Zeroes

  “It was my dad’s.” Kelsie stared at the bag, her voice breaking. “He needed it to save his life, thanks to this fix you put him in. And instead I wasted it saving you.”

  The voice had nothing. It was one of those situations where the best thing was not to talk. But putting the blame on him didn’t seem fair.

  Ethan tried it on his own. “Technically your dad was already . . .”

  Nope. The voice had been right. Kelsie’s expression suggested that she didn’t want to hear that, technically, her dad had already been robbing a bank when Ethan met him.

  “Anyway”—he switched gears—“thanks for getting us out of the Magnifique, before the Craig made me into ground meat. And for saving me again on the street down there.”

  “I didn’t do it to save you,” Kelsie said. “Well, maybe I did, technically. But if you don’t give me some answers I’m going to start yelling until ‘the Craig’ hears me. He’d probably be happy to parkour his way up the side of the Boom right now.”

  Ethan held up his hands in defeat. The thought of someone as huge as Craig precision jumping his way up the side of a two-story building was actually pretty frightening.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Whatever you need to know.”

  Ethan glanced down at the canopied walkway in front of the club. No sign of the Craig, and the crowd was beginning to ease up. Just a few cops milling around, probably wondering what had happened. All the bills Kelsie had thrown into the air were gone.

  And no sign of the other guy, Ethan’s friend. He’d been helping them escape, but they must have been separated in the crowd. Ethan held up his hand, but whatever he’d written there two days ago was gone.

  “We played Red Scepter,” he said out loud. “T-H-I-B . . . crap.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Kelsie asked. “Do you need some kind of medication?”

  “You sure you don’t have a pen?” he asked. “I need a pen before I forget his name.”

  But he’d already forgotten. Ethan glanced down at the shirt he was wearing. The shirt was his friend’s, and his friend’s name was . . . Anon!

  That wasn’t quite it, but close.

  Kelsie glared at him, her green eyes shining. The sea breeze caught her hair and sent it out in a spray of pale curls above her shoulders. Her dress rippled and shone in the neon of the Boom Room’s sign. She was maybe the most awesome girl who’d ever hated him.

  He felt the voice lurch up, tickling his throat. He really wanted Kelsie to like him. The odds were pretty much against it, of course. She blamed him for a bunch of things already, and he couldn’t trust the voice for this. It only cared about the short term. It said stuff that would make someone like you for the next five minutes, which usually meant lying. And when people found out about his lies, they never trusted him again.

  Ethan didn’t want Kelsie to like him for only five minutes. Plus, one slipup with Kelsie and she’d probably throw him off the roof and into the waiting arms of the Craig.

  He gritted his teeth against the voice.

  Kelsie gathered herself. She looked like she had a lot to talk about.

  “So what do you know about the new drug dealers in Cambria? The ones selling krokodil?”

  Ethan frowned. “Is that a reptile?”

  “It’s a drug,” Kelsie explained. She looked really upset about it. “Okay, let me start simpler. Why were you in the bank Friday?”

  “I was . . . banking?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Ethan.”

  He felt the voice itching to get out, but clamped it down. “Honest. I was in the bank to put away some money. Money I’d come into . . . unexpectedly.”

  “You stole it from Craig.” Kelsie watched him coolly.

  “Pretty much.”

  “So why’d you decide to screw with my dad?”

  “I don’t know anything about your dad! Except that he is one scary guy.”

  Which was the wrong thing to say. Again.

  “He isn’t!” Kelsie cried, looking like she was about to swing the bag at him. At least it would be lighter now. But this was not going well.

  Ethan gave in to the voice. “He is when he’s carrying a gun that big, Kels. And wearing a mask. But maybe that’s not his usual outfit?”

  The words seemed to make a difference. She looked at him, her eyes bright and green and sad. “I guess you were scared. You were all pretty scared in there.”

  “Well, I was, anyway.”

  “I still can’t believe he did it. He’s not like that. He’s never hurt anyone.” Kelsie leaned on the wall beside the guitar billboard. The pulsing neon light was making a halo of her hair. “Now the Bagrovs are looking for my dad and me. I can’t even go home.”

  “I can’t go home either,” Ethan said, and that made her turn and look at him again. Really look at him, like they shared something.

  The weird thing was, he’d said it with his real voice. And it had worked. Maybe if he stuck to honesty for once . . .

  “All I wanted was a ride home. That’s how this whole thing started. The Craig gave me a ride.”

  “Seriously? That guy did you a favor?”

  “He thought I was someone else. One of his boss’s, um, henchmen.”

  Kelsie nodded. “I can see how you convinced him, what with your knowledge of criminal lingo. Seriously? ‘Henchmen’?”

  She was making fun of him, but he didn’t mind. There was nothing mean in it. Just the fact that she was talking to him made anything she said okay.

  But then her eyes fell. “My dad’s always been a criminal, as long as I can remember. But he doesn’t rob banks. He owed money.”

  Ethan wondered what kind of cash-flow problem would drive a guy to rob a bank. For a moment he was glad for his voice. He could always weasel his way into money when he needed it, or get a free ride somehow. And usually with less danger than the average bank robbery.

  As long as he didn’t get any more rides from paranoid drug dealers.

  “How’d you know all that stuff about us?” Kelsie asked. “You said our names. You mentioned . . . my mom.”

  Ethan sighed. She was never going to let this go.

  And Ethan found he really wanted her to be okay. She’d saved him twice already that night. Plus she was cute and sad and lonely, and Ethan got that. He was lonely too. He wanted her to like him for more than just the next five minutes.

  Whatever helps Kelsie the most, he thought. Whatever makes us closer.

  He hoped those two things went together. Then he let the voice take over.

  “That wasn’t me talking,” Ethan heard himself say. “That was this thing inside me. My other voice.”

  CHAPTER 51

  ANONYMOUS

  THIBAULT KEPT A FIRM, STEADY grip on Riley’s arm. She sat on the pavement, swaying, head in hands.

  “Anon,” she murmured again.

  “Still here.”

  Riley’s connections were always hard to read. Other people’s were mostly single-strand visual threads, but all of Riley’s senses played a part in hers. Right now her attention was all around him, a shimmer in the dark alley, like oil rainbows in the air.

  She lifted her face, pale behind dark glasses. “Ugh, wow. Too many people. Too much everything.”

  “There’s a bench over there.” He pointed, then realized the gesture was useless. “Back near Ivy.”

  “The ground is fine for now,” Riley said, pulling her arm free and taking his hand.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  At the mouth of the alley the crowd milled past, as if they hadn’t been rioting a minute ago—or brawling, or dancing, whatever the hell that had been.

  Who’d have thought a handful of money would drive people so crazy?

  Kelsie had, apparently. And now she and Ethan had disappeared. Into one of the clubs, probably. It would take him all night to search every place on the strip.

  But he couldn’t even start, with Riley sick like this.

  She leaned against h
im. “This is so weird. It’s like I’ve stepped into one of Lily’s stories.”

  Lily. Her twin sister. But what stories?

  “Um, maybe you hit your head. You sound a little concussed.” But her connection didn’t feel concussed. It coiled and gleamed around him very intently.

  “No, I just got spread out too far.”

  It took Thibault a moment to process this. “Your sight, you mean?”

  “It was such a big crowd, and so frenzied, diving after that money. All those eyeballs got jumbled up and . . .” Her head dropped forward into one hand, and she took a few deep breaths.

  “Maybe think about something else, Riley.”

  “Call me Flicker.”

  “Sure, okay. I guess this is kind of a mission.”

  “No, I just like Flicker.” She turned her head and managed a smile. “It fits me better.”

  He’d never really talked to Riley, alone. And he hadn’t spied on her as much as he had the other Zeroes. Using his anonymity to spy on any girl felt like stalking. But spying on a blind girl seemed way over the line.

  And of all of them she seemed least likely to do something dangerous with her power. She was too levelheaded.

  “Flicker it is. You can call me Thibault, if you want.”

  “Thibault, right. But I kind of like Anon. I always thought it was funny, how no one can see you, but they can say, See you, Anon.”

  “Yeah, Nate’s little joke on me.”

  “He’s not that subtle,” she said. “But he does like Shakespeare. Macbeth, mostly.”

  Thibault laughed, surprised. Usually Riley—Flicker—had nothing but praise for Nate. Glorious Leader’s little sister, Ethan used to call her. Which made what the voice had said to them last summer that much squickier.

  “Okay, Anon.” Riley stood, letting go of his hand to brace herself against the alley wall. Thibault rose beside her. She wavered and took his arm. “Where did you say that bench was?”

  “This way.”

  Even with the riot finished, a lot of people were going by on Ivy, forming a glittering web of attention. Thibault waited for their signals to fray the bond between Flicker and him.

  But Flicker’s awareness of him stayed bright, shifting on the air. It was so different from someone using their eyes. She was taking in messages with her whole body. Her hand shimmered in the crook of his arm, picking up the pressure of his elbow. When he nudged an empty beer can out of her path with his bare foot, filaments of her attention reached down toward the sound.

  He could feel it on his skin, the way she was listening to him breathe.

  When her knee brushed the bench, she let go of Thibault and sat down with a swirl of her long red skirt. She patted the seat beside her.

  “Sit close, Anon, so I don’t lose you.”

  “I’m used to people losing me,” he said, obeying.

  “Not me.” She smiled past him toward Ivy Street. “I found you in that stampede, after all.”

  “That was crazy, wasn’t it? This girl who was with us started it. On purpose. She threw a bunch of cash into the air.”

  “I saw her,” Flicker said. “In the shiny dress. Who the hell was she?”

  “Kelsie, the daughter of one of the bank robbers. Scam’s voice mentioned her—you know about the bank video, right? So now she wants answers from Ethan.” He shrugged. “That’s why she saved us, I guess. Just showed up and warned us about these goons who were coming for Ethan. The guys he stole money from.”

  “I saw them, too,” Flicker said

  Of course, she wasn’t really blind. Thankfully, she wasn’t using her sight now. He hated to think what he looked like. Sweaty and disheveled, with dirty bare feet.

  “She threw money in the air to get Ethan away from them,” he said. “She knows how to make an exit, all right. I’ve never seen a crowd go nuts like that, even over free cash.”

  “It wasn’t just the money,” Flicker said quietly. “I saw something else at work. Nate saw it too.”

  “Nate was here?” Something went off in Thibault’s head, and he pulled away from her. “Wait a minute. What were you doing here?”

  She turned to face him. “I was kind of . . . spying on you.”

  Thibault swallowed. “Spying?”

  “I was in the lobby of the Hotel Magnifique when all this started. I saw those guys come in, the ones all in black. I tried to warn you they were headed up to the penthouse.”

  She knew about the penthouse? A hollowness opened up in his stomach.

  “But then you got away,” said Flicker, “with that girl, out the back. And when I saw where you were headed, I told Nate.”

  Thibault stood up and took a few steps back from her. Flicker’s senses reached after him, soft bright tendrils. Her interest churned like liquid opal in the air. Broken glass glinted around his bare feet, but right now he hardly cared.

  “So Nate knows about the Magnifique?”

  Flicker shook her head. “It’s not in his file.”

  “You’ve read his file on me? And he sent you to keep watch on us?”

  “That’s not the way it was, Anon.”

  Her attention wisped at his mouth every time he spoke. He wanted to chop it away and vanish. “He’s known since that camping trip, hasn’t he? Gets me a little drunk, makes me drop hints. Bastard.”

  “No.” Flicker slipped her glasses back on. “I figured it out myself.”

  Thibault hesitated, hanging on to his anger.

  She reached out a hand. “Before I lose you, Anon. Let me explain.”

  Their connection was dimming. It had only taken a few steps’ distance, a jolt of anger, and the filaments connecting them had faded. He could just stand here and disappear.

  But what did she mean, she’d figured it out?

  He sat down again. Not as close this time.

  “How?” he demanded.

  “In Nate’s file. The photos you took. Cracks in the wall, faded paint. They were beautiful.”

  Despite his anger, Thibault felt a blush creeping up his face. His wabi-sabi photography phase had ended a year ago. The thought of anyone else seeing his artsy photos, those earnest images of transient imperfections, was like someone leafing through his middle-school poetry.

  “But how did you find me with those?”

  “I matched them to where they were taken.” She was smiling now, proud of herself. “All it took was a little help from Lily, and borrowing a few thousand eyeballs. After a while I noticed that all the locations were clustered around the Magnifique.”

  “Whoa” was all he could say.

  “I know, it was sneaky. But with everyone looking for Scam, I was worried. Plus, I was curious about you.”

  She sat very still, her senses looped around him to assess how he was taking this.

  How was he taking it? His gut was a tangle of feelings.

  But something didn’t quite add up. “Wait. How did you keep me in your mind long enough to hunt me down?”

  “With help from my sister, Lily. She told me stories about you.”

  Thibault shook his head. “But how does she know anything?”

  She’s not even a Zero. It made his skin crawl that someone outside the group was involved. Bad enough having Glorious Leader prying into your life, but a stranger?

  “She starts with something real, from the file, then adds to it. She weaves it into the kind of story she knows I like.”

  “So she’s just making stuff up?”

  “Pretty much. But her stories have enough reality in them that fictional you connects up with real you. At least, that’s what I think’s happening.”

  Thibault couldn’t speak for astonishment.

  “So are you mad at me?” said Flicker.

  He didn’t answer. Part of him felt furious, violated, betrayed. But another part was still that kid who craved someone seeing him. And the way she’d tracked him down was amazing—beautiful, even.

  And in a way, none of it mattered anymore.

&nbs
p; “Well, I guess it’s no big deal, you knowing where I live. As of half an hour ago I don’t live there anymore.”

  She nodded. “Right. Because those guys who were chasing Scam know about it now.”

  “Worse. The hotel might.” He told her about the laptop, the manager’s login. She listened, and winced in sympathy a few times, and not once did her attention drift off him. Yes, this is what it’s like when normal people talk to each other.

  “What next?” she said when he finished. “Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I have a backup hotel.” Of course, those passwords had been in his laptop too. He could download them from the cloud, but with what? Thanks to Chizara, he didn’t even have a working phone. “I’ll manage something. But let me drive you home. Nate’s car is still in the Magnifique garage.”

  “Thanks, Anon. I’m not really up to the bus. And hey, my mom keeps spare toothbrushes in our bathroom drawer.” She smiled. “I mean, assuming you don’t have one on you.”

  “Um, no.” It was starting to dawn on Thibault that he had nothing. It didn’t get much more Zen than this. “I don’t even have shoes.”

  “Yeah, I saw.” Flicker shook her head. She was getting her color back, breathing easier. “I doubt my mom has any spare shoes that fit you.”

  “Still, a toothbrush,” he said. “Every little bit helps.”

  She lifted her face, as if she were staring at him through the dark glasses. It was weird, feeling such a strong connection to someone who couldn’t even meet his eyes. Weird, but he liked it.

  “Good, then,” she said. “A ride home would be lovely, Anon.”

  CHAPTER 52

  SCAM

  ETHAN STOOD ON THE ROOF of the Boom Room, gaping dumbly at Kelsie.

  He couldn’t believe what had just happened. In all his years living with it, the voice had never outed itself.

  “Your other what?” Kelsie said.

  Ethan opened his mouth, waiting for the voice to jump into action again.

  Nothing.

  Great. Kelsie was expecting him to say something revealing, something honest, something that made sense, and the voice had left the building.

  What the hell was it up to? Was the voice pulling some crazy mind judo because it thought this was the way for Ethan to get close to Kelsie? By talking for himself?