The Similars (The Similars #1)(41)

“Do I look like I’m on fire?”

“You have to leave. Now.”

“Oliver left me his key,” I blurt.

“So?” Jago presses, and Levi levels him with a look.

He says something to Jago I can’t understand. For a moment, I’m puzzled. This doesn’t sound like French—I would understand that, or at least some of it.

“What language was that?” I ask.

Jago stares at me. “Portuguese. Why?”

“I thought you spoke French to one another.”

“We do,” Levi starts. “We did. Until…”

I suddenly understand and supply the rest of the sentence. “That night by the lake.”

Levi nods. “I didn’t realize until the other day, when you told me you understood us and what we were talking about—privately, we thought.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “You switched to Portuguese because it’s not taught here?”

“She’s a smart one,” Jago says before grabbing his jacket. “I’m going to Ansel’s room. The two of you can do what you want. Enjoy detention again, expulsion, whatever. It’s not my problem.” Jago slams the door behind him.

“Light sleeper,” explains Levi. “He was working his way toward his REM cycle when you so unceremoniously interrupted him.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure what else to say, so I switch gears, thrusting Oliver’s note toward him. Levi reads it.

“This tells us nothing,” he says.

“Thanks, Sherlock,” I snap, grabbing the note from his hand. “He wanted me to look for something in his old room. I checked the housing assignments. It’s empty. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe there will be some answers about why Oliver did what he did. The key won’t work for me, not if the room’s locked—”

Levi smiles wryly. “Enter me. And my genetics, to be exact. Who is he? I mean, ‘him’?” Levi asks, brow scrunching as he looks at the note again.

“I don’t know,” I say quickly. “The only person I could come up with was—is—you.”

Levi takes that in, walking over to the window and staring at the dark grounds below. “There’s not a lot of moonlight tonight. You weren’t scared climbing that thing?” He gestures at the fire escape.

I shrug. “Should I have been?”

Levi turns back to face me. “You think Oliver knew about me before he died?”

“It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Otherwise, who is he talking about? I think somehow he knew. Even if Jane and Booker didn’t,” I add, since Levi and I disagree on that point. “And whatever’s in his room, it could explain everything—how he knew he had a clone, why he has a clone, why he…died. For God’s sake, Levi. This is your life we’re talking about too. Don’t you want to know?”

“Of course I do,” he says quietly. “I’ve wondered, no hoped, all of my life that there was a reason why I exist besides a mistaken lab experiment. That somebody actually wanted me.” He’s quiet for a moment, then makes a decision in his head and grabs a pair of sneakers. “Let’s go now. Unless you feel like scaling that fire escape again tomorrow night?”

“The next time we break and enter, you can come down and let me in,” I reply.

“Next time?” he ribs.

We are off. It doesn’t take long to get to Oliver’s old room. I try the doorknob, but as I suspected, it doesn’t open for me. “Here,” I say, handing him Ollie’s key. “Put it on. You should probably wear it around your neck, like you would, you know, if you were actually him.”

Levi nods, slips Oliver’s key around his neck, and holds it in front of the doorknob. There is a faint beep as the door unlocks. It worked. With a steady hand, Levi turns the knob, and just like that, we’re in.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the room doesn’t scream “Oliver!” in any profound way. It’s empty, except for twin beds pushed to opposite ends of the room. There are the standard-issue dressers and desks, and a closet, bare except for a few wire hangers dangling from a metal rod.

“I’ll take the right side. You take the left,” Levi says matter-of-factly. As we scour our respective sides of the room, I have three thoughts. The first is that working side by side like this, me and Levi, like we did during duty, feels easy and familiar. The second is that I’m grateful to him for helping me. And the third is that I must’ve completely misunderstood Oliver’s last message because after twenty long minutes of searching, we’ve come up with nothing that could even begin to qualify as a clue or a message.

Levi yawns and asks me if I’m ready to go, and with one glance back as if I’ll spot the ghost of my best friend, we walk out together.

We are silent as we approach the front doors of Nightshade.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find anything,” Levi says softly.

“I’ll live,” I reply. What I don’t say is that I need to know why Oliver didn’t live. And I won’t stop trying until I figure out what his note meant.

“Levi?” I whisper.

“Yeah?”

“The midnight session. The injective. What I said back there…”