Page 11 of Ringer
“Invisible,” Lyra said, so softly Gemma almost missed it.
Then she smiled. Gemma thought it was the first time she had ever seen Lyra smile, and the effect was dazzling, like watching the sun slide behind a prism and light it up in various colors. “Thank you, though. I mean it.”
“Please,” Gemma said, as Lyra turned away. “Take this, at least.” Gemma took her wallet from her back pocket. It was cheap, plastic, and covered in smiley faces, and April had bought it for her as a joke their sophomore year. There were probably sixty bucks inside, plus an Amex tied to her parents’ account, a debit card, a nondriver state ID, a folded-up note April had given her on their first day back in school after break—This note certifies I give zero fucks—and, in the little coin pouch, a nest of unspooling thread she’d picked off Pete’s pocket the first time she’d worn his sweatshirt to school. She could get new cards, and even an ID wasn’t that difficult, especially since she didn’t drive. She had only a few hundred dollars in her bank account, anyway. She mostly regretted that bit of thread. “You’ll need money. You know how to use an ATM card, right, to get money? Thecode’s easy. Four-four-one-one. Can you remember that?”
“Thanks.” Lyra managed to smile again. Then she did something funny: she reached up and placed two hands on Gemma’s shoulders. “See you,” she said.
That was it. She turned and disappeared. At least, to Gemma it seemed like she disappeared, even though of course Lyra was actually visible for a while, moving between cars, heading in the direction of the highway, and finally passing into a thicket of disease-blighted trees. The sun had finally come up for good, and Gemma found her eyes watering in the sudden bright. She should run after Lyra. She should beg her, or scream at her, or force her to come with them.
But she knew it wouldn’t do any good, and she didn’t move, and couldn’t breathe. She knew they would never see each other again. Lyra would be cleaned up, like Jake had been. Caelum too.
“Gemma?” Pete found her hand and held it tight-tight, as if she was in danger of falling off a ledge. “You tried, okay? You did everything you could do.”
Gemma said nothing. It didn’t matter if she’d tried. She’d failed. And that was the only thing that counted.
“You can’t feel guilty about this, okay? You can’t save her. You can’t save any of them. I want you to say it.”
She was surprised when Pete pulled her into a hug. Hisshirt still smelled a little like the tiki smoke, his skin like the sweet punch they’d been drinking. She felt like crying again. But she kissed his collarbone through his shirt, and tilted her head to catch his Adam’s apple, too.
“I tried,” she said. “I can’t save them.” As quickly as the urge to cry had come, it was gone. It wasn’t that she believed it, exactly, but that it didn’t matter anymore. What she had said to Lyra was true: the people working against them were too big. They were too strong.
Lyra and Caelum would die by their will, just as Gemma had lived.
The hand of misery that had been squeezing her for weeks unclenched. She felt light. Free. She saw now that her only mistake had been in thinking she had a choice.
There was evil everywhere in the world. Liars outnumbered truth tellers, probably by three to one. So what did it matter, one more or less? She might even be able to look at her father again. “Let’s go home,” she said.
For the first time since they’d left the party, Pete smiled. “Now you’re talking,” he said, and kissed her hand even as he interlaced their fingers. He seemed happy. He thought she was happy.
She didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. There was no need, anyway. Happiness never lasted, because happiness didn’t pay dividends.
That was just the way the world worked.
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 5 of Lyra’s story.
SIX
THEY WERE ONLY A FEW miles out from the dump of run-down fast-food restaurants that counted for the center of Ronchowoa when they came across the accident: a big delivery truck and a sedan nosed together at a right angle so they blocked the road entirely. The truck driver was visible in his cab, hunched over the phone. The woman was pacing, and when she spotted Pete and Gemma she flagged them down, as if they might otherwise have any choice but to stop.
“Don’t get out,” Gemma said, when Pete unbuckled his seat belt. “There must be another way home.”
“She could be hurt,” he said.
Gemma was too tired to care, and too tired to feel guilty. “She isn’t hurt,” she said. “She’s walking. See?”
And she was—the woman was heading straight for them, gesturing for Pete to roll down the window. Whenhe did, she leaned down to squint into the car. She had the washed-out coloring of an old T-shirt, but her eyes were dark and Gemma didn’t especially like them. They were the kind of eyes that worked like specimen pins, as if they were trying to nail things down in their proper place.
“Sorry to bug you,” she said. “Do y’all have a cell phone I could borrow? Mine’s out of batteries. And this guy won’t give me his info, won’t speak a word to me.”
Gemma’s phone was also dead, so Pete handed his over. Gemma did feel a little guilty then. The woman’s hands shook badly when she tried to dial the police, and it took her several tries before she could get the number right. She moved away from the car, plugging one ear with a finger, while the truck driver climbed out of his cab and glared at her. Gemma didn’t like the look of him. He looked big and ropy and mean.
The woman hadn’t even hung up before the police were on the scene: two of them, a man and a woman, who arrived in an unmarked sedan.
Every minute it got hotter. Gemma and Pete sat and watched the woman and the truck driver argue and the cops look on impassively—they were too far to hear what was being said.
“Should I ask for my phone back?” Pete asked. Gemma shook her head and said nothing. She was too tired tothink. When he keyed on the engine so they could use the AC, the female cop turned in their direction, as if seeing them for the first time.
“Great,” Pete said. Now it was the cop’s turn to approach. “Just great.”
