The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(174)

The actress bloomed a bleak little grin. “Not enough to keep them.”

“You seem to be doing all right with that one.”

Hannah peered at Theo, oblivious in his torpor. “It’s not like that.”

“I wasn’t slapping a label on it. I just see the way you’re comforting him without a second thought or a ‘what’s in it for me?’ Whatever you are to him, he’s lucky to have you.”

It was the sweetest notion Hannah heard in days. But for all the girl’s rosiness, she wielded a sad face herself. She held a glossy mask in her hand, the plain white fa?ade that Hannah had spotted ad nauseam five minutes ago.

“You were in that first parade.”

“The Ghostwalk. Yeah. I do it every year, though I never make it the whole way without losing it. I’m probably the only one who still cries about the Cataclysm. Everyone else is thinking about their aunt Jody or that dog who ran out in the road.”

“Well, you can hardly blame them. It happened a century ago.”

The girl shrugged tensely. “What can I say? I’m a slow griever.”

The next float ferried four lithe young women in black rubber speedsuits, prancing around the platform in slow ballet motions. Suddenly their gear glowed with patchwork strips of color and they swayed around each other in a hazy blur. Hannah watched in gaping astonishment as their streaking hues combined to form ethereal images—an ocean sunset, a city skyline, a crude American flag. The crowd cheered wildly with each new tableau.

Soon the quartet de-shifted and resumed their gentle mincing. The girl smiled at Hannah’s slack-faced awe.

“Guess you’ve never seen lumis dancers before.”

“No. That was incredible. Jesus. I don’t know how they do that without breaking a bone.”

“Years of practice,” said the girl. “Takes months to rehearse one routine. You should see what the Chinese do with it. Their stage shows are mind-blowing.”

“Do they have one here?”

“Here? God, no. You’d have to go to China.”

Hannah snorted cynically. “Yeah. That’ll happen.”

“Hey now. You never know. Someday someone might jaunt you around the world just to put a smile on that sexy face.”

“I don’t have until someday.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Sweetie, you know you’re in trouble when a chick who just marched in a five-mile death parade is telling you to lighten up.”

Hannah smiled despite her mood. She realized how nice it would be to have a friend outside the group, a fun and witty galpal who could bring some sanity back to her existence. If only it were possible.

“I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”

The girl kept a busy stare on the parade. “Ioni.”

“Wow. That’s very pretty. It really suits you.”

“Oh stop it. I’m already a little gay for you. You’re just poking the fire.”

Hannah laughed. “If you can hide me from my life, Ioni, I’m all yours. You can have me any way you want.”

“Wow. That’s quite an offer. What exactly are you running from, Hannah?”

“Everything,” she sighed. “Everyone.”

“Even the people who need you?”

Hannah looked to her sister, staring down at the pavement in a somber daze. The thought that Amanda might need her was a strange new concept, as alien as anything in the parade.

“I don’t know. Part of me wants to run away on my own. Change everything about myself until no one can find me. The other part of me’s sick of travel. Sick of change.”

Ioni fixed a sudden nervous eye on Theo. She took a step from the wall.

“We’ve been running for so long,” Hannah continued. “It’s taking its toll on all of us. I don’t think we can last like this another—”

“Hannah, listen. I need you to stay calm, all right? Don’t make a scene.”

“What?”

Theo suddenly fell into violent seizures, shaking hard enough to knock his mask off. His eyes rolled back. His skin glowed with a faint and sickly sheen, as if he’d become his own ghost.

Ioni rushed to his side and pressed her fingers to his temples, bowing her head in concentration. Soon Theo’s luminescence faded and the convulsions stopped. He fell into restful sleep.

Hannah jumped out of her seat, bouncing her saucer gaze between Theo and Ioni. “What . . . what did you . . . ?”

“He peaked a little too early. I’m buying him some time.” Ioni threw a tense glare at the busy pay phone. “You guys really need to get to Peter.”

Hannah noticed the dual watches on Ioni’s right wrist, and suddenly scrambled to recall her secondhand knowledge of the mysterious stranger who’d approached Theo and Mia in the Marietta library. Odd that Mia had described her as a short-haired blonde. Odder still that Hannah didn’t notice her watches sooner. She must have deliberately hidden them behind the ghostmask in her hand. Ioni had been wearing her disguise all along.

Hannah scanned the backs of her other four companions, still occupied with the parade.

“Don’t call them,” Ioni urged. “I only came here to talk to you.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Calm down. I’m not your enemy.”