The men looked toward the sound of Jack returning, and they disappeared into the shadows.
Jack approached, holding a plastic bottle of Pepsi. “Were you talking to someone?”
Stella stared at the spot where Crusoe and Darcy had disappeared and shook her head. Shadowy words fluttered out of the darkness.Look ahead. Move forward. Trust your heart.“Do you think it will work?” she asked, staring at the liquid.
Jack shook his head. “Not really.”
Stella lifted the bottle from its resting place and popped off the cork. She poked her pinky finger into the bottle and tilted it, allowing the glowing liquid to touch her fingertip. A current of power zapped her finger, then raced through the palm of her hand and up her arm. She stumbled backward a step and almost dropped the bottle.
“Ow!” She shook out her arm.
Jack grabbed for her.
“I’m okay,” she said. She put down the bottle, and the liquid moved in agitation.
Jack rubbed his hand down her arm and entwined their fingers. “I’m against this.”
Stella looked at him. Uncertainty bubbled within her. Crusoe’s and Darcy’s words churned in her mind. Was leaving with Jack an escape, an easy way out of a life she hadn’t truly been present for in months?
“I’m not telling you no because I don’t want to be with you,” Jack said. “But going back to my story, that’s my life, not yours. You aren’t eveninmy story, and—”
“I understand,” she said, and she did. “I’m not part of the original story, and if I go with you, I might notbeanywhere.” She touched his cheek. “But what if the story is rewritten to include me?”
Jack sighed. “Say it is, but you know how my story ends, Stella.”
The moment bridged them in silence.
“I die,” he said. “Every time. Every ending. Do you want to relive that on repeat?”
Stella’s throat tightened. “But I would live part of a life with you. Isn’t that better than a life without you?”
On impulse, she kissed him. A burning, not entirely unpleasant sensation blossomed in her chest as Jack held her close and kissed her like this was possibly the very last time. At least for another year. The burning increased, and Stella broke away.
Violet words bubbled inside the bottle, rising from the blue liquid. The words pushed their way out of the glass and landed on the table where they quivered and then lifted on lavender wings.
Stella whispered the words. “‘Timeless. And he was right.’”
The blazing trail within her released its hold, and she heard Jack take in a deep breath. The glowing purple words flapped their wings, zoomed across the archives, and disappeared into the darkness.
“What if I could go with you and write—no,change—our story?” Stella said. “What ifmywords could somehow change everything?”
Jack didn’t respond.
Footsteps sounded on the archives’ staircase, and Arnie called out to Stella and Jack.
“We’re down here,” she answered.
Arnie appeared a second later, puffing up an aisle and looking determined. Ariel and Percy followed him.
“I see you found the stash,” Arnie said.
Stella looked only at Percy. “What are you doing here?”
“What amIdoing here?” Percy asked. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Arnie texted us,” Ariel said. “He said you’re going to—”
“Take a leap into the unknown to be with Jack,” Percy interrupted. “How can you stand by and let her do this?” he asked Jack.
