Chaos (14 page)

He was going to kill her.

Ford
. She tried to shout his name, but she couldn’t get the word out of her throat. It was too late anyway. They were almost on top of the girl, so close Jas could see her mouth open in surprise, the small dimple between her eyebrows as she frowned. Jas squeezed her eyes closed and braced for impact.

But the bike kept purring along. They didn’t even swerve.

When Jas looked back, she saw the girl picking herself
up off the pavement. She must have jumped out of the way just in time. Jasmine exhaled. The girl was quickly swallowed up by the distance and the dark. Jas wondered what had happened to the boy with the long hair.

She knew that both of them would be back. They wanted her dead. That much was obvious.

She still had no idea why.…

On their left, lit windows streamed past and buildings danced in and out of sight.

On their right, the wide mouth of the bay was open to the dark gray sky. The salty smell of the bay mixed with newly cut grass and dew.

Several more minutes went by before Ford slowed the bike and they veered right, onto a boardwalk along the beach. The bike trail. The normally packed trail was empty as Ford guided the motorcycle with ease along the boardwalk.

Jas was cold. Salt spray from the bay mingled with the rain. She leaned in closer to Ford, feeling the heat radiating through his back. He smelled good. As she pressed close to him, she remembered what he had looked like without a shirt on, the muscles, the jacked-up strength.

Not human
. She quickly pushed the thought aside. She was too tired for questions and doubts.

Maybe they would just keep riding forever. That would be okay with her.

Ford weaved expertly around the pitted spots on the trail and places where the earthquake had punched a fist skyward, leaving broken piles of wood in its wake. They
jumped back onto the road. Ford slowed the bike and pulled into a parking spot at Fort Point. When he cut the engine, Jas pulled off the helmet and swung her leg over the seat, surprised at how solid the ground felt under her feet. The crash of the waves against the rocks was thunderous, and the sky was still bleeding rain. Jasmine realized she had no idea what time it was—the clouds had turned everything a uniform gray.

Ford climbed off after her and put a hand on her back.

“We’ll be safe here for a while!” he shouted, leaning close so she could hear him.

Jas was so surprised by how nice it felt to hear him say
we
that she couldn’t even ask where
here
was. He started toward the chain-link fence put up to keep people out of the section of the fort under the Golden Gate Bridge, which rose above them, a vast steel giant with fingers pointing to the sky. A big No Trespassing sign was visible in the half dark. Ford ignored it. He shoved at the gate, exposing a narrow gap just large enough to slip through.

He motioned for Jasmine to enter. She hesitated. Jas had sworn to Luc to stay out of trouble. Even thinking about her brother, and where he could possibly be, made her chest feel heavy. What if something had happened to him? What if those crazy assassins, or whatever they were, had gotten him?

Thinking about the boy and the girl and the possibility of their return made her decide. She slipped through the gate, and Ford followed. She could still hear the slurring of the waves against the shore and the drumming
of the rain on the damp sand, loud as a march. She realized with a start that although Ford was walking next to her, she couldn’t read anything off him—no feelings. No wants. Nothing.

“What are we doing here?” They had arrived at the base of an enormous cement footer that served as one of the bridge’s supports. Here the noise of the waves was even louder, amplified by the arched steel beams.

“Hiding.” Ford stopped in front of a narrow door. There was a lock but no visible handle. The door was barely distinguishable from the gray cement all around it. Ford fumbled in his pocket, and Jas watched him shove a thin file into the lock. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching. But they were alone. Just the beach and the bay and the endless rain.

The lock gave with a click, and Ford held the door open and motioned for her to go inside. It was pitch-black. The air that reached her from inside was warm and dry and smelled musty. Again, she hesitated.
This is where the dumb girl in every horror movie walks right into her own death
.

“Now it’s your turn to trust me,” Ford said with a small smile. Her stomach jumped. He was right. Jas stepped into the darkness. When Ford stepped in and shut the door behind them, the noise of the waves was suddenly silenced. Jasmine found the unexpected quiet deafening.

“Just ahead, to the right, there’s a small room,” Ford said. He rested a hand on her hip to guide her; warmth radiated from his touch. This close, she could smell the
cinnamon scent of his skin. It was comforting. Familiar, somehow, even though he was a stranger.

And he was obviously keeping secrets.

But she was glad to be out of the rain and the cold.

Ford nudged her forward. She stepped carefully, her hand on the rough wall. She could feel slight vibrations coming from the floor—impact from the waves, maybe, and the wind—and smell something sweet, honeylike.

“Here we are,” Ford said. He moved around her. There was that delicious word again—
we
. A light flickered and Ford raised a hurricane lantern to eye level. “It’s not much. But we should be able to hide here for a while.”

The small space looked like some kind of mechanics’ room that had long ago been stripped of its contents. A couple of blankets were folded neatly on the floor, and a camp stove sat in a corner. The ceiling was so high it was lost in the vast darkness beyond the small circle that the lantern could illuminate. The air smelled tangy, like salt—but there was that second, deeper layer of sweetness as well, almost as if there had been flowers growing here at some point.

“Is this where you live?” She hugged herself, trying to get warm. It was warmer here, but not by much, and her clothes were heavy and water-soaked from the rain.

Ford set the lantern down and grabbed one of the blankets, shaking it out before he wrapped it around her shoulders. She buried her nose in the soft fleece. It smelled like him.

“I’m staying here for a bit,” he answered cryptically.
Jasmine realized she didn’t know how old he was. He quickly changed the subject. “How about something hot to drink?”

Jasmine sank down onto the other blanket and watched as he lit the small, one-burner camp stove, then set a teapot to boil. His movements were relaxed, easy, as if the two of them hadn’t just gone on a wild motorcycle ride through the rain to escape a couple of homicidal maniacs. Jasmine’s hands were still shaking, and her mind was spinning around and around—she couldn’t make it land on any logical explanation. Maybe she was in shock.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking up at her as if he could read her thoughts.

“Been better,” she said. She hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s not every day someone tries to kill me.” She didn’t even know how to talk about the other part—how she had left her aunt’s house on a Tuesday and wound up in Monday again.

There was a mug sitting next to a glass jar full of tea bags on a wooden shelf. Ford added a tea bag to the mug, poured in water, then sloshed in liquid from a bottle he wrestled out of his pocket. She raised an eyebrow.

“You trying to poison me?”

He half smiled. “You don’t like whiskey?”

She took the mug from him. It was hot, and felt good in her hands.

“Go ahead,” Ford said. “It’s best when it’s hot.”

It did smell amazing, with hints of vanilla and wildflower. The tea was delicious and the whiskey added just
enough of a good burn. It lit a fire in her stomach and, after a few sips, made her swirling thoughts begin to settle. She closed her eyes for a second, savoring the taste and the silence.

“So. Do you have any idea why?”

Ford’s question surprised her. She opened her eyes and saw that he was staring at her.

“Why what?” she asked.

His dark eyes drilled into her. “Why someone is trying to kill you.”

“None.” She set the steaming tea on the ground. “I have no idea who those people are, or why they’re following me.”

“Following you?” Ford repeated. “You’ve seen them before?”

It occurred to her that he didn’t know about the attack in the park.
Or
that she’d already lived through the attack at the pavilion twice. Would he think she was insane if she told him that time was skipping around?

Probably. But somehow, confined in this little room and feeling safe for the first time in days, she felt she could truly trust him.

She took a deep breath. “This isn’t the first time they’ve attacked me. Actually, this isn’t the first time they’ve attacked us, either.” Ford frowned. Jas rushed on. “Look, this is going to sound crazy. But I knew they’d be there today because they attacked us in the same spot … not yesterday, really, I guess today, but
before
.…” She knew she wasn’t making any sense. She glanced up at Ford. His expression hadn’t lost its neutrality.

“Time shifted, then?” he asked, as if it was a regular occurrence.

Relief broke in her chest. “Yeah. Exactly. Time
shifted
.” He still didn’t react. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I get this horrible headache and everything gets bright. Then, when I open my eyes, I’m somewhere else. A different day.”

“Go on,” Ford said.

She wrapped her fingers around the mug again. The tea—or maybe it was the whiskey—was making her limbs feel heavy, and a cozy warmth spread through her veins.

“The last day I really remember clearly is Friday. Then there’s this chunk of time just … missing. My … brother won’t tell me what happened.” Jasmine stumbled over the word
brother
. Luc was in trouble—she could sense it—and it was all her fault. “And there’s more. I can smell and hear and, like, sense things a thousand times better than before—sense people, even, and what they’re feeling. Except for you. Not you.” Her face was burning. She looked away from him. “I don’t understand any of it,” she finished. “I don’t know why those people are trying to hurt me.”

Ford was quiet for a minute. Then, abruptly, he stood up. “They’re Executors,” he said, taking her empty cup. “It’s what they do.”

Laughter bubbled up from deep inside Jas. What had he put in her tea? She felt light, giddy, and not quite solid. “Executors? Like ‘off with your head’ type of people?”

When he turned back to her, he was frowning. “You
really don’t know, do you. About
anything
.” He shoved a hand through his hair.

The way he said
anything
sent goose bumps up her arms. Suddenly, she didn’t feel giddy anymore. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jas said quietly.

He sat down across from her with a deep sigh. His eyes searched her face, as if he was debating how much to tell her. Finally, he said, “There are forces out there charged with keeping order in the universe. They obey their laws blindly, without care or thought for others. And they don’t stop. They never stop.” His voice held such bitterness that Jas wanted to reach out and hug him. But she had too many questions.

“What do you mean,
forces
?” she asked. “Like … physics and stuff?” She had never been any good at math and science. Except astronomy. She knew the positions of all the stars, had memorized them with Luc when she was a little girl.

Ford shook his head impatiently. “Not forces. People. People like the girl and boy who attacked us today.”

“Executors,” Jasmine said. Ford nodded.

She inhaled sharply. It was insane. But so was everything that had happened to her. “How do you know all this?”

Ford shrugged. “The universe is big, and complicated,” he said. His eyes were like starry skies: points of light dancing in the middle of darkness. “I’ve seen many parts of it.”

She bit her lip.
Not human
. The words were impossible to ignore this time. “So … you don’t think I’m crazy?”

His lips turned up at the corners and he looked at her sideways. “I think you’re
a little
crazy. You did knee an Executor in the groin.”

“He didn’t leave me much choice.” Jas couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled. It felt good. She scooted back so that she could lean against the cement wall. Ford was still watching her with that intense look in his eyes. She looked down. “What about all the other stuff? Like … like about the Executors.” Her heart was beating fast—it was being here, in the half dark, next to him, and trying to understand. “You’re saying they’re after me, right?” She tugged at the blanket still draped around her shoulders. “But why? It doesn’t make sense. You said they keep order. It’s not like I’m some great threat to the universe.”

She waited for him to agree with her, but he merely shrugged. “I don’t know. But you’re not safe. You won’t be, until they’re dead.”

“So …” Jasmine tried to work up the courage to ask the questions she needed to. “Are you an Executor, too?”

Ford snorted. “Not likely. I don’t follow orders from anyone.” Then his voice got quiet. “But I knew an Executor once, a very, very long time ago.”

“Are you saying you’re older than you look?” He nodded. Jas squeezed her hands into fists. “Like thousand-year-vampire old? Or old-man old? I think old-man old is creepier.”

He smiled, just barely. “Older than that.”

Jas swallowed. “So, what … what are you?”

She thought he might not tell her, but after he reached
over to turn the camp stove off, he grabbed the lantern and moved to sit next to her. He, too, leaned back, tilting his head so it rested against the wall. “I’m … different, like you.”

His face was only a few inches from hers. She could feel the energy flowing between them, liquid and warm. “You’re saying we’re the same?”

“Sort of,” he said. “I can’t really explain it, though; it’s complicated. We’re …”

“On different sides, yeah, I know, you said that already.” Jas pulled her knees to her chest and hugged the blanket tighter around herself.