More Than Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #2) (31 page)

I gasped. I hadn’t even thought about that. It was bad enough that he’d been hurt because of me. Again! But now his entire life has been severely altered. I thought letting Mike get hurt was bad, but that was nothing compared to the pain I felt knowing I’d just stolen something from Ryan that was so important to him.

“Babe,” Ryan whispered gently. The calmness he displayed hurt my heart. “Jamie. Look at me.”

I forced my eyes to open. I hadn’t realized I’d shut them.

As soon as I was looking at Ryan, he smiled so sweetly. “It doesn’t matter. You are the only thing that matters to me.”

He really would give up everything for me. He was that selfless. He loved me that much. And I wanted him to. I wanted him to walk away from his life and give up everyone he’s ever known and loved for me. Desperately. But I loved him, too. I loved him just as much as he loved me, and that meant doing what was best for him even if it wasn’t what either of us wanted. I could be selfless, too. For Ryan, I could do the right thing.

“You and me, Jamie. Always.”

I finally lost it.
Really
lost it.

“NO!” I screamed. “I can’t keep doing this to you! First Mr. E., and now this? Ryan, you were shot! When that gun went off and I saw you fall I thought—I thought—” I broke off into hideous sobs. “You have been hurt so badly because of me, and now I’ve taken something from you that makes you happy, something that was a part of you.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Jamie. I’ll heal. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me! I know you love me, and I know you don’t blame me, but I can’t keep hurting you! I can’t keep putting you in danger! I
can’t
! Do you understand that? I can’t take it. My
heart
can’t take it!”

“What are you going to do, then? Just leave? Never see me, Becky, or your parents again?” Ryan asked. Still, he didn’t get angry. He kept his voice steady and pulled his face into an unreadable mask.

“Yes,” I whispered. “To keep you safe.” I shot a teary smile at my parents. They were both crying, too. “To keep you all safe, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s what I have to do. I couldn’t live with myself if anything ever happened to any of you. I love you too much.”

My mom broke out into sobs and threw her arms around me. My father’s arms soon wrapped us both up. They knew, like I knew, that this had to be done, and together we silently said good-bye to one another.

“What are you going to do, Jamie?” Ryan asked. “Where are you going to go? Where will you live? How will you get money? New identification? You can’t do this by yourself.”

I didn’t have an answer to this, but before I had to come up with one Teddy cleared his throat. He’d been so quiet I’d forgotten he was even there.

I was relieved to see the hostility gone from his expression. I’d expected him to look smug. Instead, he looked a little nauseated. I wasn’t sure I liked his pity, but I was glad he finally understood that this wasn’t a game—it wasn’t some secret superheroes club—it was my life. And it was literally coming to an end. As of now, Jamie Baker was dead. She no longer existed.

“I can help you with that,” Teddy said quietly. “I have a place—a small house that’s completely off the grid.” He looked steadily at my father. “Your daughter would be safe there.”

“You have a what?” I asked while my dad asked, “What do you mean ‘off the grid’?”

“I mean, it’s isolated and secret. I set it up to be a sort of safe house in case I ever found myself in a situation like this. No one knows about it except me. Not even the people who adopted me. I bought it in secret and purchased it with cash using one of my, um, false identities. I could take Jamie there and make her a new identity as well. I could help your daughter disappear permanently. Visticorp would have no idea how to find her. She could start over as someone else and be safe.”

“False identities? Safe houses?” I blinked at the kid sitting in front of me. His adorkableness seemed almost nefarious now. “Who
are
you?”

Teddy looked at me with a wide range of emotions from affection to pity to condescension. “The question isn’t who am I, but why haven’t you done the same thing as me? Jamie, you and I are different. Because of our powers, we’re targets. We’ll always be in various degrees of danger. I know you understand that. I realized a long time ago that if I wanted to survive I needed to be prepared for anything.”

My dad dropped his head into his hands and let out a sigh full of regret. “It’s my fault. I thought we could just hide her. Move here and start fresh. I thought we’d be able to keep her secret guarded. I should have done more. I should have been ready for something like this.”

“Dad, don’t do that to yourself.”

“She’s right, Mr. Baker,” Teddy said. “You guys are all getting a crash course in this. I’ve been dealing with it my whole life, and let’s just say that the people who raised me weren’t as...”—Teddy struggled to find the right word—“good as you and Mrs. Baker. My viewpoint is probably more jaded than yours.”

Again, I wondered what kind of people had sought him out and what they must have tried to use him for when he was too young to know any better. It was hard not to pity him a little bit. He transformed back into that lovable, harmless mischief-maker I’d first thought him to be.

We all sat there quietly for a minute before my dad broke the silence. “You would do that for my daughter?” he asked Teddy. His voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it. “You’d give her a new identity? Help her escape Visticorp?”

I wanted to argue that I didn’t need Teddy’s help, that I could take care of myself, but there was something in my father’s voice that made me keep my mouth shut.

“I would love nothing more, Mr. Baker.”

Teddy looked at me and swallowed a big lump in his throat. “I know I’m not the one you love, but you have no idea how long I’ve wished there was someone like me, whom I could be myself with and who would really, truly understand what I’m going through. A real friend. I might not be able to replace Ryan, but I can be your friend. I have to disappear now, too. We can do it together if you’ll just let me help you.
Please
, let me help you.”

My throat closed up. Of course the decision was already made, and I could even admit that it would be nice to have someone in my life who understood me. I needed that connection Teddy and I shared as much as he did.

But still…

Would my heart continue to beat after I left Ryan? I met his tortured eyes and knew that it wouldn’t, at least not inside my chest. If I left Ryan today, my heart would stay with him. I’d never be whole again.

Outside, the sound of several vehicles coming up my street at once caught my attention, and then I heard an unfamiliar voice say, “The front door of the home is in the middle of the street. It’s possible the girl is here. Or, at least she was.”

“Approach with caution and shoot on sight. We need her unconscious as quickly as possible.”

I wanted to say a very bad word. “Looks like I don’t get time to pack my stuff.”

Everyone in the room went stiff. “You have to go, Jamie,” my dad said. “Now.”

“You can do this, honey,” my mom blubbered behind me. “You’re strong. You’ll get through it, and you’ll have a good life. I know you will.”

“Your mother and I will always love you, Jamielynn. Always.”

My eyes found Ryan’s again. They couldn’t help it.

“Jamie,” Teddy whispered urgently. He was peeking through the curtains. “There are an awful lot of people heading our way. Now would be a good time to do what you did before with the whole super-running thing.”

He was right. I had to leave. “Give me your hand.”

“Jamie, we don’t have time to mess around. Just kiss me.”

“No. I promised.”

Teddy groaned and crossed the room to me. “What does it matter? You’re never going to see him again! We need to get out of here!”

I felt as if I’d been slapped. My entire body froze from the shock of his statement.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said in a much quieter voice when he realized how much he’d hurt me. “But Jamie, we’ve got to leave.”

It was Ryan who finally spurred me into motion. “Give me your hand,” he ordered Teddy. When Teddy hesitated, Ryan reached out and wrapped his fingers tightly around Teddy’s scrawny arm. “One last superkiss,” he whispered to me.

I understood what he was trying to do and crashed my lips onto his, hating that this was going to be our last kiss. I tried to memorize everything about him. How he tasted, how he smelled. How his lips moved with mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As my energy passed to him and we were pulled together by that invisible force that has connected us from the day we met, it felt like our hearts were fused together as one. We were two people who shared one soul. We belonged to each other forever. No matter what. When I left him that soul was going to shatter. I was going to be irreparably broken.

I ripped myself away from him when I heard quiet footsteps crunch the soft grass in my front yard. One glance at Teddy confirmed that Ryan’s plan to transfer my energy through him had worked. He was shaking and his hair was standing on end.

Ryan rested his forehead against mine and inhaled a deep breath as if he were trying to commit the smell of me to memory. “You’ll come back to me,” he whispered.

I wanted to say something, but I was crying too hard. I cursed my tears. They were making it hard to see his eyes, and I needed to see them clearly.

“You will,” Ryan insisted. “And if you take too long I will come looking for you. I’m
not
letting you go forever, Jamie. I am
not
saying good-bye.”

I didn’t argue. I needed the lie as much as he did. I needed that shred of hope, no matter how small it was. “Talk to Becky for me. Tell her I’m so sorry about Mike. Explain everything to her—about his accident, about me, my powers, Visticorp. Don’t let her believe I just betrayed her and disappeared. She deserves the truth.”

“I promise.” He gave me a pain-filled smile. “Love you, Sunshine.”

“Love you too, Ry. Forever.”

I sent one last glance to my parents, who were holding each other and would probably never let go again, and then I grabbed Teddy’s hand and disappeared to who knows where.

We made it as far
as Las Vegas before Teddy ran out of energy. He threw himself down on the curb in front of the Bellagio, gasping for breath.

“I don’t even know how to describe that experience.” He was smiling hugely, but then had to stick his head between his knees. “Does it always make you this sick?”

I shrugged. “It was really disorienting for the first few months, but I didn’t realize what was happening for the longest time and then I had to figure out how to control it. It’s as natural as breathing now.”

“That’s funny, because I felt like I couldn’t breathe at all the entire time.”

I just shrugged again. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. Hugging my arms to me, though it did nothing to squash the pain in my chest, I turned around and stared up at the casino behind me. The fountains were dancing in the night so cheerfully it felt as if they were mocking me.

A hand came down on my shoulder. “Jamie,” Teddy said softly.

“Don’t.” The run had dried my tears, but I still hiccuped. “Just don’t.”

Teddy didn’t say anything else. He laced his fingers in mine and began pulling me down the street. I didn’t have the energy to argue. I just let him lead the way.

We caught a taxi to the airport where Teddy kept a car parked in a long-term parking lot near the airport. Then he drove us south for about an hour, using roads that I wasn’t even sure were real roads. At one point I think he was just driving across a random bit of desert using the digital compass on the car’s dash as his guide.

Eventually we came to a stop in front of an adobe-style mud house that rested at the base of a small mountain. Had it not been for the bright beams of the car’s headlights, I would have mistaken the house for just part of the landscape. It blended so well into its surroundings.

“Home sweet home,” Teddy muttered anxiously.