“Jasper,” I answer, mimicking his tone and trying for a smile.
“Wow,” Vee says. “You two been together long?”
“We met tonight,” I say at the same time Jasper says, “A couple months.”
Vee backs away slowly. Just before she turns, I say, “Club sandwich, butter on the toast, not mayo.”
She scribbles hastily as she retreats.
“Happy?” I say to Jasper.
He certainly doesn’t look like it. His lips are pale and his frown makes it hard to see the sparkly shine of his pretty eyes. He says, “You have to take care of yourself. That cough doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s no worse than anything else.” I leave his hold long enough to twist my spine, but the restriction in my midback, the pain I felt yesterday from the stab wound, is still there. Not as bad, but it still feels like something in me is healing. I grimace.
“What?” Jasper says.
“Nothing.”
The food is... Okay, actually the food is pretty good. I can’t remember the last time I ate something before the murderpickles. And Jasper’s burger is as big as his head, so it keeps him busy for a while, and we finally stop bickering.
I don’t mean to argue with him. Not all the time like I have been, anyway. I learned a long time ago if you shoot fast, people don’t realize you’ve got nothing in the chamber until they’re already running away. But that tactic works best for finite things like a first date. Something like this? I’m not helping things. We’ll never escape if we keep wasting time with pointless arguments.
I glance at the painting on the wall. Vee’s memorial. When Mother died, I blamed her for it. She and Ezekiel built the light box that was meant to trap Indigo. In the last trial before that night, there was an accident. The room caught fire, and Vee was trapped. She wasn’t anywhere near the building the night my mother died, no matter how my brain pieces fact and fiction together while I dream. She was in the ICU, half her torso and one leg covered in bandages as she recovered from the burns.
Vee never had any superpowers. She was handy with a gun and a power drill, better operating behind the scenes than on the front lines. That didn’t stop me from blaming her, though. The box had been her idea. They’d all known the risks after the fire, but Mother said they couldn’t wait for more trials. The time to catch Indigo was running out. So Vee wasn’t there to help when my mother needed her, and I nursed that grudge for a long time. Indigo disappeared, I walked away from that world, and I guess Vee did too. She worked at Wench,where she could see my mother every day and nursed her grief. Maybe she’s the one who created this time loop. Forcing me to come back here over and over until I’m finally ready to say what needs to be said.
“So I was thinking,” Jasper says, but regardless of all my good intentions, I don’t want to hear his idea. We’re done with fact finding. It’s time for action.
“We’re going to Wolfe Tech.”
He grimaces. “Was kind of hoping you’d forgotten about that.”
“If he’s behind this, I need to know.” It’s not really Vee, despite my musings. If she were that desperate to talk to me, she’d talk. No need for a time machine. Walter Wolfe, on the other hand... “And if you’re not up for it, I understand. I’ll find a way in myself. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll meet you back here and we can try again.” I give him a wry smile. “I’ll try as many times as it takes.” Do I want to die? No. Will I keep dying if it means eventually getting answers? I guess this is what it’s come to.
“No.” Jasper shakes his head emphatically.
“I don’t think you actually get a say in this.”
“No.” He glances around, and when he speaks, his voice is urgent and hushed. “I mean, that’s not the worst thing that could happen. If you do somehow succeed at finding a way in and Wolfe finds out, he won’t only kill you.” Jasper takes my hands in his and where before, in Ezekiel’s office, his touch was comforting, now the way he clings to me is desperate. Scared. He may work for Walter Wolfe, but he’s afraid of him too. “It won’t be some tidy headshot that you die too fast to feel and then you meet me here so I can say I told you so.”
I flinch at the casual way he talks about executing someone, but that’s not the point. “Jasper, I can take care?—”
“No.” This time he raises his voice loud enough that a few heads turn, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Listen. Walter Wolfe is a paranoid bastard. If he catches you?—”
“He won’t.” I have to believe we can succeed at this, though I wish I’d paid more attention in Mother’s Superhero 101 lessons about how to get in and out of places unnoticed.
Jasper won’t be persuaded, though. His grip on my hand tightens as he tries to convey how serious he is about this. “He’ll hurt you because that’s what he does. He’ll want to know whatyou know, and who else knows it too, and he won’t stop until he gets answers. He’ll go after your family. Ezekiel. Maybe Clarissa. Trust me. I know. I’ve?—”
My throat goes dry as his warning cuts out and his face goes pale. There’s real fear in his expression—and shame.
“Because you’ve hurt people?” I ask.
He shakes his head violently. “No. Never. But I’ve seen... after. I’ve helped... get rid of the evidence. Morgan. It can’t be you. Even if you come back after. I couldn’t?—”
I pull my hand from his, shoving away from the table, because I don’t want to hear what he has to say. I don’t want to hear that he cares what happens to me, not in the same breath that he says he’s helped it happen to others... or at least hasn’t interfered.
“Look, you don’t have to get your hands any dirtier than they already are,” I say. “I can go in myself. If it means finding out if he’s the one trapping us here, I have to know. But you don’t have to go. Take the night off or whatever. Go... hang out with your hench friends.”
