Duplicity Read online

  I touch the spikes in my ears, counting seven in each one, and steady my breathing. They’re still there. I run the piercing in my tongue along the roof of my mouth.

  (Did I take something this morning?)

  Caffeine pills. Unless I grabbed the wrong thing. Which is completely possible, because Mom has all sorts of unlabeled junk in our medicine cabinet, and that’s when all this started, isn’t it? Yes, it is, so it must be the pills. They’ll wear off soon. They have to. They have to.

  I lean against the wall awhile, willing my heart rate to lower, until I imagine that thing coming out of the mirror after me and I get moving. I touch my ears every few seconds and chew my cheek. Nothing else goes missing. Maybe it can only change me in front of a mirror.

  And now I’m coming up with rules for nutcases.

  “Brandon. On your way back to class?”

  I jump and turn to see Mom’s nemesis, Principal Myer, with his arms crossed over his pinstripe suit and a knowing, stalkerish glint in his eye. I haven’t spent much time in his office the past few weeks because of Em—er, it doesn’t matter—but I’m not in the mood to tick Mom off today with another of his phone calls.

  “Yeah,” I say, and set my course for Spanish. Principal Myer’s footsteps follow me the whole way and soon I’m back in my seat next to Dave, pushing my fingers into my temples and focusing on my questions and not looking anywhere else.

  * * *

  The bell finally announces the end of third period. I slip out before most of the kids have gathered their things and head for The Corner, thinking about trig, thinking about fifty grand, thinking about anything but that (because it’s just the pills, they’ll wear off soon and I’ll be fine), when someone jumps on my back and wraps fishnet legs around my waist.

  I hope she didn’t feel me flinch.

  “Ginger. Off,” I say, untangling her arms.

  She giggles and kisses my neck before dropping down, but her smile fades when she twirls up next to me. “You’re pale, babe. And where’s your shine?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You cleaning up for that preppy?” She scrutinizes my ears.

  So I’m not hallucinating that my metal’s going AWOL. I don’t know if that makes the whole thing better or worse, because if she’s seeing what I’m seeing then I’m either taking out the metal myself, and what happens in the mirror is what I’m actually doing, or—

  I don’t want to think about “or.”

  “Just felt like leaving them out today,” I say. “And shut up about that girl.”

  “Mmm, did I hit a nerve?”

  She cups her hand around my arm. I’m tired of shrugging her off so I just let it stay there.

  “I kind of … like it, actually,” Ginger says, gazing up at me. “Wait, you still have the one in your tongue, right?”

  I make a face at her, but from her smile, I know she caught a glint of the metal. “Why does that matter?” I ask.

  “No reason.”

  She slides her fingers down my arm. This time I toss her off.

  “Brandon, we are Facebook official,” she huffs, shoving her phone in my face. “See? Status: In a relationship with Brandon Eriks. Can you at least act like you kind of like me?”

  “Believe it or not, I have bigger problems than you today,” I say, pushing the phone away. “So no, I can’t, and when the hell did you send me a request? I would’ve ignored it.”

  I flip my phone out of my pocket.

  Ginger laughs. “You’re not the only hacker I know, you know.”

  My fingers freeze mid-Facebook breakup. If she sent him after me, if she’s the reason I’m seeing things—

  “Sniper said he only changed your status,” she says, biting her lip like it wasn’t her idea.

  I breathe out slow and scan the room for Bruce “Sniper” Collins, but I’m already relaxing. Sniper isn’t near smart enough to write a virus, and I’m eighty percent certain the reason he got into my Facebook account is because I gave him my password for a class assignment. I spot him finally, his arms crossed over his doughboy belly, frowning at me across the room.

  “Did one of your deals go bad, babe?” Ginger asks, quietly.

  “No,” I snarl. “And stop calling me that.”

  “You are so grumpy today.” She snatches my phone and spins away. I grab for it, but she drops it down the lacy front of her shirt, evil grin spread ear to ear. “You need to relax. How about … you kiss me and I’ll give it back, or you can get it yourself. I don’t mind either way.”

  “I can’t be late for history. Give it back.”

  “Make me.”

  This. This ridiculousness right here, this is why Ginger and I will never work. Emma never played games like this. Emma never—

  “Fine,” I say, and in one move I pin her wrists behind her back and press my free hand up her shirt, which is when I realize there’s a layer under it that’s impossibly tight and rigid and feels a lot like a corset. A few months ago that would’ve been enough to find an unlocked closet and see what other school rules we could break, but now I feel nothing, nothing but the bottom of the phone, which I yank free. Ginger blushes mad red.

  And I feel nothing.

  “See? This doesn’t have to be difficult,” she says, breathless.

  I flip my phone around so she can watch me change my status to single.

  4. TACO HELL

  LUNCH BELL RINGS. Eleven-thirty.

  Game time.

  I take the long way to the east exit because the short route involves a mirror. I’ve otherwise decided to ignore my little … problem. I don’t know how long Mom’s drugs will last and I’m not ready to make a fool of myself in front of a counselor, so life goes on.

  And I have a deal to make.

  I push out the door, blink in the Colorado sun, and check the wall for my contact. Jax waits near the corner of the building, strategically positioned in the blind spot of Ponderosa High’s security cameras, a black suit against the bricks. Aviator shades. Hair slicked like Mr. Smith from The Matrix. I know he’s got a gun on him, but for some reason that makes me feel safer.

  “Boss appreciates you, kid,” Jax says, and I have to move closer because his voice is never more than a husky whisper. He takes a long draw of his cigarette, then crushes it beneath a Gucci dress shoe. “You get Socials?”

  “Next time.”

  I press the drive into his palm.

  “That’s too bad,” he says. “You worried the Project’s gonna snatch you up?”

  Coming from Jax, I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a joke. I try a smile that Jax halfway returns.

  “Yeah, I’m real worried my laptop’s going to transport me to Mars,” I say. “Just like I’m worried I’ll meet Bigfoot on my drive home.”

  “Never know, kid,” Jax says, waggling the zip drive. “You turning down a hundred-K by not bringing me Socials is just as crazy as thinking some Internet ghost is going to zap you outta your chair.”

  I snicker at that, thinking my mirror problem can top any crazy online hoax he can think up, except Jax isn’t the kind of guy you snicker in front of. I turn it into a cough.

  “How long ’til your next drop?” he asks, unsmiling.

  “I’m staying clean at least a month,” I say.

  Jax pulls a silver tablet from his coat and plugs the drive in, checking my work. Like I’ve ever given him less than perfection.

  Least he’d never call me a waste of talent.

  “All right,” Jax says, a minute later. “Check’s in the mail.”

  I wake my phone and tap into my account, smiling at the number when it flashes. Two more taps and I’ve transferred the funds to my cloaked account, where it can’t be “accidentally” withdrawn. Or tracked. Or traced.

  “Hey,” Jax says, “you ever want to work full time, we’ll keep you out of trouble.”

  I know this. He asks me every time and I’ve thought about it, a lot. Dropping out of school would piss Dad of
f to no end. And I could get away from prying teachers, prying friends, prying girls …

  But I see myself in Jax’s glasses, and I don’t look like I want to say yes.

  “I’ll let you know,” I say.

  I have to walk around to the front entrance to get back in since they lock the side doors during the day. I don’t remember much of the walk because I’m thinking about the hundred thousand dollars sunning in my account and what I’ll do with it. Dad wouldn’t be surprised by another tattoo so that’s a no-go. Maybe it’s time for something big, like that ZR1. Something that could get me in real trouble if the IRS came sniffing around, asking where I got the dough for it.

  Then I think a stunt like that would probably land me in prison.

  I might do okay in juvie but if they charge me as an adult—

  A group of girls makes a wide arc around me, whispering and tittering. The late bell for fifth period slash A-lunch sounds and the crowds thin as I make my way to The Corner, though I almost go right instead of left out of habit, which would have taken me to the lunchroom.

  Where I would normally meet Emma.

  I turn left.

  Deathrow and his crowd glare at me as I pass, which is what I get for being gone for three weeks, I guess, so I sidle in next to Amber, a rocker chick who could probably beat me up, to see where her group’s going to eat.

  Amber sneers at me. “I saw your Facebook status. You could come if you weren’t dating the devil.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Sweetheart!” sings the devil, and I turn and there she is, Beretta on her arm.

  I think about juvie again.

  “Taco Bell?” Ginger asks, twirling her keys.

  “Fine,” I say, because I won’t be eating otherwise.

  “Yes, I’m starving for dead cow!” Beretta says, drumming her fingers on her lips.

  Ginger pushes her away, and not gently. “Not you. Just Brandon.” She reaches for my hand. I back away. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “Let her come, Ginge. I don’t want to be alone with you.”

  Beretta grins wide at Ginger, who scowls at her until that smile fades.

  “Fine,” Beretta says. “I don’t want to play third wheel anyway. I’m going to see where Deathrow’s going.”

  “Beretta—” I say.

  “C’mon,” Ginger says. She takes my arm and tows me toward the hall. I look back over my shoulder, but Beretta just shrugs and flashes her zombie fangs.

  “You’ll be glad she didn’t come,” Ginger says as we push out the front doors.

  I highly doubt that.

  * * *

  A dusty rest stop on the back roads doesn’t look anything like Taco Bell. That’s what I get for not paying attention, for slouching way down in the seat with my boots on the dash so I can’t see myself in any of the mirrors in Ginger’s Celica. I peek up just enough to see the hills around us and the ranches tucked into the grass. And a lone group of pine trees that blocks us from view of the road.

  I recognize this place, and everything inside me tightens.

  “I actually am starving,” I say. “I didn’t get breakfast.”

  I sit up, catch a glimpse of the right-hand mirror, and sink down immediately. Ginger unclicks her seat belt and crawls over the console, propping a knee on either side of my hips.

  “I told you I’d make it up to you. I keep my promises,” she says, pulling off her shirt to reveal a hot pink-and-black corset. One of my old favorites.

  I clench my fists and keep my eyes on her face. “What part of ‘I need help with trig’ didn’t you understand?”

  She laughs and pushes the lock on my seat belt. It whizzes back against the door.

  “I don’t take trig until next semester.” She presses her lips to mine. I grab her shoulders and hold her away.

  “And what part of ‘it’s over’ didn’t you understand?”

  “Please. Prom Queen Barbie has you all confused. I have to intervene. You belong with us, Brandon.” She tilts the lever on my seat. It drops horizontal with a stomach-sinking jerk. “You belong with me.”

  She kisses me again, cold fingertips wandering my waistline. I don’t want this, I don’t want her, but she seems to be the only one who cares right now and I … I need something to distract me. Because I think I messed up. Because Emma wasn’t just—I push her out of my head. Ginger’s touch feels like dry ice, sparking fire up my veins. I open my mouth to hers. Draw my fingers up her arms. And then something else takes over, something that moves my hands to her waist, then under the sides of her corset, skin on skin, creeping higher, greedy greedy greedy.

  Ginger sighs and unclasps my belt. I find the zipper at the back of her shirt. Tug it down. Neon yellow skulls grin at me from her bra, and Ginger moves her lips to my neck, under my chin, then she concentrates a moment on the top button of my jeans.

  Behind her, the rearview mirror squeaks.

  And that greed flushes right out of my system.

  My double’s sitting in the driver’s seat on the other side of the mirror, adjusting the glass with one hand. It puts a finger to its lips.

  Shhh.

  This can’t be happening. Mom’s freak drugs should’ve worn off by now and even if they haven’t, how could it … how could it move the mirror? And where is Ginger? I can’t see the passenger seat from this angle. Maybe in “other world,” Ginger has a double, too, who actually knows something about math and has a Taco Bell burrito ready to go. Other Brandon smirks at me. The real Ginger’s hands dip south, making me jump.

  “Ginge, your hands are freaking ice.”

  I twist upright and grab her wrists, eyes on the mirror.

  “Then warm them up for me,” Ginger coos. She traces arctic fingers up the back of my shirt, but that’s not why I shiver.

  The mirror turns again.

  The top bar on my left ear slides free. Ginger’s teeth nibble my other lobe.

  “Dammit, Ginger, stop a second.”

  She sits back. “You didn’t already…?”

  “What?” I blink, insulted. “No. Turn. What do you see in the mirror?”

  She doesn’t look. “Someone who’s going to be very happy three minutes from now.”

  “Three minutes?” I want to defend myself, but I just shake my head. “Ugh, that’s not the point. Look.”

  Ginger rolls her eyes and turns. Over her shoulder I see, and feel, my double pluck another spike from my ear. She had to have seen that. The double goes for a third spike.

  Ginger studies my face.

  “Okay, I think this game would be a lot more fun if I knew what I’m supposed to be looking for,” she says. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  She turns again. Another spike, poof.

  “How are you not seeing that?” I say.

  “Seeing what?” She scrutinizes my eyes. “Are you high or something?”

  “Look at my ears. Notice anything different?”

  “Mmm, did I pull those out?” Her fingers brush the tip of my ear, over the holes for four missing spikes.

  “No!” I point at the mirror. “He did!”

  Ginger looks behind her again, then behind me, then feels my forehead.

  “Sweetie, I think maybe you’re running a fever—”

  “Do I feel hot to you?”

  She smirks. “Well, not your head.”

  “Ginger. Please. You don’t see it … me … sitting in the driver’s seat?”

  She purses her lips and glances at the empty seat next to her. “It’s kinda cramped over there with the steering wheel and all, but we can move if you want.”

  Pluck. Pluck. Two more out, meaning I only have one left in that ear. I shake her shoulders, and yeah, I know what it sounds like and I can’t believe I’m telling Ginger but I need someone to reassure me—

  “No,” I say. “Look. On this side of the mirror, you’re here, and I’m here, in the passenger seat. On the other side of the mirror, I don’t know where you are, because I’m�
�it’s—sitting in the driver’s seat, jacking my shine!”

  She looks at my ear again, then at my hands, locked on her bare waist. She doesn’t see it. She has to see it. I squeeze her hips.

  “I know I sound crazy,” I say, “but when I look in the mirror my reflection moves like … like that’s a window, not a mirror. He wrote … in the bathroom at school…”—Frack, she’ll probably drive me straight to the loony bin after this—“He wrote he was going to ‘fix’ me. Now any time I’m in a room with a mirror he takes out my metal, and he can do stuff on this side, too, like switch off the water or turn the rearview—”

  Ginger puts a finger to my lips. “Okay, I get it, you’re still stuck on Barbie.” She sighs and fetches her corset.

  “You’re not listening. Someone hacked my laptop and said this would happen.”

  “Hacked you?”

  “Yeah, said I’d be meeting ‘my own worst enemy’ and I thought it was a code but—”

  She laughs, bitterly. “Okay, stop. I can take a hint. You want to move to Emma’s crowd and you can’t look like one of us anymore. Kinda cute you feel guilty enough to make up a story.”

  “I’m not making this up!”

  “Babe, just stop talking and zip me.”

  I do, biting my lip the whole time, and the last earring slips from my left ear. The double starts on my right. How could I be doing it to myself if my hands are on Ginger? But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It hasn’t done much more than take out my metal, and that’s hardly life-threatening. So I could be doing it, I guess.

  It could be worse. I could be hallucinating that my double’s trying to kill me, for instance.

  I stop with the zipper halfway up. Is that possible? So far it’s done nothing to hurt me, at least not physically. But I can feel the metal slipping out like a worm, so technically I could feel anything else the double might do.

  Then let’s trade, it wrote.

  If I’m writing to myself, what the hell do I want to trade?

  “Hey, make up your mind,” Ginger says, thrumming her fingers on her knee.

  I spin her around. “I’m not making this up.”

  “I believe you believe it’s real,” she says, frowning.

  “I’ll prove it to you. Take out this spike.” I point to the third bar on my ear. The side mirror flashes. My double reaches for the same one.