Coda (20 page)

The headphones are ripped from my ears. “Anthem? You okay? Come on, over here.” I’m lifted, half dragged to a couch. My face slides wet against leather and I can’t catch my breath. Plastic is pressed into my hand. I spill water over my cheeks when I lift my head to drink. Fingers hold mine, tendons strong against my skin.

“Better?”

I blink and look up at Crave. “I think so. Yeah. Thanks.”

“You were halfway to an OD there. Sure you’re all right?” he asks, his thick eyebrows creased in concern.

“Is everyone done with soundcheck?” I ask, sitting up. Only a little dizzy. Good.

“Pretty much. I just came to say I can’t play next week. It’s my kid’s birthday.”

“Lucky you did. Come in, I mean. Thanks for telling me. And for, you know.”

He gets up from his crouch. “No problem. See you out there?”

“Yeah. Listen—” My gaze flicks to the console, heat drying the last remains of tears from my face.

“Don’t tell them you were tracking? I won’t. Just stay away from it for now, okay?”

“Promise.” I shoot him a grateful smile.

I don’t have time to track more anyway. Scope, Phoenix, Mage, and Yellow Guy all come in almost as soon as Crave’s gone. The other bands have to cram into an old storage area that hasn’t been used since it flooded a few years ago. We get the perks of knowing the manager.

Phoenix not only lends me her eyeliner but offers to do my makeup for me when she sees my hand shake. Guess she’s forgiven me, though I’ll reserve judgment on that until I look in a mirror. Mage is his usual self, stretched out on a couch, completely relaxed. I really envy him sometimes. Scope and Yellow Guy are in a corner, not kissing for once, but I can’t hear what they’re whispering about and don’t think I want to know. They were both giving me weird looks all afternoon. Scope’s probably told him about our talk the other day.

I still can’t figure out if it’s better or worse, having other bands go
on before us. It gives my nerves more time to build, but at least the crowd is ready when we get there.

And the crowds are getting bigger. Last week Pixel had to open up the balcony to people who leaned over the railing, chrome-adorned arms stretched toward the stage. In front of us, above us, they screamed for more between calls to destroy the Corp.

So many people want this—way more than I ever would’ve imagined. It’s not just with Haven that I was blind. So many years holding real music to my chest, a tightly kept secret, meant that I never really considered the world outside our dingy basement.

I want to see the looks on the Corp’s faces when they find out about us, even if it’s the last thing I do see before the world turns black.

Phoenix mercifully hasn’t vandalized my face. The lines around my eyes are as steady as if I’d done them right after a calming track. One that didn’t send me into a bad-reaction tailspin, at least. In a mirror Pixel’s propped against the wall, I weave blue tubes through my hair and plug them into my neck jack. They come to life, tangled with white-blond spikes to match the reflective strips on my black shirt and the blue laces threaded through the holes in my boots.

“Looking good, pretty boy,” Yellow Guy calls. I roll my eyes. If Scope had said that, Yellow Guy would be all over him in a second, marking his territory.

Beyond the door, the club is filling up and the group of girls who’ll be going on first are getting ready down the hall. They’re talented, with strong voices more powerful than Phoenix’s. Mostly they sing, with the occasional beat from a drum or clatter of a homemade tambourine joining in—mellow and soothing, airy, the kind of thing I listen to on the console when I want to float. The Corp has done one good thing by addicting us to all music—not that many of us are
really picky about style. Music is music.

I take the other couch, try to rest, but it only feels like an instant later that Pixel’s opening the door to tell us we’re almost on. I grab my guitar from the corner and give Yellow Guy some silent credit when he leaves without being asked for the band’s moment alone.

Nerves get forced down with a swallow of air and I follow the others out. The club is packed, hot—full of every volume from whisper to scream. Lights dance and waving arms try to catch the intangible beams.

I don’t think it would matter how packed it is. The thousand people blur to nothingness when I get onstage, all made invisible in contrast to one person whose face I know down to each intimate detail. My brain registers the first flash of pink and the twin glimmers of two chrome arches in the middle of the audience.

I glance quickly at Scope. He’s grinning. I wonder what he said to her and when he said it.

“
Hi
,” she mouths when my stare is back on her face, more beautiful than I’ve ever seen it. One corner of her mouth lifts cautiously upward. I hear her as clearly as if she’d breathed it in my ear, despite the rumbling, impatient noise around her.

I say something back; I’m not even sure what. My toes are over the edge of the stage, ready to jump down into the mass of decorated bodies. I clench my fists and step back, still staring. If nothing else, I doubt even the pull of my guitar could tear me from her side again.

But there is one thing I can do.

Before I plug it into the amp, I play a few notes that only the band and the people right at the front can hear. It’s not what we usually start with, but a glance at Phoenix and Scope tells me they get the hint. I know Mage will, too.

She’s listening. I just hope she understands.

I step back to the microphone, as uncomfortable with this part as I always am. Singing is so much easier than talking. “Thanks for coming,” I say, a brief whine of feedback cutting through the words. They must think I’m speaking to all of them. My fingers go to the strings, the notes I played a minute ago repeating themselves. Mage, Phoenix, and Scope all join in, the song swelling through the speakers on the walls.

For the people who’ve been here before, the change is a surprise, and for anyone new I’m sure this is confusing. They came to rebel against the Corp, not listen to some slow love song.

I really don’t care. There’s only one who matters, and by the time I open my mouth to sing the first verse, she’s all I can see. I think I can smell her perfume, too, heady above all the scents in the room.

It’s one of the first songs I ever wrote about her. I sat underneath the cherry blossoms in the park with a broken pencil and a white, blank page from the back of an old library book, scribbling imperfect words with imperfect tools for a perfect girl. It’s the first day I saw her in Scope’s chrome studio, knowing she was the reason my mother forced me to make that promise. That this was the girl who’d tempt me into the distraction of happiness. Lyrics twist and turn around the peaceful, velvet melody I pull from the guitar, but I don’t register that I’ve sung them until I see their effect reflected back at me. Not the nervous smile of a few minutes ago, but a full one that is somehow not incongruous with the wet tracks on her cheeks catching light in teardrop prisms. Nebulous warmth in my chest eases the ache there.

The coda flows over the audience—soft, rhythmic, hypnotic. Fitting. I push the last word past a lump in my throat and let the music die away under my fingers.

I hadn’t thought past this when I started, but Phoenix takes care
of it for me. I don’t even have time for surprise that it’s her, and not Scope or Mage who shoves me away from the mic.

“Go,” she hisses before addressing the crowd. “Sorry, guys. Technical problems. Back in five.”

I’m gone before she’s finished; I ignore the stairs and slide from the stage into a space made empty by the approach of my boots. Hands reach out to touch me and grab my clothes. I pull away from one girl, not even stopping to glare when my shirt rips and a blast of humid air hits my rib cage.

Soft, bare, shoulder-skin is suddenly under my hands. The perfume that teased me through the few minutes of the song floods my nostrils, and it’s the first real breath I’ve taken in weeks. “Hey,” I say, leaning my forehead against hers. She lets me, the final confirmation I need that she got what I was trying to say.

“Hey, yourself. This is incredible.” Her lips are trembling and I want to kiss them still. A hush falls over the circle of people around us and ripples out like water fleeing a tossed pebble. “I should slap you.”

“Scope already did.” Laughter bubbles in my chest. “I’m so sor—”

She silences me with a finger. “Later. Don’t think you’re getting out of it, just . . . later. And I’m sorry, too.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Her eyes widen, so does her smile. “So have I.”

I cup her cheeks and bend to close the gap between us. A drumroll starts. I let go with one hand and give Mage the finger without looking at him. Haven and I are both laughing as our lips meet for the first time, and maybe that’s the way it should be.

I can’t kiss her deeply enough or hold her tightly enough, but I try. Fingers twist into the hair above my neck jack and catch on the wires and tubes. It doesn’t hurt, though it probably should. My tongue flicks at her teeth and she gently bites my bottom lip.
Fuck
. I’m pretty sure
the whole crowd hears my groan, but they’re getting impatient. I can’t stay here forever, as much as I want to.

Haven uses her leverage on my hair to pull me away. “That song was pretty choice,” she says, eyes lit with challenge. “Get back up there and show me what else you can do.”

Sweat coats our bodies beneath the sheets—old, from earlier at the club, and new. My ragged fingernails travel the bare length of her spine. I should be exhausted. I always am after a concert, but I can’t sleep and I refuse to get up to track no matter how much my brain is screaming for a hit. Moonlight streams through the window, illuminating the floor and the bright pink pieces of clothing scattered the length of my room. I keep smiling, reliving how each landed in its spot.

I’m going to hurt in the morning. I played harder, faster than I ever have, let my voice escape louder than ever.

It’s
possible
I was showing off a little.

“Tell me what you need,” Haven says. Goose bumps follow the trail of her breath across my skin.

“Thought you were asleep,” I say, tightening my arms around her. “You. I need you.”

Her mouth finds mine in the darkness and it’s like hitting a perfect note, or that’s like this. Energy gathers in my limbs; my tongue tingles where it slides over hers.

“That’s a relief,” she says, her lips still against mine. “But not what I meant.”

No. We’ve talked about us already, until my raw voice was even hoarser and I couldn’t keep my hands from her skin. She knows everything now, and we’re still here. I grin again, trying not to think about what it’ll be like the next time I see Scope. He’s going to be unbearable.

“The Corp,” she continues. “What are we waiting for?”

I laugh softly. “I can’t remember right now.”

A finger lands between my ribs, not hard enough to burst my bubble. “We have enough people, I think. Waiting any longer is gonna be too risky. And everyone’s been sharing information—most of it’s useless, but we’ve got what we need, except . . .”

She waits and I breathe. If I’m right about who her father must be, I’m asking too much of her.

I do it anyway. “Access to the Board and President Z. They’re not going to reveal themselves in the middle of a protest. We have to get to them.”

A beat. Two. Three.

“Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll take care of it.” Her tone turns more playful. “Anything else?”

I roll us over, hover above her, and gently find her collarbone with my teeth. “Lots of things.”

The sun is already a faint purple tinge across the sky when we fall asleep.

It’s a good thing the twins are used to seeing Haven emerge from my room, tousled and free of makeup. As it is, Alpha gives me a brighter-than-usual smile that makes me wonder if she can tell something’s different. It’s only for a second, though, before she and Omega rush to hug Haven, exclaiming that they missed her, and all traces of my guilt over a broken promise vanish. My aching fingers brush against hers over the toaster, our legs press together under the table.

A new kind of normal. My face actually hurts, and even after the downer track I sneak between checking on my father and getting dressed for work, I spend my entire trans-pod trip forcing my smile into a box I’ll open again this afternoon. I don’t have to try as hard to not spit on the statue, my fists don’t clench as tightly when the elevator fills with sneering Corp suits. Even the mainframe’s hum doesn’t
bother me as much as usual.