“Well, you just broke toward your destiny. And before you deck me, I’m not sayingI’myour destiny. I’m saying that, for some reason,your intuition broke on this moment because it’s going to mark a shift in your life. A pivot point where you moved inexorably into the next timeline, and the world as you know it will never be the same.”
“Yeah, that’snotwhat happened,” she says, but she finds she’s been holding her breath, because in a way, thatiswhat it feels like.
“Movies give us cues with music and lights and camera angles,” Rafe says, “so that the audience never misses the break. But life doesn’t come with special effects, so most people don’t even notice their act breaks. But filmmakers do.”
“Iama filmmaker.”
He gestures toward the plane. “Then get in the jet and prove it.”
Dez swallows. So strange this invitation, this man, the past twenty-four hours.
“If I do accept tonight, I’m going to need to be able to see my brother.”
Rafe nods. “Anytime you want.”
Dez blinks, surprised by the simplicity of his answer. “Really?”
“You’ll be amazed by our resources at Acheron.”
Does he mean the school would fly her back here? This is more than she’d been hoping for. “Thank you.”
“You and your brother must be close.” It’s the first thing Rafe has said that doesn’t sound like he’s daring her to rack him.
She feels a pinch at the back of her throat. “I can’t help loving him. Sometimes I wish I could.”
He nods, showing unprecedented restraint in making a dickhead remark.
Dez looks around the quiet airstrip and shakes her head in disbelief. Is she leaving now, for good? For an actual bigger, better life? It feels impossible. Like she doesn’t deserve it after what she did to Mo.
She wishes he were here so he could tell her what to do and she could ignore him, like old times. The thought sends a stabbing pain through her chest, and then she hears Mo’s voice.
When your chance comes …
Her eyes burn, but she doesn’t cry. If Mo comes out of surgery, if he survives and heals and she tells him this story, and what she said no to in order to sit by his hospital bed, waiting to get arrested?Thatwould make him furious.
“Let’s fly,” she says, walking past Rafe and up the stairs of the obsidian jet.
INSIDE THE JET, IT’S DARKand sleek, with four black captain’s chairs flanking a black aisle. There’s a bar. Glass ceiling panels showing off the stars. And … no cockpit. Only windows all the way to the plane’s nose.
Dez has never been in the same vicinity as a private jet, but she’d always assumed they still needed pilots. Is this a stunt, where whatever Rafe’s been scheming gets revealed? Has this all been a ruse to sell her something? She’s not buying.
“Grab a seat,” Rafe tells her, pulling the door to the gangway closed.
Dez takes to the front corner chair, sinking into leather so plush she can’t help sighing. There’s soft lighting overhead, and on a black glass console in front of her, she finds bottled water, two crystal goblets, and colorful candies in a jar.
She feels her phone buzz in her pocket and hurries to pick up. It can only be her mom this late at night. There must be news about Mo.
But when Dez sees the name on her screen, her heart skips.
Asher?
Why would he call so late, in the middle of the night? And out ofthe blue, on a day she almost texted him? Her finger slides to answer, but this is crazy. She can’t talk to him right now. She bites her lip, dying to know what he wants, fearing how awkward the conversation would be with Rafe five feet away.
Rafe takes the seat across from Dez and smiles at her, dazzling and unexpected. She smells something on him that she hadn’t noticed last night but that now smells familiar, jogging her memory back to their meeting. Petrichor? Fresh rain on the earth. Such a rare scent in Death Valley.
“Ready?” he asks.
Dez lifts her finger off her screen.
