Chaos (18 page)

Jasmine made the bus connections on autopilot and made her way toward Fort Point. There were several more cars in the parking lot now and people milled around snapping pictures, obviously relieved the rain had finally stopped. She had to wait fifteen minutes before there was a break in the continuous flow of people and she could slip through the gate.

As soon as she came to the corner of the brick building, she froze. Somewhere nearby was an Executor. She could feel it in the sudden electric jolt that went up her spine.

She took a deep breath. No more running. What she needed was a plan.

The waiting was the hardest part. She knew that the Executor could run very fast. If she didn’t time it just right, if she didn’t have the element of surprise on her side, she’d never make it. At the same time, she needed the Executor to see her, to follow her inside.

Patience was not something Jas was good at, but she forced herself to stay still.

Her entire body was tuned in to the Executor and she sensed it was the girl. Hopefully, that would make it easier to overpower her. When the opening came, Jasmine sprang from her spot behind the corner of the building before she could talk herself out of the craziness.

Her sneakers pounded on the pavement as she raced across the lot between the fort and the huge cement bridge footer. She could feel the Executor’s eyes on her. Where was the other one, the boy? Jas knew he must be nearby. She ran as fast as she could. The girl was gaining on her—Jas could smell her and hear the rapid pace of her footsteps.

The door was still ten feet away.

Just as she felt the brush of the Executor’s hand on her back, Jas stopped and spun wildly to the right, something she’d seen Luc do on the soccer field. The Executor grunted and stumbled. Somehow Jasmine managed to stay upright, and she sprinted to the door.

She yanked the door open and ducked inside, making sure not to dislodge the piece of wood she’d jammed in the doorway earlier. A faint glow came from the room where she and Ford had slept. She didn’t have time to wonder about it. She thumped her bag to the ground and grabbed a pipe the length of her arm from the scrap heap in the corner, then backed into the shadows.

Pressed against the cold stone, concealed in darkness, she waited, holding her breath.

She heard the door open and close. The Executor was following her. Good. Jas adjusted her grip on the pipe.

The Executor came forward slowly, shoes squeaking on the floor.

As soon as the girl stepped into the light, Jasmine swung. As the Executor whirled around to face her, Jas brought the pipe down onto the hand clutching the knife. There was a sickening crunch and the girl screeched and sank to her knees. Jas lifted the pipe and held it over her shoulder, ready to strike again. She didn’t need to. The girl was holding her broken hand, moaning.

Jasmine kicked the knife away, then knelt beside the girl.

“What do you want? Why are you following me?”

The girl’s eyes were filled with pain as she looked at Jasmine. “It’s not my fault,” she said, almost sullenly. “I’m just following orders.”

“Whose orders?” Jasmine said. The pipe felt heavier than before.

“It’s your fate,” the girl said hurriedly. “You can’t escape it. You were supposed to die.”

Before Jas could respond, an explosion of pain in her head sent her sprawling to the ground. Stars danced in her vision. Something pummeled her stomach and launched her across the room, where she slammed into the wall, sending all the air out of her lungs. For a second she was suspended in darkness.

Then her vision cleared. She saw the boy, the other Executor, backlit by the lantern, holding a knife. He
crossed the room quickly. Jasmine tried to stand but found she couldn’t make the command work its way from her brain to her legs. Her lungs were buckling ineffectually.

I’m so sorry, Luc
. The thought fluttered in her mind and then disappeared, like a kite on the breeze.

She was cutting in and out of consciousness, and she saw everything in choppy images. The boy was above her. His knife was raised. The girl said something, but Jas couldn’t make sense of the words. There was a throbbing pain in her head.

The knife gleamed in the lamplight.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said. A look of pain passed over his face. “But this is the way it must be.”

He tensed like an animal prepared to spring. Then he jerked violently and his hand went slack. The knife clattered to the ground. His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth in a silent scream.

Blinding light filled the room, and Jas shielded her eyes.

Lightning. Lightning came out of nowhere. It ran through the boy’s whole body; his limbs jerked as if he were doing some sick dance.

There was a dull thud when he collapsed. The light disappeared.

Behind him, with sparks still dancing from his fingertips, was Ford.

Miranda watched Luc disappear with the flame into the Crossroad. She was filled with strength born of fury. The eternal flame belonged to her. She
needed
it.

“How could you?” she spat, lunging at Tess. She was too angry to be careful. Tess sidestepped her easily, then twisted Miranda’s arm behind her back, holding her still. Miranda grunted in pain. She hated bodies and their frailty; she would have given anything to return to her natural formlessness. But her time in Vita had weakened her.

“Stop,” Tess said. “Stop. It’s over.”

“I’ll never stop,” Miranda hissed, yanking herself free.

They were evenly matched; Tess, too, was weak. The fight could go on forever while her flame was getting farther away. Miranda reached into the folds of her gown and withdrew the locket that had led Corinthe to her
death. The high-pitched notes of the music would shatter this world in seconds, and Tess would be destroyed with it.

Miranda was too full of rage to grieve. Tess had made her choice.

“I’ll destroy this world and you along with it. I’ll destroy
everything
in the universe if I have to.”

Before Tess could stop her, Miranda pushed the tiny spring and the tinny music began to play. The melody was beautiful, and in response the glass around them started to crack, thousands of tiny fissures spidering outward. An enormous sound, like a giant mirror falling onto a sidewalk, filled the air. The whole world seemed to vibrate.

A roar erupted around them. The creature that had tried to kill Luc earlier sounded furious. And close. Miranda dove into the entrance to the Crossroad as the entire world gave a great shudder and shattered, exploding into millions of razor-sharp pieces.

Tess dove into the Crossroad right behind her and grabbed her ankle. Pain unlike any she had ever felt before radiated through Miranda. She kicked out at Tess but couldn’t catch her breath.

The glass shards permeated the Crossroad exit and pierced her skin in a million different places. Tess was not immune, either, and Miranda heard her screams of pain before a blinding light appeared and Tess was gone.

When the fiery inferno became too much for her to bear, Miranda threw back her head and screamed. She
longed to burst free from herself, to streak across the universe in one last defiant blaze of fire, but that took energy she didn’t have.

As if mocking her wish, a tiny light streaked across the blackness. Then another. Soon, a shower of sparks lit up the vast unknown around her, a meteor shower of epic proportions. It reminded her of Rhys, of the beauty they had once created together.

Miranda watched, transfixed, paralyzed by its beauty, by the memories it evoked.

But then the direction changed. The sparks began heading toward her as if thrown by thousands of unseen hands. She could do nothing to protect herself. They pierced her body over and over, like tiny spears, and she felt a scream rip through her.

“Rhys!”

She could only cry out for him, his name, his memory, the only thing holding her together.

One last flash of bright light blinded her, and then she found herself lying facedown on a red-sand beach. Sand lodged under her nails as she fought to rise. A crippling stab of agony shot through her middle, and she gasped. What was happening to her? Even her birth—fiery, forged from a collision of two stars—had not been so painful.

“This is your own fault, Miranda.” Tess stood over her, panting, blocking out the glare from the two suns overhead.

Miranda had never wanted to return to this desolate
red world that had been Rhys’s eternal prison. Of course the Unseen Ones would send her there to die, too.

“What’s happening to me?” Already her throat grew dry. This world would suck the life from her, especially in her weakened state. Rhys would have a potion to cure her. Her next thought sent a new kind of pain through her.

Rhys was dead.

They were connected, born from the same stars, and she felt it the moment he ceased to exist. Half the fiery life inside her had been extinguished. It had made her weaker and yet fueled her desire for revenge.

She tried to picture before, but all she could see was what he had become: a shadow of his former glorious self.
Rhys
. The Unseen Ones had taken everything from him—her Rhys, who had once turned back time to save her life.

They had crippled him, exiled him, taken his power.

Miranda wanted revenge.

“You destroyed Aetern. And you destroyed something else, something much closer to your own heart.” Tess knelt down and pushed the hair from Miranda’s eyes in an almost motherly gesture. “A part of your heart, actually.”

Miranda struggled away from Tess’s touch. It took all her effort to push to her feet, where she stood, weaving unsteadily. “What are you talking about?”

“You killed Rhys. He was your Other. Now you’re dying,” Tess said simply.

Miranda tried to laugh. The effort sent fresh spasms
of pain through her body. “Rhys died because he tried to use the tunnels again.”

Tess shook her head. “His soul was in the book that Luc fed to the guardian of the flame. When you destroyed Aetern, you destroyed everything in it.
Everything
, Miranda.”

“No.” Miranda’s entire body shook. Despite the heat, she was cold. So cold. Rhys’s soul was supposed to live on in the Library of the Dead. But now it was gone forever. It couldn’t end this way, not after everything she had done.

“It’s over, Mira,” Tess said softly. There was true regret in her eyes.

“It will never be over,” Miranda gasped. A new shaft of pain nearly split her in half and she went down to her knees. She dug her fingertips into the sand, trying to find any sign of life in herself, something she could use to regain control. But there was nothing—no energy, no life, no hope in this arid world where her one true love had died.

She lay on the sand gasping for air, but none would enter her lungs. Hot tears ran down her face, and the dry sand devoured them as soon as they fell. She felt as if she were being pulled completely inside out.

She had always pictured her death as a glorious explosion of a sun in some faraway galaxy, fast and furious and brilliant. Not like this. Not lying on a dead beach writhing like an animal at the feet of someone she had trusted. Someone she had created.

Miranda could only watch as Tess leaned closer and
pressed her lips to her forehead. They felt warm against her cold skin. “I’m sorry,” Tess said. “Goodbye, my friend.”

The heat of the world made Miranda’s eyes sting, and as her gaze grew watery, Tess’s image wavered, and then was gone.

Miranda was left to face her last few moments completely alone.

“What—what happened?” Jas’s brain still felt fuzzy, as if it were wrapped in a blanket. She staggered to her feet. Ford tried to help her, but she pushed him away. He’d killed someone. He’d just
killed
someone. The boy, the Executor, was lying slack, his eyes open and unseeing. Jas thought she might throw up. “What did you do?”

“Jasmine—” Ford started to reach for her.

Jasmine took two stumbling steps backward. “Stay away from me.”

Then, suddenly, she felt the sharp bite of a blade against her throat.

“Don’t move,” the redheaded Executor said. She was holding the knife in her uninjured hand. The blade trembled slightly, and Jas could feel its vibration against her
jaw. She was afraid to swallow. Afraid to breathe, even. The Executor had an arm wrapped around Jasmine’s chest, keeping her immobilized. “You,” she snarled, addressing Ford, “stay here. Don’t follow us, or the girl dies.”