Resonance (28 page)

Above us, the elevator stopped moving, and the car rocked as people stormed into it. Their shouts echoed faintly down the cement shaft.

“Climb faster,” Addie shouted.

I didn't say anything—just hung on to the laptop with my bad hand and the ladder with my good one.

I heard the doors slide shut.

“They're coming back!” Simon called.

There was no niche for us to plaster ourselves into. We'd be crushed or we'd be captured, but there was no way out.

And then Rose jumped.

She landed on the floor of the shaft with a sound that made my knees turn to jelly. “Simon, throw me that stun gun.”

Startled by the command, he unhooked the Taser from his belt and let it fall. Rose snatched it midtumble. “Keep climbing, Delancey.”

“But—”

“If I overload the system, it'll freeze the elevator in place.”

She brandished the Taser with her good hand and clambered out of sight, into the hallway.

“Move it,” Simon ordered. “She'll catch up, Del.”

But I couldn't. I was frozen, my arms unwilling to haul myself any farther, especially as the elevator began to slide toward us.

There was a buzz and a loud crackle, and the stench of an electrical fire drifted up. Above us, the car jerked to a halt.

“That should do it,” Rose called, poking her head back in. “Let's—”

There was a horrible crack, the sound of metal connecting with flesh. Rose cried out, then fell backward into the elevator shaft.

“Grandma!” I scrambled back down the ladder, and the guard I'd first hit—mouth bloody, eye swollen—ducked his head inside.

I didn't think. I scooped up the Taser lying next to Rose's hand and fired. The charge hit him squarely in the chest, and he fell back into the hallway with a groan.

Above me, Addie was shouting something, but I couldn't make out the words over the shrieking in my skull. I scurried over to Rose, lying unmoving on the ground, her neck bent at a strange angle.

“Come on,” I crouched next to her, took her hand. “Grandma, get up. We'll help you climb.”

Simon landed next to me.

“We can carry her, right?”

“Del—”

“A fireman's carry. That's what they call it. You're strong enough.” There was blood trickling from her nose and ears, and I reached to wipe it away. Her eyes—that familiar hazel color—were still open.

“I'm sorry.” He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me to my feet. “We need to go now.”

“Del,” Addie cried, her voice strangely thick. “Listen to him!”

“We'll get her to a doctor,” I said, struggling to get free.

He let go of me long enough to bend and close her eyes. “She's gone.”

“But I just found her!” All those years, all this work,
everything she'd fought for. It was incomprehensible that she wouldn't live to see it through.

The fire alarm went off, filling the entire building with a bone-jarring buzz. Over it, Addie shouted, “Hurry!”

“We can't leave her,” I pleaded to Simon. “Lattimer—”

“Is going to catch us if we stay.” He dragged me to the ladder.

Numbly I followed him up the rungs. Addie had braced herself in the doorframe, screeching in frustration as she tried to pry the doors open, wisps of coal-black hair sticking to her wet cheeks.

I peered down at Rose's crooked, unmoving body. She looked so small. I could feel myself starting to crumple, the shock that had kept me upright disintegrating as the grief rolled in.

Simon growled as he hauled on the doors. They cracked open—no more than a half inch, but enough for Addie to dig her fingers in and help. Together they pried the doors apart. Simon held out his hand for me, and I made the leap to the parking garage, cavernous and dim, the fire alarm still blaring. A battered minivan pulled up with a squeal. Monty and Original Simon threw open the side door and jumped out.

“You got them?” Eliot shouted from the driver's seat.

Simon scooped me up in his arms and headed for the side door, his Original lurching away to avoid contact. “She's hurt.”

“Where's Rose?” Monty asked. He peered around impatiently.

Addie took a step toward him, choking out a sob. “Grandpa . . .”

Sometimes horrible things aren't real until they're spoken. It's easier to tuck them away and hope their awfulness withers away, that they lose their power.

But sometimes tucking away the worst allows it to fester instead of fade. Sometimes the only way to defeat something horrible is to drag it into a cold and merciless light, so you can know what you're fighting, and know when it's done.

Simon set me on the middle row's seat, but I nudged him aside and leaned forward. “Rose is dead.”

Monty rounded on me, eyes wide with disbelief. “No.”

The words burned in my throat. “She went back to disrupt the elevator controls and a guard hit her. Hard.”

“She fell,” Addie said, coming to stand next to Monty. I couldn't hear her words over the fire alarm, but Monty's face seemed to sag and collapse, a candle that's burned for too long.

“No!” he shouted. “It's a trick, like before.”

Wringing his hands together, gripping his head as if he thought it was going to burst. He shuffled toward the elevator doors and stopped again, lost.

Addie took his arm, squaring her own shoulders, smoothing back her inky hair, the familiar gesture surreal amid the chaos. “We'll talk about it when we're safe.”

“We should be gone already,” Eliot said. “Everybody in.”

My injuries were blurring into a single enormous hurt, blocking entire swaths of the world—bits of conversation filtering in past the blaring of the fire alarm, flashes of what was happening around me appearing between blinks. My eyelids felt heavy, and
I let them close, focusing on breathing despite the stabbing pain it sent through me.

When people say the world can change in the blink of an eye, they usually mean longer than an actual blink.

Walkers know better.

I should have known better.

I blinked.

C
HAPTER FORTY-SIX

T
HE FIRE ALARM CUT OFF.
the silence was so sudden, so abrupt, it seemed to crash around us. My eyes flew open.

Lattimer stepped out from behind a car, gun in hand—not the weirdly futuristic lines of a Taser, but an actual gun, heavy-looking, with an oily black sheen.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said. “Breaking out of the oubliettes once was a notable accomplishment. Twice is truly impressive.”

I watched through the side window as he motioned to Addie, Monty, and Original Simon to step closer, away from the van.

“Where is Rosemont?”

No one answered. “I see. Pity, really. I had such plans.”

Monty jerked.

“Keep your head down,” Eliot hissed at me.

“I need to see!”

“You need to hide. We're here to get you out, Del. That's the only objective.” He slipped down farther in the driver's seat, contorting his lanky body to stay out of view.

“He's right,” Simon said from the back of the van. “Eliot, if this gets bad, floor it.”

“It's already bad,” Eliot muttered.

I craned my neck, trying to for a better view.

“The fire department is on the scene, but they'll clear the building shortly.” Lattimer's voice reverberated through the cavernous space. “Once they depart, the guards will escort all of you back into the oubliettes. In the meantime, we'll stay here.” He cocked his head at Original Simon. “You look familiar.”

“Never met you in my life,” Original Simon replied.

Next to him, Addie looked at the van and cut her eyes toward the exit ramp.

Eliot nodded and put his hand on the ignition.

“Throw the keys over here, Eliot,” Lattimer called. “Unless you'd like the body count of your mission to increase substantially. I'm assuming the fire alarm was your work? We could have put your talents to greater use, young man.”

“I doubt it,” he muttered.

“Do it,” I whispered, but Eliot's hand stayed put.

“The keys.” Lattimer's eyebrows lifted. “I dislike repeating myself.”

“We can't leave them,” I pleaded, and Eliot looked back at me. “Please. Do what he says.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “I came for you.”

Lattimer leveled the gun at Addie.

I stumbled out of the van, leaving the laptop behind. “Don't shoot her!”

“Delancey,” Lattimer said cheerfully. “You look a little worse
for wear. It would have been so easy to avoid all this mess and inconvenience.”

“I'm here now,” I said, and limped in front of Addie.

“You are a moron,” she snapped. “I didn't risk my life so you could turn yourself in. Again.”

I shoved her with my good hand. “I didn't turn myself in so you could get killed. Dumbass.”

“Such a disappointment you two are,” Lattimer said, and gestured to Monty with the gun. “Blood will tell, I suppose. And speaking of blood . . .” He turned to Simon. “Gilman Bradley. Your father?”

Original Simon shrugged. “That's what I'm told.”

“The resemblance is remarkable. Seeing all of you together is like a window to the past. You look like your grandmother, Delancey. And you have approximately the same success rate. Come here.”

“Don't take a step,” Monty said, fingers twitching. “Don't do anything he says.”

I glanced over. His usual, conniving gleam had turned almost feral, but I obeyed.

The air shifted. One of Original Simon's knife-sharp pivots formed, as if he'd made a deliberate decision.

“You did that?” Lattimer demanded, looking startled for the first time.

Simon shrugged.

“Gil truly was a rule breaker, wasn't he? I knew the Free Walkers had recruited some Originals, but creating a half-breed?”

“I prefer hybrid,” Simon said coolly. “Best of both worlds. Best of all the worlds, actually.”

I forced myself not to look at the van, willing my Simon to stay out of sight.

“You can't hear it, can you?” Lattimer said. “Can't move through it.”

“Where do you think I've been for the last seventeen years?” Simon said. “With the Free Walkers. Moving through Echoes, undermining you.”

“The first escape,” Lattimer said. “That's how you sustained a pivot inside the building. And then Delancey helped you cross. Fascinating.”

“Hybrids aren't news to you,” Monty said. “You've taken them before.”

Lattimer barely gave Monty a glance. “Certainly. We analyze their genome, determine if they're useful, find a place for them.”

“And if they're not?” I asked, rage crackling inside me.

“The point of evolution is to eliminate the weaker beings.”

“You're the weak one,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Monty edge closer to Lattimer, a few inches at a time. “Simon's evolving. Don't you see? He's the solution. He can make Echoes. He can move through pivots, handle the threads, help us keep up with the multiverse. And his Echoes can too.”

“Not if he's dead,” Lattimer said. “Your father never once mentioned you. Odd, don't you think?”

“Don't know,” Simon said. “I never met the guy.”

“I'd say you were unimportant, but if that were true, I'm
not sure he would have kept you secret. You must have mattered quite a bit, if he was so desperate to keep me from finding you.”

“Well, now you have.” Simon lifted his chin. “Congratulations.”

“Indeed. All this time, we've been hunting a weapon. And now the hunt is concluded.”

I felt the wrongness of the moment before it occurred, the rest before a movement, the drop in pressure before a storm.

Lattimer raised the gun and fired, the sound ricocheting off the walls. Addie screamed as Simon staggered back, clutching his stomach.

“No!” I raced for him, but he was already sliding to the ground, teeth clenched, breath too fast. “Simon, hold on!”

I knelt on the concrete, frantic. Not another death, not another death, not another sacrifice, it was too much, it wasn't fair, it was
wrong.
I pulled away the layers of his coat to find the gray T-shirt underneath dark and sticky, the blood spreading into a single, horrible stain. My hands came away red and wet.

“Some weapon,” Lattimer said. “Now—”

“Enough!” roared Monty. The rage made him unrecognizable. In the dank air of the garage he seemed to grow stronger and broader, closing the gap between him and Lattimer before any of us could react. I braced myself for Lattimer to fire, but he merely pointed the barrel at Monty, almost nonchalant. Monty halted inches away, barely moving, eyes narrowed and arms hanging stiffly at his side.

Lattimer snorted. “This is only the beginning, Montrose.
Whatever you thought your weapon could do, he won't be doing it. Whatever revolution you thought Rose was going to lead died with her.”

Monty closed his eyes, singing to himself, but I tore my gaze away to focus on Simon, pale and sweating and trembling on the ground. “It'll be okay. I'll call nine-one-one. We'll get you to the hospital.”

He shook his head. “Sorry about Rose.”

I shushed him. “Try not to move.”

“Look at them, Montrose,” Lattimer said. “The lives you've ruined. Your granddaughters. Your wife. The child of your dear friend. Every one dead or destroyed because of you.”

“Not me,” Monty said finally. He opened his eyes, but his tone was oddly distant, as if he was only half-paying attention. “All I did was love. Loved Rose, loved Del. Recognized the way Gil loved his boy, because it's as much as I loved my Winnie. You wouldn't know anything about it, because all you've ever loved is power, and the more you got, the greater you hungered. You destroyed entire worlds, Randolph, because it made you feel powerful. It wasn't enough to touch the multiverse and listen; you had to control the strings.”

“And I do.”

“You forgot something,” Monty said. “Or maybe you never learned it.”

“What's that?” Lattimer smiled, indulging him.

“We're stewards, not gods. We don't control the strings. They control us.” And with that, Monty's hands curled and spasmed.
Some kind of attack, I thought, until Lattimer fell to his knees, gasping.

“Turns out the boy
is
a weapon, Randolph. If it weren't for his Echoes, I never would have figured it out.”

“Figured
what
out?” Addie asked.

“Grandpa?” I said.

“You can cleave a single life as easily as you can a world,” Monty said. “All you have to do is find the right string, and—”

“Montrose—” Lattimer wheezed, his own hands scrabbling helplessly in the air.

Monty twisted his wrist sharply. “—snap.”

Lattimer fell, face-first, into the concrete. He didn't move again.

“Grandpa!” Addie said. “What did you do?”

“What needed to be done,” he said grimly. “How is he, Del?”

Blood pooled thickly around Original Simon and me. “We need a doctor. Addie, help me get him up.”

I slipped my good arm around his shoulder, but his face contorted and he slumped back.

“Hurts more'n I thought,” he panted.

“They'll fix it,” I said. “Just hang on.”

“Can't fix this.” He lifted a hand, shaking and ice cold, and touched my cheek.

I covered his fingers with my own, willing warmth into him. Willing life into him, even as the blood leaked everywhere. “It'll be okay.”

“Del.” The words were soft now, slurred. I bent close, tears dripping, trying to hear him. “Rose . . . warned me.”

“Warned you about what?”

“If they didn't believe . . . this was the only way.”

“But—”

“I didn't mind. Not until I came here. Saw you. Saw my mom.” His lips brushed my cheek.

“I don't understand! Simon, please.
Please
.”

“No time,” he said, each word painful, each word an effort. “For either of us. Cauterize me.”

“What?”

From the van there was a thud and a moan. “Del!” Eliot shouted. “We have a problem!”

“You're not going to die,” I said, wishing I believed it. Wishing that words could make it true.
If wishes were horses . . .
“We're going to fix you.”

“He's the proof,” Simon wheezed. “An Echo without an Original. But you have to cauterize me first.”

“And then you'll be okay?”

His laugh turned into a cough. “Not a chance. But they need him. It was always him.”

“And you . . .”

“Wished it was me. For all sorts of reasons.” He tangled his fingers in my hair. “Do it now, Del.”

Addie put her hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at her through my tears. “He's unraveling. Your Simon. Go.”

I touched my lips to his forehead. “Don't die.” I ordered.

“I'll stay with him,” Addie said. “Hurry.”

I scrambled up and stumbled around the van. Simon was
sprawled on the middle row's bench seat, too tall and brawny for such a small space. I reached for him, then stopped.

“I don't hear anything.”

“There's a signal,” Eliot said, phone out, zooming in on Simon. “But it's super faint.”

“Hey, you,” Simon said weakly. “Hell of a day.”

“Hell of a day,” I agreed, climbing inside. “How do you feel?”

“Not awesome,” he admitted. “Everything goes in and out, you know? Bad reception.”

His face was as gray as his Original's, his eyes glassy and focused on something distant.

“It shouldn't be happening this fast,” I said to Eliot.

He looked so sorry for me. “It's because their signals are the same. Both of them are tied to this world; they're in close proximity. It increases the rate of unraveling.”

I leaned over and kissed Simon gently, despite the silence. Felt the beating of his heart against my hand, the rhythm of my own pulse, as if we'd synchronized long ago.

“Simon, listen to me. If I cauterize your Original, it should stabilize you.”

He gave me a thumbs-up.

“But I haven't done it before. None of us have. It's a huge risk.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “You love risk.”

“I love
you
.”

“Then who better to take a chance on?” He laced his fingers with mine. “You already got my heart. Might as well put the rest in your hands too.”

“But if I can't . . .”

“Then you can't. I'd rather you try than give up. Don't you ever give up on us.”

You play until you hear the buzzer,
he'd told me once.

I pressed my mouth against his, giving and receiving strength in equal measure.

“Bring him out of the van,” Monty called. “They need to be close but not touching.”

“Will it hurt his Echoes?” Eliot asked when we had Simon settled on the cement floor, his sweatshirt cushioning his head. “The cauterization?”

I looked over at Original Simon. His eyes were closed, his breathing barely visible. Addie was keeping pressure on the bleeding, but her shoulders shook with sobs.

“His Echoes will die if you don't,” Monty said. “These two, their strings are tangled together. If you can cauterize the Original and weave the strings of your Simon with this world, his Echoes should survive.”

Addie glanced up, cheeks wet and eyes red rimmed. Original Simon had gone silent.

I knelt beside him, pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I'm so sorry.”

“Sentimental,” he mouthed, with the faintest hint of a smile.

I ran my hands lightly over his shoulders, slid my fingers through the air until I made contact with the strings. “How do I do it?” I asked. “How do I tell which ones are his? They all sound the same.”