It’s at that point that I glance back again, and I see something. A flash of red somewhere behind the sedans. A second look shows that it’s a sports car. A Ferrari this time. It speeds past the sedans, and then settles into the space between us and them. In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of the driver, and my heart leaps.
Jack.
He revs his engine, and I get the message. I push my car into a last burst of speed, Jack goes with it, and the three sedans try to follow on behind, pushing up this time, their drivers apparently confident that they will soon catch us.
Then, with that little bit of space gained, Jack does the one thing they can’t possibly expect. He spins the Ferrari almost in place, turning to face the oncoming sedans, and speeds straight towards them. He’s playing chicken with them. On an open highway, he’s actually playing chicken with three cars at once.
The sedans split, trying to go around him, and for a moment it looks like they might be able to avoid Jack, but then he changes the angle slightly, and I realize that he’s anticipated their move. Anticipated it, and adjusted perfectly. He sends the Ferrari into a sideways skid, so that there simply isn’t room for the sedans to get out of the way, while at the same time, Jack’s arm appears at the window, a gun in his hand.
Two of the sedans swerve, trying to get out of Jack’s way. There’s a screech of tires as they head for the side of the highway, then one somehow clips the back of the other. It sends both cars spinning, and when they hit the side of the highway, they do more than spin. They roll.
Jack, meanwhile, is firing at the third car. It isn’t a random barrage of shots. Each one seems placed, considered, which should be impossible given the speed with which the whole thing happens. The bullets aren’t aimed at the sedan’s passengers, but at its wheels. I see the car’s front tires burst, and then it’s spinning off the same way the other two did.
I don’t see the next part, because I have to turn back to the road long enough to get around a minivan loaded with kids, but then Jack’s new car is alongside us. I smile over at him. He doesn’t smile back. I guess I should have known he wouldn’t be happy, but even so, I’m glad to see him. If he hadn’t shown up…
Jack points to the side of the road. I don’t get it for a moment. He does it again. Finally I understand. I pull off at the next turning, which turns out to be a back road winding through farmland. Not really the kind of thing to be driving sports cars down, but we aren’t driving for long. The Aston’s engine coughs, and I have to drift it to the side of the road as we finally run out of gas. Grayson and I sit there for a moment, just trying to get our breath back after everything that has just happened, while Jack pulls up behind us.
When he gets out of the Ferrari, I do the same, biting my lip nervously.
“Jack…”
He grabs my arm, looking genuinely angry. “Get in the car, Celes.”
It’s not a tone to argue with, and it’s not like the Aston is going anywhere, so I climb into the Ferrari’s passenger seat. Jack gets into the driver’s seat, and for a moment, I think he’s just going to drive off.
“Jack, what about Grayson?”
Jack’s features are taut with anger for a second. “Yes. Grayson. What were you
thinking
, Celes?”
“I…” I shake my head. “I wasn’t thinking. Grayson knows.”
“I guessed that.” Jack slams his hand into the steering wheel. “Dammit, Celes.”
He seems to get a grip on himself then. But then, Jack’s always the one in control. Always the one watching over things. Watching over me.
“You must have been terrified,” he says.
I hesitate, then nod. Being chased was frightening. I certainly didn’t like being that helpless. I don’t tell him though that what really scared me was the ease with which I managed to defeat two trained men. I shouldn’t have been able to do that. The fact that I did makes me wonder exactly what I am.
Jack reaches out to touch my cheek. It’s eerily reminiscent of the way Grayson touched me just a little while ago.
“You’re safe now.”
“Am I?” I ask. “They aren’t going to stop trying, are they, Jack?”
“Safer, then.”
“But not as safe as I would have been had I not come here, right?”
Jack doesn’t nod. Instead, he leans into me, and for a moment, just a moment, I think that he’s going to kiss me. That’s a shock. So much of one that I almost pull back. He’s kissed me before, so many times, but always, it’s been part of the cover. It’s been part of maintaining the fiction of Celeste Channing. Yet there’s no one here to prove anything to. The only reason Jack would kiss me now would be if he wanted to. Does he want to? And if he does, what do I feel about that? Grayson is just yards away, after all.
Perhaps Jack senses my hesitation, because he pulls back. “Why did you even do something this stupid, Celes?”
“I had to see Grayson,” I say. I know how that must sound. “I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I had to… I had to say goodbye.”
I expect Jack to tell me that it wasn’t worth it. That I’ve been selfish and stupid and a dozen other things. I know all of it. Yet somehow, Jack doesn’t say it. He just looks hurt.
“You passed my test. I thought I could trust you. Let my guard down with you, Celes. Let myself feel…” he turns away.
“What, Jack? What did you feel?” I ask, reaching out a hand to touch him, but suddenly I’m scared. Do I really want to hear the rest of it?
“I care for you, Celes,” Jack says, turning back to me and stroking my hair. It’s something he’s done a lot with me in public, but here, it feels like a much more personal thing. “Probably more than I should. More than is safe.”
The idea that it might not be safe to care for someone seems like a sad one. In an ideal world, Jack would just be free to feel… whatever he feels. But I know that this isn’t an ideal world. Can he really keep me safe if his feelings are tangled up? And what do I feel about it? I don’t know what to think. I’ve been playing the role of Jack’s girlfriend for only a few weeks, but that’s still long enough that I’m not sure what’s real and what’s fiction anymore. How many of the things that I’m suddenly feeling are my feelings, and how many of them are Celeste Channings?
I don’t know, but right then, I do know that I want to kiss Jack. I want to do it for so many reasons. Because it feels like the right thing to do. Because we’re so close already that it will hardly take anything to cover those last few inches. Because Jack looks like he wants to as well, so badly that it’s almost hard not to. And because I know that, if I do, I’ll know. I’ll finally know whether it’s an act. Whether Jack really does feel anything beyond what his role requires. Whether
I
feel it too. Here, with no one to watch, I’ll know. I start to cover that last little space.
Then Grayson knocks on the window, and I remember that there is someone there to watch, and it’s the one person I really
can’t
kiss Jack in front of. Grayson’s looking down at us with an expression that is hard to read. He moves back from the car, but I know that Jack and I will have to get out now to talk to him.
I steel myself for that. What am I going to tell him?
“What happens now?” I ask Jack, with a look Grayson’s way. Jack knows what I mean.
“He’s in this now, Celes. There’s no going back. He’ll have to Fade.”
ELEVEN
W
e get out of the car and Grayson’s waiting for us. What Jack has just said weighs heavily on me as we step closer to him, because I know what Fading means better than anyone. I know what he will have to give up. As Grayson looks at Jack, though, I know that we have a more immediate problem than that.
“Who’s this?” Grayson asks, and I can hear the hostility in his voice.
“This is Jack, Grayson,” I try to explain. “He’s a Fader.”
“What’s one of those?”
Jack answers. “I’m one of the people who helped Celes to disappear, and now it’s my job to keep her safe. There are some pretty serious people after her.”
Grayson nods tightly, and I can’t tell whether it’s the situation, or simply the fact that Jack used the short version of my name. “I saw,” he says, then seems to think. “So this means that Celes’s disappearance… her family…”
I nod. “All down to Jack and his friends. It was the only way for me to be safe, Grayson. I’m sorry.”
Grayson nods, and there’s a look on his face that’s hard to read. There’s a touch of relief, but it mostly looks like… hope?
“So when you broke up with me, that was just-”
I move in close to him, wrapping my arms around his neck so that we’re pressed together. “It wasn’t me, Grayson. It was just so I could disappear.”
“So you still care about me?”
I answer that with a kiss. I have far more to give it than our brief touch of lips in the car, and Grayson responds so enthusiastically that for several seconds, there’s no one in the world except us. Grayson’s hands slide through my hair, pulling me to him so that his lips can dance against mine. For a moment, I find myself thinking that he’s not quite as skillful a kisser as Jack, but then I chide myself for even thinking that. I shouldn’t be thinking about Jack when I’m kissing Grayson, and in any case, Grayson is more than good enough. There’s need there, and passion, and joy.
Eventually, I pull back, laughing. It’s always a good kiss when it leaves you that happy. “Does that answer your question? Now we just have to work out what to do with you. Jack can… where’s Jack?”
I look around and Jack just isn’t there.
He hasn’t driven off, because his car’s there, but there’s no sign of him nearby. When I look into the Aston, he’s not there either. It’s like he’s disappeared. Around us, there are fields of wheat, but there’s no sign of someone having gone into them, no track-ways trodden through them. Yet it’s the only place I can think of that Jack might have gone.
“Jack?
Jack!”
There’s no reply, and there’s still no sign of him. Then though, I catch a faint flash of sunlight off something down the road, and as I look closer, I realize it’s the windshield of a car. Another of those black sedans is parked almost on the edge of sight, and beside it, I can just,
just
make out two figures struggling. Is one of them Jack?
If it is, how did he get there so fast? Grayson and I weren’t kissing
that
long, were we? Yet there he is, probably more than half a mile away, struggling with a black-clad opponent. I react on instinct, starting to run towards them, knowing that I should help, even as I’m not sure exactly what I can do. Though I did okay when it came to helping Grayson.
I hear a car start behind me as I run, and I realize that Grayson has taken Jack’s car as a quicker way to get there. Yet he doesn’t overtake me. He’s in a sports car, so he should roar straight past me as I run, yet Grayson doesn’t. Even with the amount of time it’s taken him to get into the Ferrari, that just doesn’t make sense.
I glance back, and I suddenly feel dizzy. I’m used to moving quickly thanks to my track practice, but this is different. This is far faster than I’ve ever run before, so that the air rushes past me and the ground blurs beneath my feet. It’s faster than the track records back at school. It’s faster than the state records too. If I could run like this to order, in fact, I would probably be winning international competitions, but that thought doesn’t fill me with the joy that running fast normally does. Instead, this is so much faster than usual that it’s almost frightening.
It isn’t long before I’m alongside the sedan where Jack is struggling with a man in dark clothing. The fighting is brutal, all elbows and knees and frantic jabs at the body’s most vulnerable areas. I see Jack’s opponent parry a strike aimed at his throat before kicking Jack in the knee hard enough that Jack stumbles. Yet they keep a grip on one another.