by Meg Cabot
"He just found me, Paul," I said. I didn't mention the part where I'd sort of made him find me.
Paul just glared at Jesse some more. If he noticed how different Jesse looked alive than he did dead, he didn't exactly mention it.
Jesse, for his part, simply nodded to Paul and asked me, "Is this him? The man who tied you up?"
I should have said no, of course. I should have seen what was coming.
But I didn't think. I just went, "Yeah, that's him."
It wasn't until I saw Jesse's hands clench into fists that I realized what I'd done. "No, wait!" I started to cry.
But it was too late. Jesse had launched himself at Paul like a linebacker, tackling him to the floor of the hayloft, and causing an enormous crash that sent the horses below whinnying and thumping around in their stalls.
"Stop it!" I cried, darting forward and trying separate them.
But it was like trying to pull apart a couple of mountains.
Paul, at least, wasn't as into the fight as Jesse was, since I could hear him crying, "Get him off me! Suze, get him off - "
On the word off, Jesse let go of his own accord and backed away, breathing hard. His shirt had gotten unbuttoned a little in the melee, and I caught a glimpse of his strong hard abs. It was impossible, even given the gravity of the situation, not to appreciate the sight.
"What the - " Paul scrambled up from the hay, brushing bits of it off him. "God, Suze. What did you tell him about me? Doesn't he know I'm the good guy here? You're the one who was going to let him get - "
"He knows," I interrupted, quickly.
Paul quit brushing himself and sent me a quizzical look. "He knows?" he echoed. "As in . . . knows knows?"
"He knows," I repeated grimly.
"Well," Paul said, looking intrigued. "What brought about that little change of heart? I thought - "
"That was before," I said quickly.
"Before what?" Paul found a piece of straw in his hair and pulled it out.
"Before I saw him," I said softly, not looking at either of them.
Paul didn't say anything - which for him was unusual. Jesse, of course, didn't know what we were talking about. He was still mad at Paul for tying me up.
"I don't know if it's considered normal in the time you come from to leave women bound and gagged," Jesse said severely. "But in this day and age, allow me to assure you that such behavior would generally land a gentleman in jail."
Jesse said the word gentleman like it was the last thing he actually thought Paul was.
Paul just looked at him. "You know," he said. "I think I like your ghost better."
I felt it wise to change the subject. "He's here," I said to Paul. "Felix Diego, I mean."
"I know," Paul said. "I followed him back here."
"I thought you were going to get rid of him!"
"Yeah, well, I couldn't just walk up to him and suck out his soul in front of everyone."
"Why not?"
"Because I would've gotten shot, that's why not."
"But you could just have shifted back to the future - "
"Uh, and left you tied up in Mrs. O'Neil's hayloft? I don't think so. I'd have had to come back and rescue you." His gaze shifted toward Jesse's. "I didn't know, of course, that Prince Charming here had come along and done it for me."
"So what are we going to do?" I asked. Paul looked at Jesse.
"Well," he said. "What does Wonderboy want to do?"
"Wonderboy?" Jesse glared menacingly in Paul's direction. "Is this person a friend of mine in the future?" he asked me.
"No," I said to Jesse. To Paul I said, "I tried to get him to leave, but he won't go."
Paul looked at Jesse. "Buddy," he said. "I'm not telling you this because I like you. Believe me. But if you stay here, you're gonna get iced. Simple as that. That Diego guy? He means business."
"I'm not afraid of him," Jesse said as if we were morons for not believing him.
"See what I mean?" I said, to Paul.
"Great." Paul sat down on a hay bale, looking pained. "This is just great. So when Diego comes to kill him, he can take a crack at you and me, too."
I opened my mouth to insist this wouldn't happen, but Jesse interrupted.
"If you think I would leave you alone with her again," he said, his gaze never wavering from Paul's face, "you don't know me at all in this future you speak of."
"Don't worry," Paul said, holding up a hand wearily. "I wouldn't expect anything else from you, Jesse. Well, that's it then." Paul leaned back in the hay, making himself more comfortable. "We wait. And if he comes back, thinking you've fallen asleep and he can do the job out here, we take him."
"No." Jesse's jaw was set. He didn't raise his voice. Not at all. His tone was hard as steel, however. "I will take him."
"Uh, no offense," Paul said, "but Suze and I, we came here especially just to - "
"I said I'll do it," Jesse said in that same ice-cold voice - the one I had come to recognize as the voice Jesse used only when he was truly angry about something. "I'm the one he's come to kill. I am the one who will stop him."
Paul and I exchanged glances. Then Paul sighed, lifted the horse blanket, and stretched out across the hay in a dark corner of the loft.
"Fine," he said. "Wake me when it's time to shift home."
And to my utter disbelief, he closed his eyes and seemed to doze off.
I glanced at Jesse and saw that he was eyeing Paul with distaste. When he noticed the direction of my gaze, he asked, his tone less hard than before, "You two are friends in the place you come from?"
"Uh," I said. "Not really. More like . . . colleagues. We both have the same . . . gift, I guess you'd call it."
"For traveling through time," Jesse said.
"Yes," I said. "And . . . other things."
"And when I kill Diego" - I noticed he said when and not if - "you'll go back where you came from?"
"Yes," I said, trying not to think about how incredibly hard that moment was going to be.
"And you want to help me," Jesse said, just as quietly as I'd spoken to him, "because . . . ?"
I realized I hadn't actually answered his question the first time he'd asked it. In the soft glow of the lamp - he'd turned the flame down to make sure Diego really did think he was sleeping, so he could take him unawares - Jesse had never looked as handsome as he did then. Because, of course, he'd never been alive any other time I'd seen him. His brown eyes looked soft, the lashes around them dark as the shadows all through the loft. His lips - those strong, soft lips that hadn't kissed mine nearly as often as I'd have liked, and, in all likelihood, never would again - looked hypnotically appealing. I had to tear my gaze from them and keep it instead on a threadbare spot on the knee of my jeans.
"Because it's what I do," I said, only something was happening in my throat, making the words come out more huskily than I'd intended them to.
I coughed.
"And you do this - " Jesse seemed to mean travel back through time to warn potential murder victims of their impending doom. " - for all who die before their time?"
"Uh, not exactly," I said. "Yours is kind of . . . a special case."
"And are all girls from your time," Jesse went on, thoughtfully, apparently not noticing my discomfort or my fascination with his mouth, "like you?"
"Like me? Like . . . that they're mediators?"
"No." Jesse shook his head. "Unafraid, like you. Brave, like you."
I smiled a little ruefully. "I'm not brave, Jesse," I said.
"You're staying here," he said, indicating the loft. "Even though you know - or think you know - something terrible is going to happen."
"Well, sure," I said. "Because that's the whole reason I came. To make sure it doesn't. Although, to be truthful . . ." I threw a cautious glance at Paul, in case - and he probably was - he was listening. " - really I came here to stop him. Paul, I mean. From stopping Diego. Because you see, if you don't die tonight, you and I - in the future, where I come from -
will never meet. And I couldn't bear to let that happen. And you even - in the future - said you didn't want that to happen. Only . . . only . . . here I am, letting it happen. So you see, I'm not brave at all."
I doubt he'd understood a word I'd said. It didn't matter, though. It was as close to an apology as the Jesse I had known and loved was going to get. And I felt I owed him one. An apology. For what I had done.
Which was destroy everything we'd had together.
"I think you're wrong," Jesse said. About my not being brave.
But what did he know about any of it, really?
I just smiled at him.
Which is when I heard it.
Chapter eighteen
Don't ask me how. I wasn't born with superheating or anything. I just . . . heard it.
The scrape of the barn door.
And Jesse, over by the ladder, froze. He had heard it, too. A second later, I saw Paul sit up. He hadn't been sleeping. Not at all.
We waited in tense silence, each of us hardly daring to breathe.
Then I heard another scrape. This time, it was of a boot on a ladder rung.
Diego. It had to be. Diego was coming to kill Jesse.
Jesse must have sensed my unease, since he lifted a single hand toward me, palm out, in the universal signal for "Stay." He wanted Paul and me to leave Diego to him.
Yeah. Right.
And then I saw them - Diego's head and shoulders, looming massive and black against the lighter dark of the rest of the barn. His head was turned in the direction of Jesse's supine form - he didn't see anything else.
Slowly, obviously fearful of waking his prey, Diego climbed into the loft, his footfalls softened by all the hay. As he crept closer and closer - now he was five feet away . . . now four . . . now three - I leaned forward, ready to pounce. I had no idea what I was going to do to stop him. He was not a small man, and I'm no black belt. But shifting definitely came to mind.
Paul had his hand on me now, though, holding on to the sleeve of my motorcycle jacket, keeping me back so that Jesse could have a chance at taking care of the problem himself. Funny how in this one thing, Paul should be on Jesse's side, when he'd never taken Jesse's side on any other occasion.
One foot. Diego was now one foot from Jesse's supposedly sleeping form. He reached for something at his waist - his belt. I saw the gleam of his buckle . . . the same buckle that, in my own time, had somehow ended up in the attic . . .
Then, just as Diego had wrapped both ends of the belt around either fist and yanked the part in the middle taut, to use as a kind of garrote, Jesse's voice, cool and assured, cut through the silence.
In Spanish. He said something in Spanish.
Why? Why had I taken French and not Spanish?
Diego, caught totally off guard, stumbled back a step.
I couldn't stand it.
"What did he say?" I hissed at Paul.
Paul, not looking too happy about playing translator, said, "He said, 'So it IS true.' Now shut up so I can hear."
Diego recovered nicely, however. He didn't lower the hands that clutched the belt. Instead, he said something.
In Spanish.
This time, Paul didn't need any urging.
"He said, 'So you know. Yes, it's true. I'm here to kill you.'"
Jesse said something else. The only word I recognized was a name.
"He said, 'Maria sent you?'"
Diego laughed. Then he nodded. Then he lunged.
I don't think I screamed. I know I sucked in a ton of air and was going to let it out in a shriek. But I found myself holding my breath instead. Because Jesse, instead of rolling out from under Diego, as I would have done, rose up to meet his assailant.
The two men teetered dangerously on the edge of the hayloft floor, just before the twelve-foot drop to the ground below. It was hard to see exactly what was happening in the semidarkness, but one thing was certain: Diego had the advantage, weight-wise.
Now Paul and I were on our feet, completely unnoticed by the two men struggling at the edge of the loft. I tried to rush forward to help, but again Paul wouldn't let me.
"It's a fair fight," he said to me.
But when, a second later, the two men broke apart, and Diego threw aside his belt with a chuckle, I saw that there was nothing fair about the fight at all. Because Diego had suddenly produced a knife. It gleamed wickedly in the light from the lantern, sitting on the loft floor a few feet away from them.
Now the air in my lungs came out in a rush. "Jesse!" I shrieked. "Knife!"
Diego whirled. "Who's there?" he asked in English.
The distraction gave Jesse just enough time to pull from his boot his own knife . . . the one he'd used to cut me loose from Paul's ropes.
"Okay, that's it," I said when I saw this. "Somebody's going to get - "
"That's what we want," Paul said, keeping a firmer grip on me than ever. "So long as it's the right guy."
I couldn't understand what Paul was doing, what he was thinking. Jesse and Diego were circling each other warily now, coming within inches with every other step of the loft ledge. We could stop it. We could stop it so easily. Why wasn't he -
Then it hit me. Was Paul on Diego's side? Was this whole thing some kind of weird setup? Had he really failed to find Diego during the day or had he only pretended to go and look for him, so he could have the pleasure of watching Jesse die later? Because that could be the only reason he'd have gone to these elaborate lengths - so that he could watch Jesse die -
I wrenched myself free of him.
"You want Jesse to die," I shrieked at him. "You want him to, don't you?"
Paul looked at me like I was nuts. "Are you kidding? The whole reason I came back was to make sure he didn't."
"Then why aren't you helping him?"
"I don't need - " Jesse ducked as Diego took a swing at him. " - any help!"
"Who are those people?" Diego snarled, lunging at Jesse again.
"No one," Jesse said. "Pay no attention to them. This is between you and me."
"See?" Paul said to me, not without some self-righteousness. "Would you chill?"
But how could I, when I was standing there watching my boyfriend - okay, well, he wasn't exactly my boyfriend, yet - in a struggle for his life? I stood there, my heart in my mouth, barely able to breathe, watching the flash of cold hard metal as the two men circled each other. . . .
And then it happened. Diego suddenly reached behind him, and in a flash had grabbed hold of -
Me.
I was caught so off guard, I couldn't think. All I knew was that one minute I was standing there next to Paul, barely able to watch what was happening, I was so scared .
. . . and the next, I was in the middle of it, an arm crushing my throat as Diego held me in front of him, the tip of his silver blade at my neck.
"Drop the knife," he said to Jesse. He was standing so close to me, I could feel his voice reverberating through his body. "Or the girl dies."
I saw Jesse blanch. But he never hesitated. He dropped his knife.
Paul screamed, "Suze! Shift!"
It took me a second to realize what he meant. Diego was touching me. Diego was touching me. All I had to do was picture that hallway I hated so much - that way station between existences - and he and I would both be transported there . . .
. . . and we'd be rid of him forever.
But before I could so much as close my eyes, Diego threw me away from him and lunged at Jesse. I tried to scream as I fell, but my throat was so sore from the force with which he'd held me, nothing came out.
I didn't fall from the loft, however. Instead, I fell against something metal - and glass. Something that broke beneath my weight. Something that soaked the straw beneath me.
Something that burst into flames.
The lantern. I'd fallen on the lantern, and broken it. And set the hay on fire.
The flames broke out more quickly than I ever could have imagined they would. Suddenly, I was separated from t
he others by a wall of orange. I could see them standing on the other side, Paul staring at me in dumb horror, while Jesse and Diego -
Well, Jesse was trying to keep Diego from plunging a knife into his heart.
"Paul," I shrieked. "Help him! Help Jesse!"
But Paul just stood there looking at me for some reason. It was Jesse who finally broke Diego's grip on him. Jesse who twisted the arm that held the knife until Diego, with a cry of pain, let go of it. And Jesse who hauled off and struck Diego with a blow to the face that sent him reeling -
Right over the ledge.
I heard his body hit the barn floor, heard the unmistakable snap of breaking bones . . . breaking neck bones.
The horses heard it as well. They whinnied shrilly and kicked at the doors to their stalls. They could smell the smoke.
So, I realized, could the O'Neils. I heard shouts coming from outside the barn.
"You did it," I cried, gazing at a panting Jesse through the smoke and fire. "You killed him!"
"Suze." Paul was still staring at me. "Suze."
"He did it, Paul!" I couldn't believe it. "He's going to live." To Jesse, I said, joyfully, "You're going to live!"
Jesse didn't look too happy about it, though. He said, "Susannah. Stay where you are."
Then I saw what he meant. The fire had completely cut me off from the rest of the loft. Even from the ledge. I was cornered by flames. And smoke. Smoke that was getting so thick, I could barely see them.
No wonder Paul had been staring at me. I was caught in a fire trap.
"Suze," Paul said. But his voice sounded faint. Then he cried, "Jesse, no - "
But it was too late. Because the next thing I knew, a large object hurtled at me through the smoke and flame - hit me, as a matter of fact, and knocked me to the ground. It took me a second to realize the object was Jesse and that he'd wrapped himself in the horse blanket I'd slept under the night before. . . .
A horse blanket that was now smoldering.
"Come on," Jesse said, throwing down the blanket, then grabbing my hand and pulling me back to my feet. "We haven't much time."
"Suze!" I heard Paul yelling. I could no longer see him, the smoke was so thick.
