Dualed Read Online Free PDF Page B

happened and knowing there’s no way we can.

C HAPTER 2
     
    The house is empty. But their ghosts haunt the halls and fill the rooms, their voices echo in my ears.
    It’s two days after Luc’s funeral and already I’m lost.
    I’m still lying on the couch. I’ve slept, woken, slept again. I feel as drugged as Chord’s Alt must have been. Not that electric, strung-out high, but a kind of thick, grieving sluggishness. Which one’s more of an escape, I don’t know.
    My cell buzzes. I know it’s Chord, but I answer it anyway. I can only avoid him for so long.
    “Hello?” The word is dry, rusty. It’s so strange not having Luc around to talk to anymore.
    “Hey, West.”
    My throat clenches at the sound of Chord’s voice. “Hey.”
    “I wanted to come by earlier, but I thought maybe you were still asleep.”
    “I was.” A pause. “I kind of still am.”
Then I can pretend none of this is real. That I didn’t play a hand in his death … that it wasn’t your Alt that killed him
.
    “How about I come pick you up, head out into the Gridfor a bit? Whatever you want to do. Lunch, maybe?” Chord’s voice is soft, careful not to say something that’ll send me away. He knows me too well, having seen both the best and worst of me over the years. I can’t help but think of Luc’s words from that day in the restaurant, when he made me promise to keep Chord in my life.
    The sudden thought that they might have talked about this earlier makes my gut churn. Half of me is pissed off at them for thinking I’m that helpless; the other half wonders bleakly if maybe they’re right.
    “No, I don’t think so, Chord,” I say evenly. “I’m just … cleaning the house now. Luc’s room.” A lie; his room hasn’t been touched at all. I haven’t been able to go in there yet. But it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and anything is better than telling Chord what I’ve really been doing. Namely, nothing. Haunting the house along with the others, here but not here.
    “I can help you,” he says, sounding painfully hopeful. “Or just keep you company.”
    “No, that’s okay.”
    A pause. “You’ve got to eat, don’t you? I bet you’re living off … I don’t know, crackers or dry cereal or something like that.”
    I can’t remember the last time I ate. My stomach still hurts, has ever since Chord began to haltingly deliver Luc’s eulogy. “I’m fine. I can cook, you know.” Barely, though. Not that I care much right now.
    “West.” His worry for me is obvious, even through my cell, across the physical distance. “I’d like to see you, okay?”
    I shut my eyes tight, and Chord’s face fills my mind. It’schanged, somehow. From the one I’ve known forever to the one that now draws me in, calling me closer, telling me there’s more to uncover.
    When did it change?
    Then his face is his Alt’s, the face of Luc’s killer, and my eyes flare open.
    “West?” Chord says my name again, more roughly this time. “C’mon, I can be there in five—”
    “No, Chord, not now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    He sighs. “You’re going to school, then.” Not a question but a confirmation. As if asking would make me realize it wasn’t necessarily a given. At fifteen, I could opt out. Co-op … somewhere. I haven’t given school any thought—work, even less. But what else would fill my hours now?
    “Yeah, I’ll be there,” I tell him. “See you.” And with that I disconnect.
    Silence in the house again, too loud with the fullness of the past. Chord was right, I do need to get out. But not with him, not yet. I’m scared that if I see him right now, it won’t be him I’ll be seeing.
    I leave the house, shutting the front door behind me. I start walking, though I don’t exactly know where I’m going. But old habits die hard, and next thing I know I’m blocks and blocks away, back in the Grid.
    Bodily, my family lived in our house in the western suburbs of Jethro Ward, but a part of our