The Fray Theory: Resonance (17 page)

“Well, look who it is!” Colton rises
back to his feet. “Ain’t this past your bedtime? Shouldn’t you be all tucked in
right about now, crying to mommy in your sleep?”

Ignore him
.
It’s what he does
.

“What the hell are you even
doing
here?” Colton walks over. “Have you been following us?” he teases with a
playful voice, and  then rests his hands on his hips. “Feelin’ a little left
out, are we?”

Dylan pays him no heed. All he
wants is to get the kid out and be on his way.

“Transfer students usually do,”
Colton goes on as Dylan yanks the final nail out and opens the coffin to reveal
the sodden face of a child. “But hey—there are always ways to fix
that
.”

Fingers dig into Dylan’s shoulders
and yank him back, and the ground soars up and collides with the base of his
head.

The impact sends a stab of pain
down his spine, and for a few moments, he can’t see.

He reaches up to his pulsating
head, but his arm springs back down to his side as a savage kick lands onto his
ribs.

Dylan recoils as more join in, targeting
his torso.

Colton pulls the young cadet from
the coffin and throws him down on the grass. He then marches up to Dylan,
shoves his crew out of the way, and kicks Dylan in the stomach so hard that it
knocks him onto his back. He then steps onto Dylan’s ribcage, leaning his
weight onto him.

Gasping for air, Dylan grips Colton’s
calf, forms a fist with his other hand, and strikes Colton’s ankle.

The goon grunts and staggers back,
and then with a vicious growl, bears back down and starts to kick Dylan in the
gut with everything he’s got.

With every inch of him tense and
writhing with pain, Dylan feels the fourth kick crack, and the fifth break his
ribs. And then, whatever Colton is barking at him he can no longer hear over
the sound of his own screaming.

The ground is suddenly pulled from
under him.

The sky is moving.

Please
, his heart sinks.
Please don’t
.

And a wet grunt escapes him as the
cadets drop him into the coffin, knocking every wisp of air from his lungs.
Upon impact, one of Dylan’s cracked ribs dislodges, scraping at his insides.
And his howls of agony become deafening as the cadets slam the lid shut,
eradicating all light.

Dylan’s strangled voice, his
labored breaths, and even the drumming of his heart bounce off the walls, their
echo saturating the tight space.

He prays for an end to his
misery—for his body to go into shock, for him to pass out—but his stubborn mind
hangs onto consciousness as he splinters from within. And despite his best
efforts, he breaks down and starts to sob as they lower him into the ground.

The darkness becomes even darker.
The stuffy air becomes thicker, and the inevitability of his doom, bitterly
real. Tonight has deteriorated into a waking nightmare, and he doesn’t know
what terrifies him more—dying from the pain, or surviving to feel it.

σ

~Today~

Claustrophobia
is a state of mind
, Dylan repeats to
himself within the confines of the trunk.
All suffering is a state of mind
.

He has survived worse than this.
Much
worse.

Upon hearing what sounded like a
gunshot, he is thrust towards the deep end of the trunk. The squeal of skidding
tires fill his ears, his balance shifting as the car swerves from side to side.

Dylan recoils as more gunshots
follow, convinced with each blast that the next bullet will be the one that
gets him.

But instead, he once again
collides with the deep end of the trunk as the car crashes into something.

The whiplash vibrates through his
skull, fogging up his mind. But having survived thus far, already feels like a
miracle.

His
vision is flooded with light as the hood of the trunk is flung open.

A man wearing a black ski-mask
reaches in, grabs Dylan by the collar, and drags him closer. He then pulls a
syringe containing a blue serum and plunges it into Dylan’s neck.

The prick stings sourly, but the liquid
flowing into his veins is sweet and calming. And within seconds, the hauntingly
familiar eyes of his captor begin to shift out of focus.

All boundaries blur into abstract
patches of color.

All sound is fading away.

Dylan’s muscles relax, and with a
heavy body, he sinks into a peaceful abyss.

The dark seems
endless like a starless sky. But Neve can barely move an inch in the confines
of the dryer. With each breath, her limited supply of oxygen depletes even
further, and she’s too afraid to crack the door open. Good luck can only
stretch so far, and a part of her is just waiting for an onslaught of bad luck
to restore the balance.

She wonders what her mug-shot
would look like. What it would be like to have her fingerprints taken. But that’s
all assuming the men in her pursuit really
were
the cops.

There was just
something
about them. Something about the way they carried themselves. About their
demanding attitudes and entitled behavior. They just seemed
dirty
. The
dangerous kind of dirty. The kind that has law-enforcement in its pockets.

But regardless of their true
identities, what were they planning on arresting her for? Theft?

The man who took
The Fray
Theory
was treating it like a precious artifact. But the book is far from a
priceless antique that needs to be handled with care. It’s practically still a manuscript—with
sketches and formulas sprinkled throughout.

So its value can only lie in its
content.

Since Neve keeps arriving at
dead-ends, she puts her reservations on hold—just for a moment—and decides to look
at this whole thing from an entirely new perspective: for argument’s sake, she
assumes the theories are not philosophical conjecture. That they’re not science
fiction teetering on the verge of being science fact. She assumes that they are,
beyond a shadow of a doubt, one-hundred percent true.

And with the shift in her
perspective, her mind is inundated with countless peculiar instances that she
could never before explain. Things she brushed off, or told herself she was
imagining. Subtle things. So subtle and seemingly insignificant that their
mention to others sparked little to no interest.

Things like having the feeling
that you’re going to run into someone today, and then do. An unfounded rush of
stress, which days later you realize coincided with a tragic car accident in a
different city. Dreams, déjà vu, and other bizarre experiences alike.

And it suddenly dawns on Neve that
she isn’t just privy to the theories, she embodies them. She, Dylan
and
Romer are living proof that not only do Proxy dimensions exist, but that they’re
also accessible.

But even if Neve’s brazen new
assumptions have merit, then how come she has never met anyone else with similar
abilities? The three of them can’t be the only people in the world who can gain
access to their Proxies.

If cross-dimensional Syncing is
the next stage in human evolution, why haven’t there been reports of other
people with paranormal abilities?

Are they all locked up in madhouses?
Paid off?
Killed
off? That sure would explain why the incident at the
cemetery never made the news. It should have at least stirred up some concern
amongst the locals.

And
nothing.

She was smart to fear those men in
black. If they are powerful enough to influence law-enforcement
and
the
media, they’re the last people on earth she’d want to mess with.

She can’t stay here. She needs to
get as far away from Dylan’s as she can. Regardless of what Romer said, there
is no reason to assume those men won’t return to search the premises a second
time.

She gradually increases the pressure
on the dryer door, and with a soft click, it swings open, wrinkled clothes
spilling out. She shoves the rest of them out and inhales as big a breath as
she can manage in her uncomfortable position.

With aching limbs and stiff
joints, she cautiously struggles out of the dryer onto all fours.

So far, so good.

With nothing in particular
alerting her to trouble, she begins to erase all evidence of her intrusion. She
shoves the wrinkled clothes back into the dryer and repositions the hamper back
to where she found it.

She listens once more for
approaching footsteps, and then walks to the back of the room with her eyes on
the rooftop hatch.

From down here, there’s no way to
know whether the coast is clear up on the roof. So with a giant leap of faith, she
climbs the metal ladder, and carefully unlocks the hatch.

She pushes up against the glass
door and ascends very slowly, peeking over the rim in all directions.

They’re gone
.

She emerges onto the rooftop and rests
the hatch door onto its retaining arm, just in case.

The late afternoon sky is a soft
shade of blue, but every breeze that swooshes past lifts her body heat.

Neve keeps low on her way over to
the rooftop ledge. Hiding behind it, she scans the balconies and roofs of
adjacent buildings, half-expecting a sniper to have her in his crosshairs. But
beside a few balcony-dwellers, little else commands her attention.

She diverts her gaze down onto the
street below.

The traffic isn’t unusual for this
time of day, and the people strike her as the typical Yaletown crowd.

Good
, she nods to herself. With so many potential eye-witnesses
around, she can cause a big scene if it ever comes to it.

Now or never
.

She dashes to the rooftop exit and
bursts through the door, ready to fly down the stairwell. But before taking the
first step, a man’s hand clasps onto her mouth and pulls her back behind the
door.

Darkness swallows the space as the
door swings shut. Pinned to her captor, Neve kicks and screams into his hand,
trying to rip his grip from her waist.

But it’s no use. He’s too strong.

She goes to grab Dylan’s blade
from her pocket, but the numbness overtaking her is making it nearly impossible
to move. Numbness that’s paving the way for the peppery sensation of pins and
needles.

It’s happening again—an encore of
the cemetery.

Her captor seems to be saying
something, but she can’t hear him over her chaotic thoughts—over the dissonant voices
of her Proxies.

It’s like listening to white
noise.

To nothing.

And then, she hears her name as though
from the bottom of the ocean.

A man’s voice. A familiar voice.

The excruciating prickliness is
slowly waning, the thoughts in her head are fading, and the voice of the man
speaking in her ear is becoming clearer.

Closer.

Neve’s eyes flicker open, and from
the corner of her vision, she catches a glimpse of a swatch of gold.

The grip on her mouth softens, and
as she turns her head, a lock of silky blonde hair brushes against her cheek.

Romer
.

On her way
down the stairwell, all Neve can think of is Dylan, and whether or not he’s
okay. Because if anything were to happen to him, she’d
never
be able to
live with herself.

With Romer a couple of steps
ahead, they reach the bottom of the stairwell.

Romer walks up to the door and
pushes onto it, scanning the surroundings through the narrow gap.

“Are you sure you weren’t tailed?”
Neve whispers, then follows him out into the building’s side alley.

“They were too busy tossing my
shop,” he looks over his shoulder down the alley, and then turns to Neve. “You’ve
got a
lot
of explaining to do.”

“I will,” she nods. “Once we’re
safe.”

Romer exhales a frustrated sigh
through his nose.

“Fine. Come on,” he turns and
starts towards the laneway lining the back of the building.

Neve follows suit with a
surprising degree of faith in his judgement. If he was able to sneak in and out
of Dylan’s building without being noticed, then it’s probably safe to assume he
knows what he’s doing.

Nearing the end, Romer slows down
and inches towards the edge of the wall.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asks as
Romer sneaks a peek down both sides of the laneway.

“First, we need to find somewhere
to hide.”

Great
.
As long as it’s not inside a home appliance.
“What
are our options?” she asks.

Romer licks his lower lip, deep in
thought. “We really should call his dad.”

He’s right
, Neve thinks. It’s naïve of her to have assumed that
because Dylan was ‘arrested’, he would be entitled to a phone call.

“Okay,” she nods as Romer pops the
battery back into his phone. “But make it quick.”

“Yep,” Romer turns his phone back
on, but instead of pulling up his contacts, he opens his browser.

“What are you doing?” Neve asks.

“I don’t have his dad’s number,”
he says as though stating the obvious.

Right
.
Why would he
?

Neve glances behind her towards
the main street, wondering if it would be safer for them to be out in the open.

She turns to run the idea by
Romer, and catches a glimpse of his screen as he inputs
in the search bar.

“Um—why are you typing that?”

“Typing what?”

“Marcus Holt.”

“Because that’s—his
name
?”
he looks up at Neve, a confused frown twisting his brows.

Copper beard
.
Pale skin
.
GQ style
.

Neve banishes the thought.
Especially since—

“No. No, Dylan’s last name is
Sterling
,”
she objects.

Romer rolls his eyes.

“Sterling is his mother’s
last name,” he says, and then drops his gaze back onto his phone, mouthing
‘typical Dylan’.

Tongue-tied. Dumb-struck. Nauseous.

“Why?” she asks. “Why
would he do that?”

“
I don’t know
. Calm
your tits.”

She stares at Romer, at a complete
loss for words. The thought of Dylan and Holt sharing blood—

“Look—don’t take it personal,”
Romer says.

“Personal?” she asks,
still reeling from the shock.

“It’s just his way of
honoring his mom’s memory.”

Neve says nothing.

“She died giving birth to
him—”

“Yeah—I know,” she
interrupts, shaking her head out of frustration.

“The hell is wrong with
you?” Romer frowns.

“Nothing—” she says a bit
too hastily. “Nothing. I just didn’t know. About his dad, I mean. Dylan never
introduced us.”

“Then he really
does
love you, ‘cause his dad is a
raging
asshole.”

Neve sinks into thought.

Holt
is
a raging
asshole, no doubt about it. But she always felt like he has some sort of
vendetta against her—as though his distaste for her was personal.

Is it because of Dylan?
But that would mean Holt has known about her
long
before she became one
of his students. As far back as three years ago, when she and Dylan were in the
thick of it.

Oh God
…

Neve closes her eyes, but the humiliating
reality of her situation is practically burnt in her mind: Holt must’ve been
laughing up a storm in his head when she lied about living with her boyfriend
in the condo they own.

The condo Holt owns.

“LOAD, BITCH!” Romer barks at his
phone.

Neve jolts at his eruption, and
then the futility of what they’re trying to do starts to sink in.

“Turn it off,” she says. “It’s
been too long.”

“Let me try one more time.”

“Forget about Holt. It’s Galen we
need.”

σ

Neve
follows Romer through a network of laneways and alleys—through the tight capillaries
of the city’s circulation. And
in no
time, she is back in the same walkway she emerged into from Galen’s building.

“Now what?” Romer asks as
they reach the same door Neve burst through mere hours ago.

“Guess we’re going to have
to wait for someone to leave.”

“
That’s
your plan?”

“What? You said it’s risky
to be out in the open. If we’re not going to press his buzzer, and we can’t
call him, this is pretty much our only option.”

“Or is it..?” Romer turns
his head with a broad and boyish grin, then reaches into the inner pocket of
his jacket and pulls out a Swiss Army Knife.”

“Um, what are you doing?”
Neve asks as he kneels down in front of the exit.

“I’m going to carve ‘Neve
& Dylan 4 ever’ on the door,” he fans out the knife and starts to size up
his options. “Inside of a heart.”

“Romer, if we’re caught
breaking in—”

“Relax…” he slips a wavy
metal extension into the keyhole. “I got this.”

“I think I still have
Galen’s number stored on my phone.”

“No—” Romer dismisses with
a small shake of his head. “All things electronic tend to leave a trace. Last
thing we want is to drag more people into this.”

He peeks into the keyhole,
twists his wrist up and a bit to the side, and then Neve hears a soft click.

“Boom.”

σ

Neve
and Romer run up the stairwell to Galen’s floor, but upon
entering the hallway, Romer’s hand springs up against Neve’s
belly, holding her back.

The front door to Galen’s
unit is ajar, but there is no indication of people coming or going.

Romer draws out his knife’s
top blade. It’s short and fat, but seems to be sharp enough to inflict some
serious damage.

He sets out towards
Galen’s unit with his weapon gripped firmly in his fist. And although Neve
knows he’d disapprove, she follows him nonetheless.

He peeks into the loft,
and then his hand flies up again, holding Neve back at arm’s length.

“What is it?” she whispers.

“
Head back into the stairwell,” he whispers back. “Wait for
me there.”

“What are you going to
do?”

“Can you
please
just
do as I say?” he turns to Neve with an agitated glare.

Though Neve can’t see into
Galen’s unit, the alarm registered on Romer’s face ignites her anxiety.

She shifts her weight back
onto the balls of her feet, but can’t bring herself to walk away from him.

“I’ll wait for you here,”
she says.

Romer parts his lips to say
something—to object, most likely—but instead, he just stares at Neve, his wide gaze
darting between her eyes.

Before Neve can break the
silence, Romer huffs an agitated sigh and sneaks another glance into Galen’s
loft. “You still got D’s switchblade?”

“Yeah,” she nods, her
frown deepening. “Why?”