Read Resonance for Free Online Page B

you."
    Graham looked up.
    "I know it sounds weird but it's true."
    The coffee arrived. Annalise leaned back in her chair, grinning broadly, her eyes sparkling.
    "All my life I've been the odd one out," she leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice as she did so. "I hear voices. Always have. Even as a kid. There's this girl inside my head who keeps calling my name. She won't go away. She's always asking me where I am, what I'm doing, who I'm with. But whenever I answer she doesn't seem to hear. I thought I was going insane."
    Graham knew the feeling. Being different, not being able to trust your eyes, ears or memory. Living in a world where no one understands you.
    "I've done analysis, I've done drugs. Nothing ever worked. But that's all changed now, I can feel it. I've been given a purpose in life. Can you believe that?" Her eyes filled with tears. "I got this message on Monday. From the girl in my head. 'We've got to go to London, England,' she said. 'There's a man there. Graham Smith. He's in danger. They're going to kill him. We're the only ones who can save him.'"
    She dabbed at her eyes with her serviette. Graham braced himself for another people-want-you-dead story.
    "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know any Graham Smith. I'd never been to London. And then on Monday night I started having this dream—a real vivid dream—that I was over here. There was this plaque, high on a wall. Westminster Street, it said. And I was following this man. You." She jabbed a finger in Graham's direction. "Now you can see why I freaked out back there. You walked straight out of my dream!"
    She smiled, looking down at the table, her right hand absent-mindedly playing with her spoon. "You had this weird game you played on the sidewalk—the not-stepping-on-the-cracks thing. And I'd follow you and do the same and I'd feel like a kid again."
    She stopped smiling and looked up.
    "But then this big black car pulls up, two men get out and walk behind you, they glance over their shoulder then run forward, grab you from behind, the car pulls alongside, a door opens and they bundle you inside. I'm too far back to do anything. I can't even scream, I'm skipping between the cracks, powerless to do anything but watch. The car speeds off and, suddenly, I start screaming. Then I wake up."
    She put the spoon down and shook her head.
    "That dream really freaked me out. It was so real. And then I had it again the next night and the next. More like a memory than a dream. I thought maybe I had a past life over here in England. That maybe I'd tapped into a past memory of a time when I'd known someone called Graham Smith. Maybe I felt guilty that I hadn't been able to save him. Or maybe it was a vision of the future. Something I had to prevent. What do you think? Has any of this already happened?"
    She drew back and rolled her eyes. "Listen to me, I sound certifiable. I'm in a cafe with a man I've never met, asking him if he's ever been dragged into the back of a car at gunpoint."
    Graham wanted to tell her that they'd already met. That she'd saved his life in the early hours of Wednesday morning. But he couldn't. He'd learned too many hard lessons over the years. Open your mouth and people change towards you. They laugh at you, run away or hit you.
    And he liked Annalise, she spoke to him as though he was normal—more than normal—she treated him as though he was someone special. Someone worth saving. He couldn't ruin that by opening his mouth and sending her away.
    He still remembered the look on Robbie Osborne's face. And how long ago had that been? Twenty-six, twenty-seven years? Robbie had been his best friend. They'd been inseparable for an entire summer.
    Until the day the stranger arrived and unlatched Robbie's gate.
    The two children had been playing in the front garden, sitting on the grass with two armies of toy soldiers between them. Graham had seen the man first.
    "Who's that?" he'd asked, nudging his friend.
    Robbie had swivelled