“Look, we tried it your way. You got thrown across a room, and I got stabbed. Why would we do that again?”
But Jasper’s not listening. He’s nodding like he agrees with me but then says, “We’ll be better prepared. We can get some disguises.”
“Disguises? People there knew who I was. Who my mother was. Do you think a funny hat and a pair of sunglasses is?—”
“Wait.” Jasper holds up a hand. “Your mother? Who’s your mother?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have said that out loud. Dying so many times has scrambled my brain, and I’m letting secrets that I’ve been protecting my whole life slip. I don’t care if the other people at Wench know who my mother was because they’ll all forget with the next stabbing or bus accident. But Jasper won’t forget,and he works for someone who would beveryinterested in this information.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I grab my jacket and laptop bag. “We’re not going back there.”
Jasper follows after me as I head to the door. “Then where are we going?”
“We tried it your way, now we’re going to try it mine.” No more diving in headfirst. We’re taking the careful approach. The scientific one. We are consulting experts instead of devising our own methodology when we clearly have no idea what’s happening.
“Then what are we waiting for?” he asks, glancing around. We’re standing on the street corner. I didn’t even realize I had stopped.
“We’re, uh . . . we’re waiting for the bus.”
“We’re taking the bus?”
“No.” My feet feel like they’re glued to the concrete. “I’m just... waiting for it to pass so I know it’s safe to cross.”
Jasper checks his watch. It’s an old one with a gold face and a worn brown leather strap. “The bus came three minutes ago.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I had lots of time to figure out the timing of things before you started remembering.” He laughs softly and takes my hand. This time, I don’t shake him off because I’m honestly not sure how I’ll get my feet to move otherwise.
I try not to think about that too hard. It’s like someone experiencing something while you were asleep. He could have done anything to me those first sixty times. Told me anything. He could have been all “come with me if you want to live,” then pushed me off a cliff for shits and giggles, and I wouldn’t know.
But true to his word, there’s no sign of the bus. We cross the street and through the parking lot to my car and wow—this is a head spinner. We were here two hours ago, where I lecturedJasper and demanded answers, and now we’re here again and I’ve died yet again and it’s a different day, but the same day.
Jasper gives me a sympathetic smile. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
His consideration is so at odds with the imaginary Jasper in my head who is still yeeting me off a cliff to pass the time. So much of him is at odds with what I know. He doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body, yet somehow he works for Walter Wolfe.
“That’s the face you make when you’re trying to solve a tough problem, like how to tell me you’ve had a really nice time but you don’t think this relationship has a future. I’ve seen it enough to know.” He raises a finger to my forehead, and I jerk my head back. He doesn’t look hurt by the action. “You’re thinking about it. Time. Truth.”
“Truth is relative,” I say. “It’s really not much more than consensus in the face of empirical evidence.”
He laughs, even while I still feel way too vulnerable. “It’s still better if you don’t strain yourself trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.”
“This is a man-made phenomenon. Someone is doing this to us. We just have to figure out who it is, how they’re doing it, and get them to stop.” I unlock the car and motion for Jasper to get in before we have any more squishy feelings between us.
Jasper rolls his eyes as he slides into the front seat. “Oh, is that all? Why didn’t I think of that before?”
I have to fight to keep from smiling. It’s the first snarky thing Jasper’s said, and the frustration in his tone makes me feel a little better. He’s not operating with more information than I am. Despite his ambiguous views of good and evil, he needs me as much as I need him.
I say, “And if we can’t figure it out on our own, we’ll have to ask for help.”
“Help?” Jasper asks as we pull out of the lot. “Who could possibly help us with this?”
“We’re going to see the smartest person I know.”
I only hope he’s smart enough to know what to do.
