Dissonance (39 page)

“But . . .”

I skimmed my fingers along the glass, feeling the traces of the bad frequency blending with the Key World. The Consort would find this, I realized. With so many teams scrutinizing the area, nothing would draw their attention faster.

“Quit arguing,” I said. “Go to class. I don't want you near the pivot when I go through.”

“Del—”

I brushed my lips over his cheek, like it was no big deal. “I'll see you soon.”

He went, walking backward, his eyes on me the whole way.

I ducked into the girls' bathroom, hid until first period had started and the commons had emptied out. There was no telling how quickly my mom or one of the other navigators would pick up on the inversion. I needed to move fast.

My hands shook as I found the frequency from last night and felt my way along it.

When I landed on the other side, the dissonance slammed into me like a hammer to the skull. The world swam in front of
my eyes, the lights blurring. I planted my free hand on the wall to steady myself.

The fabric of the world was densely woven, nearly impossible to penetrate. I ran my hands lightly over the quivering material. No wonder the inversion was so stubborn—the problem strings were wound so tightly around the others, I couldn't unkink them enough to restore the proper pitch.

I had no idea how much time had passed while I worked. Nausea washed over me in a greasy wave, and I took careful breaths.
Nimble fingers, open mind, help to seek what you would find.
There. I isolated the first strand, vibrating wildly out of tune.

It was the opening I needed. The more threads I fixed, the easier it was to repair others, the damage as pervasive as a choking vine. The vertigo was overtaking me, and I anchored myself with thoughts of Simon.

The last tangle of threads resolved itself, the resonance clear and stable, the inversion fixed.

Fixed too late.

My knees gave out, and I crumpled as the frequency poisoning kicked in. My grandmother's pendant hung heavy around my neck, but my fingers were too cramped and numb to reach it. Is this how she'd felt, when she'd been lost? Would Simon miss me the way Monty missed her? The world tilted around me, going dark at the edges and narrowing rapidly.

Someone grabbed me by the shoulders, and a face appeared above mine, dear and familiar. Eliot.

The tunnel closed.

S
OMETIMES THE MOST
welcome sights are the most unexpected.

I woke up on the floor of a supply closet, burning with fever and teeth chattering.

“Bathroom,” I said, trying to curl up on my side. “I'm going to be sick.”

“What's she saying?” I heard Simon ask. “What language is that?”

“It's frequency poisoning,” Eliot said. “Her cerebral cortex is scrambled.”

“Sick,” I said, my tongue thick and clumsy. “I need to throw up.”

“Get her a Coke,” Eliot ordered, prying the tuning fork from my hand.

The chime of the pendant sank inside me, tamping down on the nausea. “You came for me?”

“Don't try to talk,” he said, and tapped it again.

“The inversion. Is it gone?” My whole body shuddered, and someone shoved a sweatshirt under my head.

“She's not making any sense,” Simon said, his voice rough.

I felt Eliot prop me up and heard the crack-hiss of a can being opened. The syrupy taste of Coke filled my mouth. “Swallow,” he ordered. The sugar hit my system and my muscles eased.

“Someone's going to come by any minute,” Simon told him. “Can we move her?”

“Better now,” I slurred. A little of the tension went out of Eliot's body.

“You're better,” he agreed. “Welcome back.”

“The hell she is,” Simon growled. “Del? Can you hear me?”

I struggled to sit up, the cement floor cold and uncomfortable. “I have perfect hearing.”

“Not anymore,” Eliot said grimly, brushing sweaty strands of hair from my face. “And he's right. We need to get you out of here.”

“Wait. Did it work? Are the trophies . . . ?”

“Screw the trophies,” said Simon. “I'm taking you home.”

Eliot touched my cheek. “It worked. Barely.”

“I'm bringing the car around,” Simon said. “Stay put.”

I drifted off. When I came to again, I asked Eliot, “Did you see me on the map?”

He made a face that was almost—but not quite—a smile. “Your boyfriend pulled me out of orchestra. He thought you were acting crazy.”

“Ah.”

“I told him that you're reckless, not crazy.”

“Don't forget selfish,” I said.

“That too.”

“What did he say?”

Simon rejoined us. “I said he could help you or I could break his legs. I'm more than a pretty face.”

I drank deeply, feeling better with every second. “You are pretty, though.”

“Ruggedly handsome,” he said, and helped me to my feet. “Let's go.”

There wasn't a lot of talking on the ride home. I concentrated on not throwing up, and both boys were silent. I didn't know what Simon was thinking, but the computer in Eliot's brain was definitely working overtime.

No one was home—even Monty was gone—so the boys helped me upstairs. After they'd settled me on the bed, Simon turned slowly, taking in the stars scattered everywhere, the maps I'd drawn, the battered furniture, the collection of instruments around my music stand. He looked like I must, every time I Walk into a new world. “Breadcrumbs,” he said softly.

“I came home,” I pointed out. “Told you I would.”

Some emotion I couldn't read crossed his face.

Eliot coughed.

“Can you give us a minute?” I said to Simon. He looked at Eliot, then me, and nodded.

“More pop would be good,” Eliot said. “Her blood sugar's dropped off the charts.”

“Got it.” Simon disappeared down the stairs.

When he'd gone, Eliot paced the room. “You shouldn't have gone in there alone.”

“Turns out I didn't,” I said softly.

“I would have helped. Even if he hadn't threatened to kneecap me. You know that, don't you?”

I hadn't. I'd assumed Eliot was as selfish as me, and my eyes filled. “I'm sorry. For everything. For being so stupid and horrible and scared. You are totally right to hate me.”

“I don't hate you.” He sat down on the bed. “I'm angry. But we're a team. Always have been . . .”

“. . . always will be.” I dashed a hand over my eyes. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah,” he said, and I knew from the way his voice caught we were talking about more than frequency poisoning. “He shouldn't be able to Walk.”

I winced. “He told you?”

“I can't work with limited information. And I can't believe you told him about us.”

“He caught me. I couldn't lie.” When he raised an eyebrow, calm and skeptical, I amended, “I didn't
want
to lie. Speaking of which . . . I didn't tell you the whole truth.”

“Shocker.” He sighed. “What now?”

“There's something wrong with him. Really wrong, Eliot. He was one of the breaks in Park World. His Echoes have been seeing me ever since. I run into him constantly. Every inversion I've found involves him. It's not just the SRT, or the Walking. It's something bigger. I think he's caught in the anomaly.”

“We have to tell the Consort,” he said. “They'll handle it.”

“They'd handle it by making him disappear.” I grabbed his
hand. “Addie knows I've been Walking to see him. She's going to tell Lattimer as soon as she finds proof. I need to get him clear of the anomaly before she turns us in.”

He drew his hand away. “And you need my help.”

I'm good enough to use, but not enough to love.
Even woozy and exhausted, I recognized the danger. “No. If you're involved, they'll punish you, too. I'll take care of this.”

“Yeah. You've got things totally under control,” he deadpanned. He kissed my forehead, eyes troubled. “Rest up. I'll be back later.”

“Eliot . . .”

He waved and jogged down the stairs. I heard him say something to Simon, their voices too low to make out, and I sagged back against the headboard.

“I hate sitting here,” I said when Simon came back in.

“Bummer for you,” he said, and handed me a bottle of root beer. “Drink up.”

When I'd finished, he set the bottle on the floor and stretched alongside me. I shifted until my head rested on his chest, directly above his heart.

“You know, this is not how I was planning to get into your bedroom.” He trailed his fingers up and down my arm.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Not disappointed. Worried. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Frequency poisoning wears off fast.” To begin with, at least. The next time would be worse. I nestled in closer to Simon and tried to sound nonchalant. “I'll be fine by tomorrow morning.”

“Eliot said you're supposed to stay put for another day or two.”

“Eliot worries.”

“Eliot is in love with you.” There was no censure in his voice, only calm certainty.

“I'm such an idiot.” I closed my eyes, let the beating of Simon's pulse resonate through me. “How did you know?”

“Recognized the signs.”

“Oh.” My eyes flew open. I didn't know what startled me more—what he seemed to be implying, or how much I wanted him to mean it.

The silence between us grew weighty and he laced his fingers with mine. “You can't take off like that again.”

I twisted to look at him. “How else will we find a cure for your mom?”

“It won't help us if your brain is fried,” he said. “I couldn't understand you when you came back.”

“Side effect.”

“What about next time? Or the time after that? No more, Del.”

“Don't tell me what to do,” I said sharply. “You've known about Walking for forty-eight hours. I've done it my whole life. This is my choice, not yours.”

“What about rule number three? My mom has to sign off on it? Does she get a say?”

“I meant the treatment itself. You can't tell her about the Walkers. What would you say? ‘Hey, Mom, do you mind if my
girlfriend goes into an alternate dimension to find a cure for your cancer? It's kind of dangerous, and it might not work, but are you in?' She'll have you committed.”

“I was thinking I'd try for a little more subtlety.”

“We stick to the plan. I find the cure, we figure out how to make it work here, and then we loop her in.”

“She's not going to go for it, Del. Trust me.” Tension radiated down his arm; his words were tinged with bitterness. “She wouldn't even want you to look.”

“You're angry with her,” I said softly. “She's accepted it's terminal, but you haven't.”

His body angled away from me, and I squirmed until we were face-to-face.

“It doesn't matter how far down you are in a game,” he said. “You play until you hear the buzzer. You give it everything.”

“Until you can't,” I said. “What if she's tired of fighting?”

“Then I fight for her. But that's my job, not yours.”

“I won't stop Walking,” I told him. “Not even for you. You might as well let me help.”

His eyes met mine and he gave the slightest nod.

“Good. Once I'm back on my feet, we'll get started.”

Before we did, though, there was something I needed to stop.

Every action we take is a choice. Some are deliberate, some are automatic, but each represents a decision between paths. Viewed in this light, even inaction is a choice, albeit a weak one.

—Chapter One, “Structure and Formation,”

Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five

T
HE WORST THING
about frequency poisoning is how long it takes you to recover. If you go out again too soon, your resistance is half what it should be. I wasn't in fighting form, but I also didn't want to put off what I had to do for a moment longer. Eliot told my parents I'd caught a flu bug going around school, which got me out of Addie-time—but it also kept me from seeing Simon. On Friday, stir-crazy and missing him, I headed back to school, despite Eliot's protests.

I trudged through the day in a fog. Only Simon was clear, urging sugar on me at lunch and keeping Bree at bay during music. By ninth hour, I was so worn down that even Mrs. Gregory believed me when I asked for a pass to the nurse's office with only ten minutes left in the period. “She's probably high,” Bree whispered.

I ducked into the girls' bathroom, found the pivot, and crossed to Doughnut World.

I'd asked this Simon about his schedule the last time I'd seen him. He was in Spanish now, and I moved through the hall on autopilot. The bell rang and the corridor filled with laughter and chatter and shouts, kids bursting free of the constraints of the day. Already the frequency was wearing on me, familiar and ominous. I wove around clusters of people and couples reunited, my hand wrapped around my pendant. Lingering here was not an option.

Finally I saw him.

And he saw me.

Shock. Relief. Heat. Anger. The expressions washed over Echo Simon's face, warring with each other, and finally settled into something I hadn't anticipated. Wariness.

Hatred would have been easier. Would have protected him better. Hope and fear mingled together this way only meant more damage.

“Hey,” I said, and gave a small wave.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Can we go somewhere else? Talk?”

“So you can give me another lame excuse? Don't bother.”

I wished I'd never returned, but he'd trusted me. I owed him the truth—or a version of it. I had seen what happened when people left without explanation, how badly it wounded the ones left behind. It tainted everything that had come before and twisted what came after. Simon's father had done it; so had my grandmother. Their absence was as tangible as their presence. “I told you I'd come back.”