The knock was loud enough that Jonah heard it over the neighbor’s television.
He put down the notebook.
The cipher had been halfway through a third Handler-scenario when the knock came again, louder, and a voice followed it through the door.
“I know you’re in there.
The dead say you’re in there.
Also your neighbor, but I don’t trust her as much.”
Jonah crossed to the door.
Counted to three.
Opened it.
Klaus Hargreeves stood in the hallway in a duster that was either stolen or won in a bet, dripping rainwater on the floor.
He had a cigarette in one hand and eyeliner that had run in the rain and a smile that was too wide to be real.
“Vega.
Hi.
Hello.
You’re taller than I thought you’d be.”
Jonah looked past him.
The hallway was empty.
No Diego.
No Luther standing six feet back like a wall.
“You came alone.”
“I did.
I’m very brave.
Also very wet.
May I?”
Jonah stepped aside.
Klaus walked in.
He moved the way a man moved when he had walked into a hundred rooms that were not his and had never been asked to leave any of them.
He stopped three feet into the apartment and looked at the couch.
Jonah closed the door.
Counted the exits.
Window, door, fire escape if the window-latch held.
The neighbor’s TV was a game show.
The rain was soft on the glass.
Klaus was still looking at the couch.
“You see him,” Klaus said.
It was not a question.
Jonah did not treat it like one.
“Yeah.”
Klaus turned.
The smile was gone.
The face underneath it was sharper than Jonah had expected and older in a way that had nothing to do with years.
“Describe him.”
Jonah looked at the couch.
The young man sitting there was translucent in the way glass was translucent when you held it up to light.
Dark hair.
Good posture.
A jacket Jonah could not name the color of because the color was not entirely there.
He was watching Jonah with the patience of someone who had been waiting a long time and had learned not to move too fast when the waiting ended.
“Young,” Jonah said.
“Your age, maybe younger.
Dark hair.
He’s wearing a jacket.
He’s sitting with his hands in his lap.
He’s looking at me.”
Klaus made a sound that was not quite a laugh.
“Anything else?”
Jonah looked again.
The young man on the couch raised one hand.
A small wave.
Polite.
Not friendly.
“He just waved.”
Klaus turned back to the couch.
He said something in a voice too low for Jonah to hear.
Then he turned back.
“His name is Ben.
He’s my brother.
He’s been dead fifteen years.
You’re the second person who’s seen him in all that time.”
“You’re the first.”
“I’m the first.” Klaus pulled the cigarette from his mouth.
Put it back.
“The dead brought me here.
Three of them.
One of them wouldn’t shut up about a man who closed a door on his grandmother.
I assume that’s you.”
“That’s me.”
“Good.
I like it when my ghosts are accurate.
Saves time.” Klaus walked to the window.
Looked out at the rain.
“So.
You see the dead.
You talk to them.
You do the thing I do, except you’re not an Academy brat, and you don’t have a Number, and you showed up three weeks ago with a Rumor that walks like Allison’s but doesn’t sound like hers, and now my brother is sitting on your couch waving at you like you’re someone he’s been waiting to meet.”
Jonah said nothing.
Klaus turned.
“I’m not here to start a fight, Vega.
I’m here because I want to know if you’re a problem.”
“I’m not.”
“Everyone says that.
Then they rumor someone or they break a timeline or they let a dead man walk out of a church, and it turns out they were, in fact, a problem.” Klaus tapped ash into his palm.
“So.
Are you?”
Jonah looked at Ben.
Ben was still watching.
Still waiting.
“I don’t know yet.”
Klaus laughed.
It was a real laugh this time.
Short and sharp and surprised.
“Okay.
Okay.
I like that answer.
I like that answer a lot.” He crossed back to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the knob.
“Ben says hi, by the way.
He also says you have good taste in apartments, which is a lie, because this place is a shoebox, but Ben’s polite like that.”
“Tell him I said hi back.”
“You can tell him yourself.
He’s right there.” Klaus opened the door.
Stepped into the hallway.
Turned.
“I’ll keep your secret, Forty-Four.”
Jonah went still.
Klaus smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
“What?”
“Forty-Four.
It’s what the librarian-shade called you.
She said it three times.
Said it like a name.
I don’t know what it means, but I know a name when I hear one, and that one’s yours.” Klaus pulled a pen from his pocket.
Wrote a phone number on the doorjamb in quick, careless strokes.
“Call me if you need me.
Or don’t.
Ben will tell me if you do something interesting.”
He left.
Jonah stood in the doorway.
The hallway was empty.
The neighbor’s TV was still loud.
The rain was still soft.
He looked at the couch.
Ben was still there.
Jonah closed the door.
Walked to the couch.
Sat in the chair across from it.
Ben watched him.
Jonah did not know what to say.
He had spoken to the dead before.
The talker at the church.
The grandmother-shade.
The librarian.
This was Klaus’s brother.
This was a Hargreeves.
This was someone who had been waiting fifteen years to be seen by anyone who was not Klaus.
“Hi,” Jonah said.
Ben nodded.
Once.
Slow.
Jonah pulled the notebook from his back pocket.
Opened it.
Found the page.
Wrote Klaus’s number in cipher.
Wrote the name Klaus had called him.
Forty-Four.
Wrote a question mark after it.
He did not write Ben’s name.
He did not need to.
He would not forget.
He looked up.
Ben was gone.
The couch was empty.
The rain was still soft.
The neighbor’s TV had moved on to a commercial.
Jonah closed the notebook.
Put it back in his pocket.
Stood.
He went to the window.
Looked out at the street.
Klaus was gone.
The rain was picking up.
The sky was the color of old stone.
Jonah touched the glass.
It was cold.
He had been seen.
Klaus had seen him.
Ben had seen him.
The dead had brought Klaus to his door, and Klaus had left a phone number and a name Jonah did not understand and a brother whose wave carried the weight of fifteen years behind it someone finally getting a wave back.
The kit was not a secret anymore.
The kit had never been a secret.
It had just been quiet.
Jonah went back to the table.
Sat down.
Opened the notebook.
Stared at the cipher.
The Handler wanted him on her payroll.
Klaus wanted to know if he was a problem.
Ben wanted to be seen.
The dead wanted to talk.
Patch wanted an interview Monday morning.
Hazel wanted something Jonah had not figured out yet.
Everyone wanted something.
Jonah picked up the pen.
Wrote one line.
Klaus knows.
Ben is real.
The name is Forty-Four.
He underlined Forty-Four twice.
Then he closed the notebook.
Put it back in his pocket.
Stood.
The apartment was quiet.
The rain was soft.
The couch was empty.
Jonah went to the doorjamb.
Looked at the phone number.
Memorized it.
Did not write it down again.
He would call.
Or he would not.
Klaus would know either way.
Ben would tell him.