Soulprint (27 page)

I'm shaking as I stand before Casey, and I don't understand why.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I'm scared, and I'm taking it out on you.”

She takes me in her arms then. We're about the same size, and my arms hook all the way around her back, and hers around mine. And this time, I don't flinch.

“Casey,” I say, when my chin is on her shoulder. “I think it's time to tell me what you're after. When we get there, I can't help unless I know.”

I feel her body stiffen, but she doesn't pull away.

“My sister,” she says. Her chin is still resting on my shoulder, and her breath brushes my ear as she speaks.

There's nothing we will find in the database that will make her happy. Nothing. “She won't be the same person,” I say.

Casey pulls back, her chin off my shoulder, her hands off my back. But she's still so close—I can see my reflection in her eyes. “No, you don't get it. Before she disappeared, she got a message. I was home over break, and it was accidentally given to me—the curse of being a twin. A man hand-delivered it, and the only thing he said was, ‘What a lovely soul you are,' which I really didn't think anything about at the time. Inside was some website address with a really long password … I gave it to her, thinking it was for school or something. That's when everything changed.”

“She disappeared?”

“Not at first, but she started acting different—not sleeping, constantly on edge. I confronted her, but she wouldn't say anything. Just blew me off. I went back to school, because it was
so important
to me at the time, you know?
Then
she disappeared.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“The message. I couldn't find the paper again, and Ava's computer went to sites that just … didn't exist anymore. Someone went through a lot of trouble to set that up. And the message. About the soul. Don't you see? June blackmailed—”

“Allegedly,” I mumble, thinking of her message on that recorder.

“Whatever,” Casey says. “Someone sent Ava that note, and then she disappeared. I thought you were in the database again. I thought you were blackmailing her for something. I wanted to find out what Ava saw. So first I went after security where you're held, thinking you'd still managed to get through it. But it was obvious you weren't doing anything—nothing was sent from your location. But that's how Dominic found me. I guess he watched what I was up to after that, too—how I started going after the database. He tracked me down and sent me a note. Told me I wasn't so good at covering my tracks. Asked me what, exactly, I was after. So, yeah, Dominic kind of forced my hand, but I want in that database to see what happened to Ava. Which is what Cameron doesn't understand. And I need … I need to prove she's not in there again. Not reborn. Because if she hasn't been reborn, she hasn't died, just disappeared.”

It's like proving the negative. “And what will that prove? What if she just doesn't want to be found?” I ask.

“Alina, seriously? Cameron is wanted for questioning in her alleged death.”

And the bottom falls out of my world.

“He wouldn't,” I say.

“I know that. But the evidence is … unfortunate. They were out with friends, and they left in a car together, and he's the last person who saw her. They got in a fight, she was scared of something, he said. Jumpy and taking it out on him. Everyone saw them fighting. There's evidence of blood in the car, but come on, that could've come from any time. Doesn't
matter, though, it all adds up to a case against Cameron. She had a lot of money in her bank account, which I guess would've gone partly to Cameron eventually … I seriously have no idea where that money came from. And there's the problem of his past criminal record.”

“He's not a killer,” I say. And now I want in the database to prove it for him. This. This is something I can give him. “Someone's still in the database,” I say.

“Yes,” she says. “Either there really is a shadow-database somewhere that someone still has access to, or someone else has hacked it.”

That letter to Ava came from somewhere, and it wasn't me. And if it's not me now, there's the possibility that it wasn't June back then, either.

June was in that database, that's a fact. She released the information, that's a fact. But there's something more going on, and the proof—for all of us—is inside.

Casey and I return to our skeleton house and sit across the room from each other, our backs against the wooden beams.

How long have we been waiting for Cameron? He hasn't come back yet. And the possibility creeps in that maybe he won't.

I don't know. June left Liam. Just left him there to take the fall, and she supposedly loved him.

Casey must see something in my face. “He's coming back,” she says.

The wait is as endless as the ocean. Where everything falls away but the voice I long to hear, whispering through my head. Only this time, it's not my mother, or even Genevieve, singing a song. It's Cameron, laughing. Telling me that I'm a surprise.

It's long past midnight, and we haven't slept. It's probably halfway to dawn. Neither of us has spoken, because then we'd have to acknowledge that he's not back yet, and maybe something happened, and then what will we do? Neither of us wants to think it, and so we do not speak.

Casey hears it first. It's completely dark, no lights anywhere nearby, and we should probably be trying to sleep, but we're listening for everything, for anything. She turns onto her hands and knees, crouched low, face pressed between wooden beams, and then I hear the slow sound of tires over gravel. Casey has one foot pressed onto the ground, as if she's at the starting line of a race, waiting for the sound of the gun. And I understand. If this is not Cameron, we run. Run for the highway, and he will find us.

If he's okay.

There are no headlights. But a dark van turns the corner and pulls directly in front of this house, the engine still idling. There are no windows in the back, and the ones up front are still dark. A window rolls down, and I hold my breath. “Is there some secret code word?” Cameron calls.

I'm smiling so big as Casey and I run for the back doors and pull them open. The overhead light turns on, and I see that the van is a dark shade of blue, and inside, there are old blankets
and no seats and it smells like smoke in here, too. Like something burning, something changing.

Casey smacks him lightly on the arm from the back of the van. “Took you long enough.”

He grins at her, then catches my eye in the rearview mirror, and says, “Told you.”

The windows up front are tinted. And I think,
He has found us the perfect car, because he is perfect
. And I wonder if people do this all the time: fall for people because of their ability to pick getaway cars; or fall for people because of the way they look when they think nobody is watching; or fall for people because of the things they say, or the way they look at them, or the things they give up, or the things they cannot do.

I thought it was because of hair and eyes and a sense of humor, or similar personalities and common interests—but it's not. It's the ability to pick getaway cars. To weigh crimes. To take the risk on someone again, even when he's been betrayed once before. To have faith in himself and in me. To see me.

He pulls a knit hat down over his ears, his hair curling out the bottom, and he turns to us for a second as he shifts the van into gear. “Full tank. Tinted windows. No complaining.”

“Good job, little brother,” Casey says.

He looks at me, to check my reaction, and I say, “Blue is my favorite color.”

He smiles.

I smile.

We are not even faking it.

Cameron pauses at the end of the road. “Which way?” he
asks, but I know what he's really asking. Are we going to disappear? Or are we going to take the risk and track down this lead?

Casey is silent, which means that for some reason they're waiting for me. “If someone's in the database, and that someone isn't me,” I say, “then maybe it wasn't June back then, either.”

Casey stares at Cameron. “I told her about Ava,” she says, and he nods.

I pause, thinking of how to put into words what I'm just barely understanding. “The study. I think it's wrong.”

“What study? What are you talking about?” Casey asks.

“The big one. The only one that matters! The one June and Liam used. I think, once June got into the database, she saw something. Something that didn't match. The souls are tagged, but I don't know how they're tagged.” I close my eyes, because I know what I'm about to sound like. “I need to get into the database. I need to prove it.”

“That's … that's something bigger than us. That's huge.”

It's bigger than us, but it's everything. It's the force behind all of this. “I can clear June's name,” I say. And then I think,
And yours. And mine
.

“Okay,” Cameron says. “Okay. We keep going.”

Dawn is approaching when we make it back onto the highway, me and Casey in the back, no seat belts and viewless, Cameron up front, hoping the tinted windows do their job. I get nauseated, but I don't get sick. Maybe I'm getting used to it. Maybe motion is just another thing I was deprived of, that I wasn't accustomed to, and now I'm part of this world, always moving.

Casey hands him the directions. “We should get there before noon,” she says.

“Oh, there's food under the gray blanket,” he says, and I pull it back to find
real
food. Fruit in a plastic container and packets of sliced cheese and bottles of water.

“Clothes!” Casey says, grabbing the stash from beside the food. She pulls out two T-shirts and shorts that probably won't fit right, but at least the shirts cover the uniform. Then I notice that Cameron has changed as well. Khaki shorts, a black T-shirt, like he could fit in anywhere.

“How did you get this?” I ask.

“You don't want to know,” he says. And then I see the key dangling from the ignition, and I realize he must've broken into a home, taken their food, their clothes, and then their car. Maybe while they slept nearby. I feel a twinge of regret, but I still can't think of a better option.

Casey digs in while looking at some of the figures on the articles. “Was Ava good at computers, too?” I ask.

The van is silent, except for the periodic grooves in the highway that we drive over. Eventually Casey says, “She wasn't
bad
at computers, but it wasn't really her thing. She'd help me if I asked, but she didn't love it. Not enough to get to my level.” She smiles at me. “People were always surprised by that—that just because we're twins doesn't mean we like the same thing. We're not the same person.”

“Not the same soul,” I add.

“Art,” Cameron says. “She likes art.” His face changes as he thinks about it. “You should've seen what she managed to do to
the side of our old school with just a few bottles of spray paint,” he says with pride.

“So,” I say, “she was more like you?”

“Ouch,” says Casey.

My face burns, because I didn't mean it as an insult. “I just meant …”

“I know what you meant. Yes, Alina. Same friends. Same neighborhood. I don't even have a reason for doing the things I did, I really don't.”

“Like you ever had a choice,” Casey says. “Come on, your friends practically roped you into it. Guilt by association. You never stood a chance. If I lived there full time, I'd be right there with you both.”

Cameron grimaces. “Nah, I doubt it. The thing is, it was just … effortless. It's so easy to take the path of least resistance,” he says. “To be exactly who people think you are. To not fight it.” He looks at me then, and says, “And then you're so deep in it, you figure, this is who I am. And then your girlfriend strikes a deal to save her own ass,” he mumbles.

“Ella?” I ask, and he nods, just the slightest. Then I imagine him with a girlfriend, and I don't like the way it makes my stomach churn, and I realize I am jealous of even that.
Nice, Alina
.

“And then,” he says, “because seventeen is considered an adult, and it's on your record, your name is worthless.”

And maybe you are, too
. I can imagine him thinking it, believing it. But he is not.

“It's just a name,” I say, knowing Casey can make us new identities with time, and maybe money. Not that I'd be able to
show my face now. Not that any of us could now. But he could have. Before.

“Do
you
want to pick a new one?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.

Alina Chase. It comes with a lifetime full of baggage. And yet, here's the thing: I do not.

Some people believe in karma—that what you do in one life affects the next. But it's too hard to study, to quantify. Too many variables. What makes one life better than another? Nobody really agrees. Maybe I was terrible in a past life, and that's why I'm stuck in a prison this time around. But then I look at the people sharing this journey with me and I think,
How lucky I am
. Does hope count for something?