I headed toward what was the music wing back home. Here it looked like tech classes—industrial equipment and car parts were visible through the windows. I’d wring Monty’s neck when I found him. The first time Addie taught me something good, and he’d spoiled it. He was probably off looking for dessert.
Intent on listening for pivots, I hadn’t realized someone was rounding the corner until he slammed into me. I fell backward, swearing.
“Watch where you’re going!” Simon snapped.
“You?” I was losing track of how many Simons I’d found. Sometimes the strings making up an Echo would cross with the Key World, causing duplication, but I’d never heard of it happening this often. I rubbed my stinging elbow. “I’m fine, thanks. Don’t bother to help me up.”
He paused and held out his hand. I took it, nearly gasping as the break in his frequency crashed into me. He looked me over, annoyance changing to amusement. “Nice uniform.”
“I’m not really a uniform kind of girl.”
“Excellent. Maybe they’ll leave me alone and go after you.”
Now I studied him more closely—he wore the same tan pants and sweater as the students I’d seen earlier, but the chinos were threadbare, hanging low on his hips, and his hair stood in unruly, gelled spikes, porcupine-style. His frequency wasn’t the only volatile thing about him.
“They?”
His smile flashed. A tattoo circled around his wrist—a vine, intricate tendrils spiraling across his skin. My mouth went dry.
“They won’t care if you’re new, either,” he said. “ ‘Ignorance of the rules is no excuse for breaking them.’ They never mention the part where they keep us ignorant about the real world.”
Okay. Clearly this was Angry Dystopian Simon. Monty’s choice made more sense now. A world with fewer choices made for a more stable environment, and the breaks would be easier to identify. In his own way, he’d been trying to help. “I’m just visiting.”
“Lucky girl.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Are you supposed to be somewhere? Everyone else . . .”
“Do I look like everyone else?” He braced an arm against the wall, leaning so close his breath feathered across my cheek.
“No,” I squeaked, and he laughed.
“I got called down to the office. You’re making me late.” He didn’t sound bothered. “Might as well cut. Want to come with?”
“Cut?” This was new—Simon as the rule breaker, me as the voice of reason. “What happens if they catch us?”
“I’m already in trouble,” he said, and took my hand, tugging me toward the nearest door. He was in more trouble than he knew. His break was stronger than any of the ones in the cafeteria. If I’d listened to Monty the other day, I could have tuned him. “What’s a little more?”
“Del! Where are you going?”
Addie clipped down the hallway, boots clicking on the linoleum, Monty in tow. I couldn’t let her hear Simon’s signal. She’d know immediately that he was a break, and she’d report it. “I can’t really handle any more trouble today. But you should go.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Another time,” I said, not meaning it, but desperate to get him away from Addie’s scrutiny. “Someone’s coming.”
He turned on his heel and strolled away, moving fast without seeming to rush.
“You were supposed to stay with us,” I scolded Monty when Simon was out of earshot.
“He was in the office. We’re lucky nobody saw him.” She squinted at Simon’s retreating form. “Is that the basketball player?”
“Kind of.” Before she could say anything else, I asked, “Back to the cafeteria?”
“As long as Grandpa stays put,” she said.
“Bah. I’m here now, aren’t I?” he replied, unabashed. “Let’s see how she handles those breaks.”
I handled them pretty easily, to Addie’s continued surprise. How I’d handled Simon’s break was more worrisome.
Seeing Simon at the reform school, as I’d privately christened it, had put Addie on high alert. For the rest of the week, everywhere we Walked, she looked for him. More often than not, we found him.
There was Simon the drummer, who wore black T-shirts that clung to his biceps and had a line of eyebrow piercings. Shy Simon, who helped me reach a library book I had no intention of checking out and vanished into the stacks. Simon the science geek, who spent the better part of an hour discussing relativity with me until Addie shot down his theory with basic Walker physics. Simon the horndog, who managed to ask Addie and me out in the space of fifteen minutes. (“Not my type,” she’d responded, witheringly. I’d laughed all the way home.)
“I’m telling you,” Addie said. “There’s something strange about him.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, checking my phone. Eliot hadn’t made much progress researching the problems in Park World, but his map was running smoothly. “Every Walk we take is either at school or in town. He’s not the only Echo we keep seeing.”
Bree Carlson, for example, though she never noticed me. She shifted as dramatically as Simon did, from Goth to cheerleader to teacher’s pet. In some Echoes she and Simon were obviously a couple, but in others they barely crossed paths. I liked to think the lack of continuity between their Echoes was a sign they weren’t supposed to be together in the Key World, where Bree was pursuing Simon like a lioness about to take down a really tall, hot zebra.
“Yeah, but Simon’s the one you keep running into. It’s not an accident, Del. You’re looking for him.”
“He’s easy to look at.” In truth, his frequent appearances unnerved me, too. But aside from Dystopian Simon, his recent Echoes had sounded stable, so I chalked it up to coincidence.
This time we’d found Simon the student council president. Clean-scrubbed, smart and sensible, and not a member of the basketball team. Instead, he was running the concession stand with Bree.
“Who knew filling the popcorn machine was so tough?” I muttered the third time Bree needed Simon’s help to make a fresh batch.
“Who cares? The break’s somewhere in the concession stand. Isolate it, we’ll grab Grandpa and Eliot, and go home.”
Monty had wandered off too many times recently, so we’d pressed poor Eliot into service—they were inside watching the game and tracking pivots while we worked in the nearly deserted lobby. Bree’s laughter trailed across the room, and Simon’s answering chuckle followed.
“Gladly,” I said. Simon’s back was to me, and Bree was too focused on him to notice anything else—least of all a Walker.
“Cassidy’s having people over after the game,” Bree was saying. “We should check it out.”
“For a few minutes,” he said.
“A few?” She pretended to pout, lowered her voice to a purr. “We’d have fun. I guarantee it.”
“I bet,” he said, a smile in his tone. Jealousy squeezed my lungs.
“Excuse me,” I said, leaning over the counter. My fingertips barely touched his elbow, but his frequency—like the feedback from a microphone—ricocheted through me.
Simon turned, his smile broadening. “What can I get you?”
Damn it. He was the break, same as at the reform school. This time I couldn’t hide him from Addie. My mind raced, and he frowned. “You know what you want?”
For you to stabilize. “A Coke, please.”
Bree’s gaze shifted to me, and I could feel her annoyance from ten feet away, as clear as Simon’s break.
He plucked the can from a cooler and handed it over, melting ice dripping over our hands. “Buck fifty.”
“Thanks.” I threw the money on the counter and fled back to Addie.