“What?” He grins sheepishly. “I may be dying, but doesn’t mean I’m not hungry. I deserve a last meal.”
That’s decidedly unfunny. Now is not the time for humour. “I’m not going to let you die.”
He grimaces, rubbing his chest. “Not sure you get a choice.” Without warning, he coughs. The sound is already wet. We don’t have much time.
“Jasper.” My voice wobbles.
“It’s okay.” He takes my hand, kissing the knuckles. When he looks up, dark circles are forming under his eyes.
I shake my head furiously. “It’s not. I have a plan. My powers. I can restart the day. Whenever we need to. It doesn’t hurt.”
“And what?” he asks. He hasn’t let go of my hand and he runs his thumb over the back of it. It’s meant to be comforting, though his words are anything but. “We go on our first date forever and ever?”
“We’ll make progress,” I say. His gaze is steady, but there’s sadness in his eyes. Resignation. It’s like the first night again, when he thought he’d be alone forever, only now he believes it’s me who’s going to be left here by myself. “Don’t worry. This isn’tthe end. When you...” I clear my throat. “When you... we’ll start over.”
Jasper doesn’t say anything. He shivers as he pulls his shirt on, covering the internal wound that’s slowly killing him. Again. I don’t understand it as I run my hand over my own body, feeling all the places where aches and pains have healed. If I were like Jasper, after two months or even more, I shouldn’t be able to walk—or breathe or speak or anything. The bus alone should have left me a crumpled mess.
I lean across the car and kiss his cheek. “We’ll go to the lab,” I say. “See about the machine in the basement. If that’s as far as we get today, that’s fine.”
“The lab? What lab?”
Did I not tell him about that? Was I so horny that the topic of the apparition of my dead mother slipped my mind? It certainly wasn’t enough that I didn’t?—
I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands.
“What? What is it?” Jasper pulls my wrists.
The horror is unthinkable. Oh god. I seriously consider freezing us both solid in my car to avoid the conversation, but it’s not like he won’t remember if we start again. The only way out of this is through it.
Still. Asking the question is agony.
“Did I really interrupt you midsex to tell you about my dead mother?”
He blinks a few times. Clearly, he was expecting a different, more earth-shattering crisis, though I really don’t see what could be worse than this. But then he wrinkles his nose like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day, and when he laughs, I know it’s going to be okay.
“Technically, it was midforeplay. And it seemed kind of important.”
I put my hands to my cheeks, trying to cool my burning face. “But not so important that I remembered to tell you I saw her.”
His smile vanishes. “What?”
“At the lab. Right before the last time I died.” Not including giving myself hypothermia on the bathroom floor. “Well... the other last time.”
He whirls, like she might appear in the car. “You saw her? Your mother? You saw the Legendary Flame and jumping my bones seemed more important?”
“I didn’t jump your bones, Jasper. I seduced you.”
He looks appalled. “You didn’t even buy me dinner first.”
I gape. “Now who’s fighting?”
He’s laughing once again. Jasper always seems to be laughing. But suddenly he winces, putting a hand to his chest. His face contorts in pain. We’re running out of time.
“We have to go to the lab,” I say.
“Your mother is at the lab?”
I don’t even know who’s at the lab. Indigo, yes. Something that looks like my mother but has all the substance of a mirage. So many questions, and if we don’t hurry up, Jasper will be dead again before we get there.
