Free Tremor by Patrick Carman Page B

when the profanities didn’t wake up Clooger. Faith could curse like a sailor when she wanted to.
    â€œOh, my God, that hurts!” Faith said. Blood was dripping down the corner of the sound ring, but not as much as Hawk had thought there might be.
    â€œPut some more gel on there, Tinker Bell. You’re going to be fine.”
    Faith rubbed more gel on the wound and tried not to think about how it felt as if someone had cut off the bottom half of her earlobe with a pair of toenail clippers.
    â€œYou’ll want to put some of that gel inside your ear, too. Smear it all over, just to be safe.”
    â€œWhy would I do that?”
    Hawk didn’t know how else to say it, so he just came right out with the truth.
    â€œA wire is about to uncoil from the inside of the sound ring. It’s going to keep moving until it finds your eardrum, then it will stop. Not a big deal; it’s superthin.”
    â€œSo it’s like a tapeworm. Oh. My. God.”
    â€œIt’s not going to eat your food, and it’s not alive. It’s a sound ring. It’s cool. Trust me.”
    Faith couldn’t help thinking there was something alive and sharp moving toward her brain. She felt something prick under her skin and began rubbing the gel all over her ear as fast as she could. The ear tingled, but the inside wasn’t numb. It felt exactly like what it was: a needle moving along the cartilage of her ear, back into her head, behind her eardrum. She buckled over, shaking her head back and forth, and her long ponytail slapped Hawk in the face like a horse’s tail. When she sat up, the procedure complete, she called Hawk a name that was quite a bit worse than a-hole.
    â€œI deserved that,” he said, pressing the sound ring on his own ear. He turned away from Faith, and in the smallest sound of a whisper, he asked her a question.
    â€œCan you hear me?”
    Faith couldn’t believe her ears. Hawk’s voice was crystal clear. It was as if he were crawling around inside her head, closer than close. Faith pressed her own sound ring, and a little bit of blood seeped out at the corner. Her ear stung, but not as badly as she thought it might, and she yelled her answer.
    â€œIt works!”
    Hawk bolted upright and shook his head, startled by the volume of Faith’s voice.
    â€œFor future reference, these things are powerful. You can just talk at normal volume. Or whisper.”
    â€œSorry about that!” Faith screamed. She was still holding her sound ring.
    Hawk’s eyes went wide as the sound of Faith’s voice rang like a gong in his head, then he turned to Dylan.
    â€œShe’s pretty pissed off.”
    â€œYa think?”
    Dylan, having watched the entire proceeding, had turned wide-eyed himself, all the blood drained from his face. But there was no way he was backing down. If Faith and Hawk could do it, so could he.
    â€œLet’s get it over with. Give me the gel.”
    Several high-pitched screams, a harrowingly sharp turn on the highway, and a little bit of blood later, Dylan was wired up. His sound ring was white, but Dylan’s hair was wavy and long, covering up any sign that he was hooked into the system.
    â€œEven if it’s exposed, I doubt anyone will think anything of it,” Hawk explained. “It’s an earring, simple as that.”
    â€œYou’re sexy when you scream like a girl,” Faith whispered as quietly as she could, holding her sound ring between her thumb and finger. The message was meant for Dylan.
    â€œI can hear you when you talk like that,” Hawk said, pressing his own sound ring. Faith was starting to understand how the system worked.
    â€œSo if I press my sound ring and say something, everyone else that has a sound ring hears it?”
    â€œExactly,” Hawk said. “And if you don’t press it and we’re far away from one another, no one else with a sound ring hears what you’re saying. We’re