There’s no hiding this anymore, he told Lyra on their way to the hospital, as she drifted in and out of consciousness. There’s no covering up.
“I don’t blame you,” Detective Reinhardt went on now, “if you had other things on your mind. Things you wanted to do, for example.”
Detective Reinhardt was looking intently at his cuticles. That was how Lyra understood: he was giving them a way out. He understood she didn’t have much time left.
“I like buses,” she said. Caelum took her hand. “I wouldn’t mind riding some buses again.”
Detective Reinhardt heaved out of his chair, using both arms for leverage. “Amazing things,” he said. “You can go coast to coast on the Greyhound bus line, from Maine to Santa Monica. Did you know that?” He started limping toward the door. “’Course, they won’t discharge you yet. Not without wanting to know your story. And the front entrance is crawling with press.” He paused by the door, turning back to smile at Lyra, and she saw in his expression love, actual love, the kind she’d felt for him in the woods. She barely knew him at all, but he was family. “Of course that’s the problem with hospitals. Always have to be a million exits, because of fire regulations. You can’t cover them all. I saw a stairwell right by the ladies’ room, led right down into the parking lot and not a single person standing guard.”
“Thank you,” Caelum said.
Detective Reinhardt nodded. Then he turned around and fished something from his pocket. “Oh,” he said. “I had one of the nurses run out and pick this up. Thought it might come in handy. Pay-as-you-go. No code.” He tossed a cell phone in the air and it landed at the foot of Lyra’s bed. “Don’t worry. My number’s already in there.”
It was brand-new, made of plastic, and had little numbered buttons. It had a fake-leather case, which snapped closed and could hook to a belt.
Lyra’s throat closed up entirely.
Thank you, she tried to say. But she couldn’t get the words out.
Detective Reinhardt seemed to understand. He touched his fingers to his forehead, once—a kind of salute—and was gone.
Lyra didn’t need to ask where Gemma’s room was; all she and Caelum had to do was listen for the babble of April’s voice. Though Lyra didn’t know April well, she knew her voice right away.
April was sitting at Gemma’s bedside. With her were two women Lyra assumed must be related to April. One of them had April’s warm brown eyes, and the same nest of curly hair. The other one kept a hand on April’s shoulder.
“Looks like you have some more visitors,” Kristina said, when Lyra and Caelum entered. She, too, had drawn a chair up to Gemma’s bedside.
“You’re awake,” Gemma said, sitting up. She was pale but smiling.
“You’re heroes,” April said through a mouthful of candy, pivoting around to face her. “Twizzler?”
Lyra shook her head. But Caelum took one.
“Come on.” The woman with the curly hair gave April a nudge. “Let’s leave them alone for a bit, okay?”
Kristina took the hint and stood up. “I could use a cup of coffee, actually.”
April frowned. “Yeah, sure. But we’ll come back, right?” She pointed a Twizzler at Gemma. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gemma said, and rolled her eyes.
Kristina bent down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “I’ll be right back,” she said.
Lyra almost laughed. And she nearly cried, too. The sun through the blinds looked almost solid. It was beautiful, she thought. It was all so beautiful.
She would miss Gemma.
Maybe Caelum knew what she was thinking, because he reached for Lyra’s hand and squeezed.
“How are you?” Gemma asked, after the others had left. “How are you feeling?” That was so like Gemma: she was the one who had nearly died, and still she was worried about Lyra.
“We’re fine,” she said. Caelum’s hand was warm in hers. It was both true and not true, of course. She was still dying, of a disease for which there was no cure.
But it was like Caelum had said: she wasn’t dead yet.
Not today.
Already, the words she’d taken from Dr. O’Donnell were beginning to turn, to flow, to do their work.
“April was right,” Gemma said. “You’re both heroes. I can’t believe you found me.”
Lyra wondered whether anyone had told her about Calliope. She knew that Gemma would be sorry, even though Calliope was broken, even though Calliope had killed people. That was the kind of person Gemma was.
“That’s what friends do,” Lyra said. “They find each other.”
Gemma beamed. It was like her smile split her face open, and sunshine poured out of it. “Exactly.”
The look on Gemma’s face, the way she smiled, the understanding that Gemma would mourn Calliope even though Calliope had never mourned anyone—all of it warmed Lyra’s whole body and moved her forward, to Gemma’s bedside, compelled by an instinct that for years had remained buried. But now it broke free of its casing. She made her body into a seashell and gathered Gemma in the curve of her chest and spine. She didn’t think about doing it. Her body just knew it, remembered the impulse, the idea of warmth and closeness, as if all along the knowledge had been there, working through her blood.
And for the first time ever, Lyra and Gemma hugged.
“Thank you,” Lyra whispered into Gemma’s hair, which still smelled, faintly, like smoke. Words were funny things, she thought. The best ones carried dozens of other words nestled inside of them. “Thank you,” she repeated.
I love you, she thought. Good-bye.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 28 of Gemma’s story.
TWENTY-NINE
THEY COULD HAVE BEEN ANYONE, going anywhere. There was a joy in that, in the absorption: they were caught up in the great big heartbeat of the world. They were infinitely large and infinitely small. They were a single vein of feeling, an infinitely narrow possibility that had somehow come to be.
They could have vanished, right there, from the bus stop, and who’s to say whether anyone would have noticed, what would have changed, and whether somewhere in the rippling universe a wave would turn or fall or change directions.
But they didn’t vanish.
They sat in the sun, sweating, holding hands, and avoiding the gum on the underside of the bench when they moved their legs. They breathed the smell of exhaust. They saw people pass, a wash of sneakers and colors and cell phones. They sat for hours without speaking, without moving, without impatience or desire. Their hands were so tightly intertwined that looking at them you could not immediately say whose was whose. The sun wheeled through the sky; it turned its infinite cartwheel and blinded them when they stared directly.
And Lyra, sitting there, knew at last that she had found her story. It was not, after all, a story of escape and fear and fences. It was not a story about power, and so, after all, she did not have to play the role of sacrifice.
The story, her story, was about a girl and a boy on a bench, holding hands, watching bus after bus arrive and leave again. And because it was her story, that was all right: there was no hurry, no rush to get anywhere. The universe slowed, and both the past and future fell like a shadow flattened beneath the sun. The girl and boy sat, and watched, and time dropped a hand over them. It held them there, together, safe, and in love.
And in her story, they stayed that way.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 29 of Gemma’s story.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by
Charles Grantham
LAUREN OLIVER is the cofounder of the media and content development company Glasstown Entertainment, where she serves as the president of production. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren’s bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by AwesomenessTV; Before I Fall has been made into a major motion picture.
Her novels for middle grade readers include The Spindlers, Liesl & Po, and the Curiosity House series, cowritten with H. C. Chester. She has written one novel for adults, Rooms.
A graduate of the University of Chicago and NYU’s MFA program, Lauren Oliver divides her time between New York, Connecticut, and a variety of airport lounges. You can visit her online at www.laurenoliverbooks.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY LAUREN OLIVER
Liesl & Po
The Spindlers
Curiosity House Series
Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head
Curiosity House: The Screaming Statue
The Delirium Series
Delirium
Pandemonium
Requiem
Delirium: The Complete Collection
Hana
Annabel
Raven
Alex
The Book of Shhh
Before I Fall
Panic
Vanishing Girls
The Lauren Oliver Collection
Replica
Ringer
For Adults
Rooms
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Although many of the larger geographical areas indicated in this book do, in fact, exist, most (if not all) of the streets, landmarks, and other place names are of the author’s invention.
RINGER. Copyright © 2017 by Laura Schechter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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EPub Edition © September 2017 ISBN 9780062394217
ISBN 978-0-06-239419-4 (hardcover edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-269313-6 (international edition)
* * *
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FIRST EDITION
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Lauren Oliver, Ringer
(Series: Replica # 2)
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