair, the same sharp features. Simon's eyes and smile were from Amelia, his generous nature and resilience all her. Maybe he'd gotten the stubbornness—the ferocity and drive he displayed in basketball and in our arguments—from Gil.

How much of us was our past? Gil's contribution wasn't
solely genetics even if he'd never met his son. His absence shaped Simon's life as surely as Amelia's presence did. How much of me was Rose, and Monty, and their terrible tragic story? Monty's lunacy, Rose's single-mindedness, my mom's tightly bound grief, Addie's drive for perfection . . . they were all parts of me, indelible and inarguable.

I see our future,
Simon had said. My heart wrenched, and hardened. Rose thought this was the only way, but she was wrong. There was always a choice, and if I had to grab the strings of the multiverse and weave them myself, I was going to find a way out of this and back to Simon, and we would make a future as wide open as the sky.

We didn't have to stay with the Free Walkers. Not after the pain they'd put us through. We could go anywhere: find a cure for Amelia, explore the Echoes. Finish school and live a normal life. I might even be nice to Bree. All we had to do was survive.

My hands curled into fists, and I stared straight at the camera overhead. “Don't be boring, Lattimer. You wanted me; I'm here. Let's go.”

Then I closed my eyes and waited.

The sound of the lock releasing came more quickly than I expected. I could sense Lattimer drawing closer, stopping at my shoulder. He seemed to absorb sound. I couldn't hear his breathing, or his shoes, or even the rustle of his clothes. He smelled like dry-cleaning fluid, sharply chemical and bitter as old tea.

He was silent for a long time, and I forced myself to take slow, even breaths—not faking sleep or serenity, just making
sure I didn't show any cracks he could take advantage of. I kept my face neutral, my eyes closed, and my hands flat on the table. His move, I reminded myself. He knew more than I did, and the trick was to get him to reveal it.

Finally, he spoke. “I believe you have information we would find useful.”

I opened my eyes and angled my head toward him. The way he loomed overhead gave me a direct view up his nostrils, and the ridiculousness of the sight—I was about to be tortured by a man in need of a nose-hair trimmer—pierced my fear with a sliver of outrage.

Shrugging is harder than it looks if your wrists are immobilized, but I managed. “Depends on what you mean by useful.”

“You know the location of the Free Walkers. You know who they are, what they're planning, and where their weapon is.”

“Nothing you couldn't get from Rose, which you're going to do anyway.”

“Your grandmother is an old woman. The strain might be more than she can handle. You, on the other hand, have proven quite resilient.” Before I could stop myself, I jerked against the restraints. He smiled. “Let's begin. The location of the Free Walkers.”

Nothing you can tell them will hurt the Free Walkers.
For once, I decided to trust my grandmother.

I hummed the frequency. “That's as close as I can remember. I wasn't there very long.”

He pursed his lips. “That's enough to start. Where specifically is the camp located?”

“One of those little towns outside Aurora,” I said. “Clover Ridge, maybe, or something like that? An old motel, right off the expressway.”

“And you'll simply turn them over? With no hesitation? I'm not sure I believe you.”

“I'm not sure I care.”

He reached out and ground a thumb into my collarbone. Pain exploded behind my eyes and I screamed.

“You should,” he said. “You should care very much.”

My breath came in ragged pants. When I could speak, I said, “They packed up and left. The minute you finished the broadcast, Rose gave the order to move out.”

“And where did they go?”

“Scattered,” I said. “They have some sort of protocol, but they didn't tell me what it was. They split up and meet again according to some sort of prearranged formula, but I wasn't there long enough to find out. I followed Rose and Monty.”

“Ah, Montrose. The only person ever to escape an oubliette. We'll get to that in a minute. Where did the three of you go?”

The three of us. Good. He was asking questions, I noticed. Answers trumped tradition, and I hoped it meant he was worried.

“Rose found an empty house for sale on the far South Side. She didn't plan it. The more they improvise, the harder it is for you to get ahead of them.”

“What was the street address?”

“I didn't pay attention. Monty's gone, anyway. No way he stayed after he realized we'd come in.”

“The street address, Delancey.”

“I don't know!” He reached for my collarbone again and I flinched. “It was a bungalow. White shutters, orange brick. I swear, that's all I remember.” I'd been paying attention to Simon, not the street signs. Simon, whose shirt I was wearing. Simon, who needed me to be strong.

Lattimer's hand rested on my shoulder, his thumb nestled in the hollow of my throat. “Let's move on. Names, please.”

“They didn't wear name tags,” I said. “And there wasn't a lot of time for introductions.”

Instead of hitting the pressure point in my collarbone again, he wrapped his hand around my windpipe and squeezed.

I flailed, uselessly. With my hands restrained, I couldn't push him away, and no matter how I writhed, he wouldn't release me. The world started to go black around the edges, my lungs screaming but my voice useless.

Tears leaked out the sides of my eyes, and the blackness spread, obscuring everything but his looming face.

Just as the dark overtook my vision, the pressure on my throat eased. Light returned and I gasped, the chilled air filling my lungs and making me cough, my head bouncing on the table as the spasms racked me.

When I stopped shaking, Lattimer repeated, “Names, please.”

Give up the names and betray the Free Walkers. Refuse to speak and die. But he had Rose, and he had to know that she was the one with the real information. She'd told me to answer his questions, to give him what he wanted. But he wasn't after
names. This was an opening act, to see how I responded. He was after something else. Some deeper, more important information.

The only thing of value that I held was Simon. I'd die if I had to, in order to keep him safe; in order to give the Free Walkers enough time to finish what they'd started.

But I really preferred not to die.

“I only heard one name. Rose's assistant, Prescott—she's about my age, I think.”

“Very good, Delancey. I knew you'd be reasonable.”

“Rose knows way more than I do.” The words bruised my throat, but I had to ask. “Why did you want me?”

“I want to know why the Free Walkers are so interested in you, Delancey. What makes you so special?”

“Nothing,” I whispered. I was a means to an end, same as I was to Lattimer. “Addie's better than I am.”

“She is,” he agreed pleasantly. “But you're the one they wanted. You're the one Montrose groomed. You're the one they rescued from the wilderness like a prodigal.”

“They don't care about me. It was Monty they wanted, and I turned him over to you.”

“Yes, you did. You hated him. Of anything you've ever told me, Delancey, that's the one thing I believe wholeheartedly.”

What heart?
I wanted to ask.

“Yet, you risk your life and ruin your future to break him out of an oubliette. Why take that kind of chance for someone you wanted to kill only a few weeks before? And then . . . you turn yourself in.”

“To stop the Tacet.”

He drew back, eyebrows lifting, and then a smile spread across his face. A genuinely delighted smile, which was somehow more terrifying than any of the smirks he'd aimed at me before.

“Why on earth would you think we would stop the Tacet?”

“You said—” I began, but stopped. I was an idiot. Simon was right. “What will the Walkers think?”

“The Walkers will think I did what was necessary to protect the Key World. Exactly as I'm sworn to.”

“Or they'll think you're a liar. And they'd be right.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “The Free Walkers have a weapon, Delancey. One they've been building for almost twenty years, and it threatens the Key World. I want to know what it is.”

I thought of Amelia, wished I'd told her a proper good-bye. “The truth. That's all the weapon they need.”