When Jasper first returned to the hotel room, Dax asked if she had any injuries she needed healed. She’d brushed him off, insisting she only had a few minor bruises. She’d believed herself, too, but she was still shaky as they ate dinner and every movement was hell.
“You sure you’re okay?” Dax asked.
“I’m fine.” Jasper absentmindedly watched Thea plug Mia’s chip into a smartsphere and set it on the table.
Holly’s stern gaze was on Jasper. “Hey, Jasper, what were you saying earlier about not naming Mia?” she asked. “Where’d you get her?”
Jasper rubbed her forehead, not quite processing the question. “Sorry, what was that?”
“No, no, it’s fine, you don’t have to tell us about your past.” Holly took a bite of her roasted—whatever Dax had cooked. Some kind of bird?
“Holly,” Thea warned.
“What did she ask?” Jasper asked. No one seemed to hear her.
“I just wish we would talk about the fact that she claims to be seventeen but looks the same as she did four years ago when she found us!” Holly threw her fork on the table. “She dodges so many questions. Even about why she rescued us.”
Dax’s eyes widened. He threw an anxious glance at Jasper.
“Either she was lying then, or she’s lying now.” Holly sounded less angry and more…disappointed? Jasper was having a hard time reading her. “You all know I’m right. I’m tired of not talking about it.”
Grace leaned toward Jasper. “Jasper? You listening?” Something about the concern in her voice, her eyes, made Jasper’s heart squeeze.
Jasper stood up. “What? I’m not—”
Grace stood too, eyes still on her.
“Holly, I want answers too, but I don’t think now’s a good time,” Thea said. “She’s clearly in one of her…weird moods.”
“What? Tired? Hurt?” Holly asked. “Then why doesn’t she tell us what’s wrong!”
“Maybe we should try talking to Jade later—”
Jasper froze. “What did you call me?”
“I—” Thea frowned. “I don’t know. I think my brain just slipped.”
“Jade.” Jasper’s hands tightened at her sides. “You said Jade.”
“We all say the wrong thing sometimes. It’s not a big deal.” Holly was standing now.
“Why is everyone standing?” Jasper asked.
“You stood first,” Holly told her. “And Dax and Thea are still sitting.”
“Jasper, is something wrong?” Grace asked, her voice dropping to a near whisper. She took a step closer to Jasper. The movement made Jasper’s heart pound twice as hard. “You’re acting weird.”
“This is normal,” Holly said.
“Why?”
Good question. Jasper walked away from the table. “I need some air.” She stepped onto the balcony, not bothering to close the sliding door behind her.
Grace followed a moment later. After a long pause, she said, “Every time I start to think I’ve figured you out, there seems to be another layer.”
Jasper wrapped her hands around the balcony railing, focusing on the cold metal against her palms. The cold metal under her skin, wrapped around her bones and racing through her blood. “Why are you still here? I’m going to get you killed.” She’d already gotten Naomi killed. Gotten Mylo killed. Killed—
“No, you’re not,” Grace said. “And I’m definitely going to get myself killed if I run off on my own.”
The others came out onto the balcony and gathered around Jasper.
“Oh, so you’re all going to try to get answers this time?” Jasper asked, glancing back at them.
“We’ve been here for years, and you never bothered telling us anything,” Holly replied. There was an odd strain in her voice. Almost as if she were fighting back tears. But that couldn’t be right.
Jasper looked forward again. The city lights, the sunset sky, the distant horizon, it all blurred together in her vision. Jade. Had the name been lingering in Thea’s mind the whole time, buried somewhere in her subconscious? Were there five years of memories locked in there somewhere?
Was there some way for Holly and Dax and Thea to remember everything they’d experienced at Laika before getting warped to Kronos?
Jasper turned around and sank to the floor of the balcony, her back against the railing. “I think I broke something. During the race.” Multiple somethings.
Dax knelt next to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Feels like mostly cracks and fractures,” he said after a moment. He grimaced. “Still, not great. Once I get everything healing, it’ll take care of itself over the next day or so.”
While the blue glow washed over Jasper’s face, she said, “When they put the cybernetics in me, they gave me a serum that makes me heal faster.”
“Who’s ‘they?’” Holly asked.
“Sky Labs,” Jasper replied. “I was kidnapped from Earth when I was twelve and forced to work in the Governor’s Palace for a few years, before they took me to the labs for their experiments.” She rested her arms on her knees, turned her head, and kept her gaze glued to the traffic on the street below, not wanting to see the others’ expressions. “I don’t know what was in the serum, but that was—” She frowned. “What’s sixty-eight minus seventeen?”
“Fifty-one,” Mia answered through the sphere in Thea’s hand.
“Thanks, Mia,” Jasper said. “Fifty-one years ago.”
“You’re sixty-eight?” Dax asked incredulously.
Jasper swallowed. “There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t told you guys. Some of it—well, I haven’t figured it all out yet.”
After a long, painful silence, Holly said, “Sixty-eight? Do you know if the not aging thing is permanent, or…?”
“I don’t,” Jasper told her. “Which is why I’d like to get my hands on those lab records. If I can find out what it is they put in me, or track down other people they used it on…maybe I can get answers.”
And, of course, there was the walking, breathing, nearly-identical-copy-of-Grace thing. Another secret.
Jasper pushed herself to her feet. She felt—better? No. The anxiety from earlier was gone, but an empty feeling had overtaken her, rather than any sort of relief. The others clearly still had more questions, but a few glances between them suggested that they all felt it best to give her some space, first. The rest of dinner was eaten with hollow conversation about the mission and the news and the city.
Jasper laid in bed that night, exhausted but unable to sleep. When she turned down her audio input, blocking out traffic and the others’ breathing and voices in the halls, she could hear the faint hum of the computer in her skull. Her own heartbeat. Her lungs filling with air.
What was she doing? Where was all of this going? The only thing pushing her forward was the hope that when they caught up with Ringmaster, they’d find a way to expose Starr.
Jasper’s cybernetics, Grace’s clone, the investigation into the warps—they all had to be connected. Syrus Starr was pursuing something. What chance did the team have of stopping him? Jasper had been trying for years, and Starr seemed to grow more invincible with every passing day. And no one on Kronos cared.
She guessed she was still going because she would be in pain either way. Sure, chasing Starr meant fighting and falling and breaking, and she could run from that. But she couldn’t outrun this ache that settled into her chest at night.
If she was going to spend her days burning with rage, she may as well put it to good use.