Duplicity (2 page)

Of course it does. It's a mirror.

But I swear when I threw the shards away, my reflection flipped me off.

 

2. “OTHER” BRANDON

“BRANDON!”

Someone pounds on my door, hard enough that it sounds like it's the third or fourth knock, not the first. I jerk my head up and wince as my face pries itself from the keyboard. My laptop screen flashes to life. I squint as it comes into focus, cursor blinking after the random set of characters my cheek pushed, underneath a message that says
RUN SUCCESSFUL.

Above that, it says
ZOOMFISH
.

What the—

“Brandon! Don't you have class at seven-thirty?”

I check the clock. Eight-twenty
A.M
., meaning I've already missed first period and will be running on three hours' sleep. Last I looked, it was five
A.M
. and I still hadn't found the damn virus. The activity log on my laptop claims I didn't even turn my computer on until nine last night, an hour after my new stalker made his threats.

Like it never happened.

“I'll take this thing off by its hinges,” Dad says, rattling the handle. “What did you do to this lock?”

I breathe out and slog across the room, push a key code into the box by the door, and twist open the knob. Dad glares up at me (he has to glare up at
everyone
, even Mom) and adjusts his nerd's glasses. I'd say he looks mad, but he always looks like that.

“God, you're a waste of talent,” he says. “You can build code locks but you can't do better than a C in history?”

“Missed you, too,” I grumble.

“Save it. I'm supposed to be on a conference call with London right now, after getting absolutely no sleep on the redeye from Atlanta. But no, instead I'm excusing myself to see if my
high school junior
has got himself to class yet. Did you sleep in all last week while I was gone?”

I think about that and make a face. Not because I ditched, but because … I didn't. Because I started meeting Emma before school—

“Brandon, when are you going to grow up?” Dad shouts. “I shouldn't have to babysit you at seventeen! Dammit, I—” His face pinches. A muscle works in his jaw as he pokes a bony finger into my chest. “Get your things. You have ten minutes, then I'm driving you to school.”

“What?” I say, though it's more of a squeak (shut up) because I can't decide if I'm stoked he's driving me or terrified to be dropped off in public. “No, I'll get ready fast, I'll drive myself—”

“No. I'm done with your games. What are you missing right now?”

“Creative writing. It's a joke.”

“Oh, which means you're getting an A, of course, so you can afford to skip?”

I close my mouth.

“Did you do your homework this weekend?”

“Yeah.” It's mostly true. Somewhat true. The more Dad gives me that soul-piercing look, the less sure I am. “I mean, some of it—”

“Nine minutes left. After school, I'm picking you up and you're coming right home and sitting in that living room until I say you can leave.”

He slams the door in my face.

I'm too shocked that he's going to make London wait—so he can drive
me
—to yell my usual snappy comeback. I trace the knuckle dent in my dresser and pull out a Rage Against the Machine tee. Grab a pair of old school jeans off the floor, then it's combat boots over those, a black leather wristband that makes Dad grind his teeth, just need to make sure my hair's jacked up enough to get the same reaction—except my room has no mirror, so I'll have to use the bathroom's.

I glance at my laptop, lid closed on the desk.

It let me run zoomfish, so everything's fine, right?

I listen for Dad and close myself in the bathroom. Dolphins smile at me from the shower curtain, and I shake my head at the seashell tile and think this room is one of the reasons I never bring anyone over. I guess that's the good thing about moving so often. This theme's a year old, so in another six months we'll have a new house and I'll have a new room I don't show to anyone. And new stuff, meaning a dresser without my fist emblazoned on the front, because Mom is all about “New.” Seriously, I've never owned anything for more than two years.

I think of Emma showing me her bracelet.

“It was my grandmother's,” she says. She holds her wrist over our unopened textbooks, angel's smile in place. “Grandpa gave it to her, and she gave it to me before she passed away. Now it's like I always have them with me.”

I reach for her hand. She doesn't pull back. I hold her wrist and trace the tiny gold chain with my thumb, my pale finger against her tan skin, trying to understand how something this old can still exist. It's like trying to see a new color.

“This helps when you miss them?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. Watching my finger on her wrist. She laughs, quietly. “You're going to think I'm crazy, but I can hear Grandma talking to me sometimes when I look at it. Telling me about the night Grandpa gave it to her.”

I turn my arm to see more of my scorpion tattoo. I hear Bev and Eric, my sophomore year friends, cheer as the artist fires up the gun and starts drilling into my skin. I smile.

“Not crazy,” I say.

I grit my teeth. I don't want to think about Emma.

And nothing in this house means anything to me.

I search the medicine cabinet and pop a few caffeine pills. Wet my hand and lean toward the counter-length mirror to run it the wrong way through my hair, and—

My wristband is gone.

I stare at my arm and try to remember if I actually put it on. It's not on the floor or the counter. Of course, it would've been the last thing I grabbed, so maybe I meant to get it when I noticed my broken mirror and came straight to the bathroom instead.

I decide that's what happened. I rake my hair back until it looks like I had a run in with a falcon, which doesn't take much considering I slept on my keyboard, then lean in to check how bloodshot my eyes are. They look clear enough, but last night was a bad night and sometimes I get bored waiting for a bot to finish, but I swear I threw out that rubber cement—

My reflection blinks.

I jerk back. It's not possible,
not possible
, to see yourself blink. I don't feel that tired. I won't until after lunch when the pills run out. I watch myself a moment longer, wanting and not wanting to see it happen again, and when it doesn't I go for the doorknob. My reflection goes for the light switch. I yank the door open just as the room pitches into darkness, bolt into the hall, and slam the door behind me.

I didn't touch the light.

But it's off.

Your own worst enemy
.

I'm going crazy. Apeshit bonkers. Viruses stay on computers, they don't turn into magic curses. This is what happens when you break a mirror? Not that that makes sense either, because the superstition is just bad luck, not freaky reflections moving when they shouldn't.

Yeah, it's finally happened. I've officially lost my mind.

“Brandon, time's up!” Dad yells from downstairs.

I chuckle to myself, because, you know, that's what crazy people do, and grab my backpack off the floor, where it's sat untouched all weekend. To prove I've further gone off the deep end, I contemplate the thumb drive on my desk awhile, the one that should be full of zoomfish's spoils if it worked like it said it did: two hundred names, addresses, routing numbers and passwords for Bank Pueblo's richest clients. If I leave it here, Bank Pueblo may never find out they've been hacked and the owners of those bank accounts will continue on with their happy little lives like there's nothing at all that can hurt them.

I think of Dad calling me a waste of talent.

I snatch the thumb drive off the desk and flip it into my pocket.

*   *   *

“It's time to straighten up, son,” Dad says, as he backs my ten-year-old Corolla out of the driveway. I gaze longingly at the silver BMW Z4 in the garage, which used to be mine before I got three speeding tickets and Dad got sick of shelling out bribe money to keep my license active. Still, it was worth the sacrifice. Dad drove me to school for a whole week after.

“Your mother's working eighty-hour weeks, you know, with not a day off in between. She deserves to come home to a quiet house. You need to think of how hard this is on her, with all the traveling I have to do right now. Yet she still finds time to go to the grocery and clean and fill your pocket with lunch money. It would be nice if you showed some appreciation. No more ditching. No more skipping assignments, and I'm serious this time. You're out of this house as soon as you graduate if you don't have a college lined up, you hear?”

“Whatever.”

I slump against the seat and watch the Corolla's side mirror. Dad starts in about other privileges I'll lose (iPhone, Internet, my human rights) if I continue doing what I've done the past five years, and I tune him out because I've heard it all before. Instead I think about third period. Spanish III. Where I sit right next to Emma Jennings.

“… a total embarrassment for someone in my position. Your mother and I don't understand why you can't just…”

The reflection in the side mirror rolls its eyes. I sit straight up, look at Dad, look back at the mirror, then down at my hands. I'm clenching the seatbelt, but in the mirror, my hand unscrews the bar piercing I have through the bridge of my nose, removes it, and tosses the silver out the window.

I stare at it until the reflection flashes, and it's me again—I mean, it's always been me, but now it's wide-eyed, white-faced me—and I feel up the ridge of my nose.

No more piercing.

“Do you have a test today?” Dad asks. “Is that why you're so nervous?”

“Er, no,” I stammer, refusing now to look at the glass in case something else goes missing. “It's, um, about a girl, kind of. Not exactly excited to—”

“You and Ginger broke it off already? Could've told you that wouldn't last. Girls like that are only trouble, and she knows we have money—”

“God, Dad, Ginger was six months ago! This is … someone else. Doesn't matter, don't want to talk about it,
aaaugh!
”

I jerk back against the seat as my reflection throws both nose rings out the window. It didn't hurt, didn't feel like much of anything, but when I grab my nose I find only the holes where they used to be. I
must
be high. That or it's one of those stupid dreams where your alarm goes off and you eat breakfast and go to school, only to realize you're buck naked, and five minutes later the real alarm goes off and you've never been happier to actually get up.

I'm praying that's what it is. I take a deep breath and run a hand through my hair and sink low so I can't see the mirror.

“Brandon, what is—” The sound of crickets fills the car. Dad fumbles with something in his pocket, almost takes the Corolla up a curb, then flips his cell phone to his ear. “Matthew Eriks speaking. Doug! I'm glad you called, did you get my report…”

That's how we pull into the school lot. Dad yacking with Doug and me feeling up and down my face. I jack the door open while the Corolla's still rolling and get as far away from it as the narrow sidewalk allows, but I don't lose any more metal, and Dad's turned around before I even have a chance to look back.

*   *   *

By the time I get inside, I've convinced myself I forgot to put those piercings in this morning. I'm hallucinating about the mirrors because I'm running on three hours' sleep. There's no other explanation for it.

(Here's the game, hacker.)

No other explanation.

I have five minutes until the bell rings to dismiss first period, so I shove my backpack into my locker and grab my Spanish homework and a pen. It's the only homework I did this weekend, since Emma and I did it together.

Before she ruined everything.

Before she said—

I grit my teeth and stuff the paper in the trash.

I take my usual route down maroon hallways; right, left, left, and I'm in The Corner, a small area that opens to the second floor. Sometimes kids throw crap off the balcony, but they've known for a while now not to throw anything at me. The sun shifts down from windows in the ceiling. I slide against the wall just outside the light. Press my fingers along my nose until I realize what I'm doing and promptly pull out my phone.

The thumb drive in my pocket burns like a hot coal. I fish it out and plug the adaptor into the phone to check that the accounts are actually there. I don't know if I'm more or less confused to see that they are, but I'm not exactly a stranger to doing things I don't remember, so if zoomfish actually worked, I'll roll with it.

200. You game?
I text.

My phone vibrates thirty seconds later.
When can we play?

11.5,
I type. I slip the phone into my pocket as laughter drifts around the corner, soon followed by the last two people I wanted to see today.

Dad's right about one thing. Girls like Ginger
are
trouble. Candy pink hair, bangs swept over one eye, dark makeup that makes her green eyes promise you anything you want. And always pushing the dress codes, today in a loose black tentacle skirt whose shorter pieces can't be longer than twelve inches, atop torn fishnets and knee-high buckle boots, like something out of a pirate fantasy. Her long-sleeved shirt might've been school legal if the lace in the front didn't dip so low.

I don't need to look at Beretta to know what she's wearing. Kid thinks she's a zombie and bites like one too, and she's always in something dirt-stained and torn.