Chaos (9 page)

A faded rug was just barely visible under the dust, and the corner of a picture frame stuck out from beneath
a pile of loose plaster. Jasmine bent and removed the frame, carefully brushing the dust from the glass. It was a painting, a boy and a girl holding hands and staring off toward mountains in the distance.

Yearning rose out of nowhere, thick in her throat.

She set the picture down.

The boy craned his neck to squint up at the sky. “So what now?”

“Look for a ring.” Jasmine needed to buy time. She kept waiting for another memory to rise like a wave. She made her way across chunks of concrete and earth to a second doorway. “I’ll check in here.”

Inside the second room—a bedroom, she guessed—one whole wall had caved in. Behind the bed, a torn poster hung from one side, and a chest lay broken, spilling its contents like guts across the floor.

She stooped and picked up a silk skirt. It was about her size. Maybe some runaway had squatted down here? Maybe even one of the attackers? It seemed plausible. Now if only she knew why, and how the skirt related to her and Luc. Jasmine made her way to the nightstand beside the bed, surprisingly intact given the destruction of the rest of the room.

There was a piece of paper there, taped neatly to the wood. In handwriting eerily similar to her own, was written:

Again, she had a wave of intuition that was almost like certainty. “Ford?” she called out, then held her breath.

Immediately, he responded. “Yeah? Find something?” Then, a second later, he appeared in the doorway. His face was very serious. “How do you know my name?” He was looking at her, eyebrows drawn down and suspicion in his eyes.

Jasmine’s head was spinning. She felt as if the room were getting smaller. Who had left this note? How had they known that Ford would be poking around?

She moved to conceal the note from view. “I … I think you told me. Outside. Remember?” She swallowed. She could tell he didn’t buy it.

He held up a hand, cutting her off. She’d been distracted by the strange note, the pounding rhythm of her heart, but then she heard it: footsteps coming down the stairs, whispered voices. She recognized the voices.

It was the boy and girl who had attacked her.

Panic slid down her spine. How had they found her again so quickly? Were they stalking her?

Ford turned, as though to go investigate, but Jas grabbed his arm and pulled him behind the bed, forcing him down into a squat. She ignored the way her skin tingled when touching his.

“What—?” Ford started to ask, but Jas shook her head.

The voices were louder now. The boy and girl had reached the bottom of the stairs; she could hear them moving through the main room, feet crunching on the
glass, breathing heavily, as though they’d been running. But she could
feel
them, too. Their determination. Their ruthlessness.

Her thighs ached and her legs were shaking. She and Ford were trapped. They would find her any second now. They must have heard the frantic pounding of her heart. To Jasmine, it was as loud as a marching band.

“We’re going to have to run.” She leaned in so close to Ford, she could practically taste him. For a second, the smell of his skin—like pine trees and fire and rain, all mixed up—made her dizzy.

Luckily, he didn’t ask questions. “Follow me,” he whispered.

She couldn’t stop the slight tremble in her limbs when his breath washed over her ear.

Ford stood up, keeping his hand wrapped around hers. It made her feel slightly better. They inched toward the doorway that led to the main room, sticking close to the wall, moving in complete silence. Jasmine was extra careful about where she placed her feet.

They flattened themselves against the wall next to the doorway. Ford peeked around the corner, then made a complicated gesture to Jasmine with his hands.

In the other room, the boy said, “Are you sure this was the place?”

“I’m sure,” the girl answered.

“Real craphole,” the boy said.

“Just find her.”

Ford bent down and picked up a piece of copper pipe
that had become dislodged during the earthquake. Jasmine thought he must be arming himself for a fight, and her throat seized up. She’d never hit anyone, never gotten violent at all except in some stupid self-defense program she’d taken instead of gym class freshman year.

But then Ford tossed the pipe so it landed with a clatter in the far corner of the bedroom, and Jas understood. As the boy and girl came rushing into the room, their attention fixed on the other side of the room, Ford and Jasmine moved. They made it only two steps into the main room before the stalkers pivoted, shouting, and leapt after them.

But a two-foot advantage was better than nothing, and Jasmine was fast now.

Unfortunately, they were fast, too. The girl’s fingertips grazed Jasmine’s hair as she reached the staircase. Jas twisted her head away and the girl growled in frustration. Ford was taking the steps two at a time, and Jasmine sprang after him.

Jasmine’s heart was bursting through her throat.

Once they were outside, Jas would scream for help. Once they were outside, they’d be okay.…

Just a few more steps …

Then Jasmine felt a hand wrap around her ankle. She fell hard and fast, slamming headfirst into the concrete lip at the top of the staircase. Pain spiked out at the impact, and stars danced in her vision. She tried to cry out, but shadows were advancing along the edges of her vision too quickly.

“Wait!” Ford called out, and she felt the electric brush of his fingers against hers before they were wrenched away.

Help me
. That was the last thought she had before everything went black.

This time, Luc was able to keep his footing in the Crossroad, but barely. It was like trying to stay afloat in a river flowing simultaneously in different directions, or trying to score a goal from inside a tornado. He fought to keep control over his body. Openings, vivid and multicolored, bloomed like huge flowers on either side of him. He knew they must have been openings into different worlds.

Panic overtook him. The universe was much too big to contemplate, and there were hundreds of thousands of worlds. What if he ended up in the Forest of the Blood Nymphs? Or somewhere even deadlier?

Thinking that made him think about Jasmine, waiting for him at Aunt Hillary’s house. The great flower had brought her back from death after the Blood Nymphs had nearly killed her, but it hadn’t cured her entirely. She
was different now. The way she’d fought off the Executors proved it.

He wondered how long it would be before she noticed the change.

He wondered if she was safe, and if she was worried about him.

Luc tried to fight his way to an exit, any exit, but it was no use. The winds were too strong. He staggered on, borne forward like a piece of driftwood at sea. All around him, shimmering colors twisted together to form new colors, a continuously changing canvas that was both breathtaking and terrifying. He found himself driven forward by a strong current the color of Corinthe’s eyes.

Corinthe.

Even her name brought a fresh wash of pain. This was all for her. He couldn’t forget that. If he didn’t do everything in his power to find a way to alter time, he would be lost. Rhys had known how, but his friend was gone.

Another life lost.

He wished the chemist was there now, to guide him, to tell him what to do.

The swirling colors ebbed, slowly, to a thick gray mist, and Luc knew he was washing up onto the shore of a new world. Outside the Crossroad, the air was much colder. A sudden chill overcame Luc. He shivered and rubbed his arms for warmth. Maybe he had gone back to the world of possibilities? But no. It was too cold.

His teeth chattered. He jogged in place, trying to stay warm. A mountain rose in the distance, tall and capped
with snow. Icy air swept down from its peak, bathing everything in subzero temperatures. Luc could feel it deep in his bones. It was worse, far worse, than the Land of the Two Suns at night.

He needed to find shelter before he froze to death.

Up ahead, Luc saw a small grove of trees, which would at least provide protection from the wind. He needed somewhere he could sit and look over Rhys’s book. He trudged through the snow toward the woods. His sneakers were little protection against the cold and the wet.

He pulled his hood up and over his head and drove his hands into his pockets. In the silence of this new world, Luc’s muffled footsteps seemed to echo off the mountain itself. Other than the trees, he saw nothing alive, nothing growing—nothing but snow and ice.

Finally, he reached the trees and stepped between two medium-sized trunks. Their boughs were covered in heavy snow and, burdened by the extra weight, drooped toward the ground. But it was slightly warmer away from the wind.

Luc slid his backpack from his shoulders and set it down in the snow. While Jasmine had showered, Luc had grabbed an old army surplus backpack and thrown in a pair of thick gloves, a new lighter, and five protein bars.

The last time he traveled the Crossroad, he’d been unprepared. Not this time.

Unfortunately, the lighter would be of no use. There was nothing dry to burn. He wrestled on the gloves, still
shivering, and pulled out the book he’d taken from Tess in the library.

Rhys’s book. Rhys’s
life
.

Luc sat down on his backpack and leaned against one of the tree trunks. A dull ache throbbed inside his chest, and he closed his eyes, imagining Rhys was there with him as he read the words.

Luc closed the book and the voice fell abruptly into silence. The longing, the pain in Rhys’s voice was too much. Rhys spoke about cold—was that why Luc had been driven to this freezing world? Had Rhys’s book somehow guided him here, to this vast and empty place?

What is life without love?
A good question. Luc thought of the bittersweet kiss he and Corinthe had shared, their first and last. How her eyes had lit up like two suns. How finally, at last, he’d felt a sense of belonging.

Failure was not an option. A popular mantra that Coach had them repeat before every game.

Luc flipped through the pages, hoping there was something about the tunnels of time, about how to go back.

Luc swallowed against the wedge of emotion lodged in his throat. Rhys had seemed happy when they met, sailing the Ocean of Shadows, tending to the needs of the Figments—but it had been only a mask.

Did everyone have secrets? Luc wondered. Corinthe had hidden behind an idea of Fate. His mom had hidden within the comfort that drugs could give her. His father had chosen the bottle.

Luc flipped through the pages. He knew that going back in time was possible—the book proved that Rhys had done it—but it didn’t say
how
.

Blank pages rustled in the quiet, but Rhys’s voice had stopped speaking.

“Come on,” Luc muttered.

“That doesn’t belong to you.”

The voice came out of nowhere. For a split second, Luc thought the book had spoken in a voice that was not
Rhys’s. Then Tess moved out of the shadows, becoming solid as she approached him. He could tell she was tired. Her form seemed more fluid than it had earlier, as if she couldn’t bother to keep it together.

But her eyes were dark. Wild. Urgent. Wounded, too. Maybe she’d been hurt in the fight with whatever those
things
were—those shadow figures who’d attacked in the library.

“It’s not yours, either.” Luc slowly pushed to his feet, never taking his eyes off Tess. He shut the book and tucked it under his arm. Wind howled through the trees, picking up snow and swirling it around them. It was as if Tess’s presence had attracted the wind.

“It’s mine more than anyone’s,” Tess said. “Rhys gave me life. His energy created me, and now that energy is all that’s left of him and it’s in that book. I want it back.”

Now Luc understood the wounded look. She was grieving, like he was. “If you’d just help me, I wouldn’t need it,” he said. His breath condensed in the air. Slowly, he tucked the book back into his backpack and zipped it closed. The only way she’d get the book was by agreeing to help him or taking it by force. Tess watched him like a predator, her muscles tense like she was waiting for him to try to escape. Like she would pounce and tear him to shreds at the slightest movement.