Chapter 8:
Asystole
- anne sexton
"'Any nausea you may have experienced in the first three to four months has subsided now.' Yeah, true, though if I smell salmon I puke pretty much immediately. And I can't eat in the morning. 'You are feeling new energy and quite fit. The baby is now inhaling and exhaling the amniotic fluid. The circulatory system is also operating now. The chances of a miscarriage at this stage is greatly reduced.' Well, I hope you're happy about that, Parfett. Your sprog's decided to stay around."
The pain was numbing, bit by bit, just a little. She couldn't look at him some days, the rage and the hate filling up inside her until the nurse came in and saw her with white knuckles and suggested gently that she get some air. Her only sedative was Jack; he was starting to get so fussy about the entire pregnancy thing that David and Jace had a five-dollar bet going as to whether or not he'd faint during the birth.
The redhead turned the page, making a slight face at some illustration, clearing her throat. "'You may be beginning to feel fetal movements known as quickening.' Look, I want to find out who named that. I do not want to have some kind of Highlander in my womb, no matter how cool that might be. 'The sensation feels much like flutters in your abdomen. Your waist is thickening and your breasts may be becoming quite large. The area around the nipple, the areola - ' I know what my nipple is called, you retard - 'may be becoming a much darker shade.'"
Jace gave a low wolf-whistle and closed the book. "Well, hell, it's becoming downright erotic. I better stop before I get all a-flutter. I mean, the indignity of it all. Jackemma, your father's making me read porn to him."
Father. She couldn't quite say daddy. She could say father, and she could say accidental sperm donor, but she could not call Tibby the daddy of her child. Daddies did things like lose keys and feed kids carrots and accidentally drop them. Fathers paid child support and lay in comas.
She slipped the book into the bag at her side. "Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, Tibbs. I'm going to find out the sex in a week or two. Of course, I already know it's gonna be a girl, but no harm in double- checking, right?"
The redhead lapsed into silence for a while, playing with her fingers. Hospital was becoming less and less a place for her; all Jace wanted to do was weep over him like a graven idol, or love him and stare at him and will her heart to burst in sticky bloodsprays all over the place, or hate him and want to hurt him until the nurse came in and saw her with white knuckles and fists and suggested gently that she go out and get some air. Her insides boiled at her own failure every time she looked at him. It was so easy, these days, to bury her face in her mother's arms or father's arms or just in Jack and weep, and be told everything was going to come up fine. She had not fought in months and her fingers burnt for violence.
"I love you," she murmured, because she always did. "Theo, I - "
Something odd was happening on the monitor. The line was flickering; for a moment Jace forgot to breathe.
Maybe it had all paid off, and the waves were going to signify Tibby's brain returning to the mortal plane; he was going to wake up and it would be all right. Everything was going to be all right. She felt tears springing to her eyes, and she brushed absently a long crimson spike away from her face. Everything was going to be all right.
And then it flatlined.
Jace watched for a second, dispassionately, as her lover's brain died; as the buttermild howl of the monitor announcing his death filled the room, alerted the nurses, trumpeted his exit. There was a slight thump as she dropped the bag by her side totally and stared.
And then she crawled into her little mental hole and hid, as her nerve centers burst out in a sonata of agonizing pain, the shock making her fingers tremble. Dead.
Dead.
He was dead. Dead like Sarin, dead like Sextans, dead like disco. She was staring at her lover's corpse like it was an epiphany.
Theo is dead. Long live Theo -
Her fists came down on his chest, banging. He was so thin she could feel his ribs, through the blankets, through the hospital gown. "I hate you! I hate you! I fucking hate you! Don't you fucking do this to me! I fucking hate you!"
He smelt like death; he smelt like hospital antiseptic. His flesh was unnaturally cool, never the burning warmth against hers that she had become familiar with. She would never feel his hand in hers, squeezing, never feel his kisses, never listen to his stupid voice with his stupid accent and love it. Dead.
And... it was all her fucking fault. It was all his fucking fault. It was all the world's fault. All the Graikos, her team, for standing at her side and still being useless; for the Romanus, for starting the cycle of death; for the Angelus, for the Astronomia, for the whirling circle of blood and pain they had all been launched into. She had mourned enough, sitting quiet in a chair and weeping bitter tears.
Jace didn't feel like sitting quiet any longer. She didn't feel like anything. She was the Tinman, rusted up for ever, searching for a heart.
"Hephaestos Deus Power, Make-Up," she whispered, and ever after never knew why.
It had only been a few seconds, a few heartbeats. Her pulse could feel the nurses coming; they would not be able to revive him. Tibby was gone.
A huge well of anger burst up in her, the power singing sweet and furious in her veins as she stared at her once-lover's body. The senshi's mouth opened and closed like a fish's; then a smile slowly spread over her lips.
When all else fails, make a hell of a mess.
"Soulmetal Barrage!"
The machines were exploded into a twisted wreck of molten plastic and metal. If their attempts to keep Theo alive had failed before, they failed now; they gave up his body completely, lungs no longer forced into pumping, heart no longer beating. She started ripping away the tubes with her own hands, ignoring the sudden shrill noises of surprise outside the room of the nurses. There was someone yelling stop; when a hand grabbed hold of her shoulder, Hephaestos absently backhanded the woman into the back wall.
"C'mon, love," she murmured to the corpse, wrapping it up in the bedsheets. "Let's get out of this shithole."
They called security, of course. By that point, drunk on crossing all the lines, the redhead ignored them; in fact, by the time she had breached the first line of nurses, she started firing and refused to stop. Soft flesh, not used to magical attacks, fell easily and uselessly to the volleys of red-hot metal coming from her hands. Her voice was robotic as she muttered her spells; she didn't particularly care whether the people were living or dying.
By now, a siren was going off.
The guards did badly by approaching slowly; she dropped the body behind her and disarmed them almost immediately, whip-kicking one and hearing the shattering of bone from the metal of her leg as she elbowed the other strongly in the gut. She took their pistols from them, their silly little toy pistols, and shot them both in the shins. Well, attempted to; she wasn't used to firing a gun, had stopped when she was fourteen, and made a few messy holes in the wrong parts before she was sufficiently pleased. The men, ones she had passed in the hallway and waved to and grinned to and asked enthusiastically if she could borrow their weapons, writhed on the ground in agony.
And then she picked up the body again, and started sprinting down the stairs of the hospital. By the third floor, she realized she wasn't getting anywhere; she bolstered Tibby up against her, kicked open the door of the fire escape, and jumped.
It was night; there were no people to scramble out of the way as she touched down, the horrible jolt jarring her all the way up to the teeth as she realized what an inane thing she'd done. One hand immediately flew to her abdomen, round against the tight material of the fuku, clinically wondering if she had not inadvertantly wounded her own baby. Her heels had sunk down in the concrete; her pulse stopped until she felt it, the quickening, almost angry.
"I'm sorry, Jackemma," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, baby."
It was then and only then that Jace started crying, huge gulping hysterical sobs, as she flattened back against the darkness of the shrubbery beside the hospital and wept. Her metalmaterial gloves rasped dreadfully as she hesitantly wiped her eyes with them, the tears sinking into the material, making the drops heavy and cold. She hefted her grisly bundle; she could not think, she could not wonder, she could not feel remorse. Just like with Sextans. Had to move. Couldn't even stop to puke this time around. Had to go.
But she wept as she ran, and kept on running.
Grimacing, Jack braced his hands on his window sill and leaned forward, forward to the sticky glass. Sirens, ambulances and police, echoed from the streets and he involuntarily shivered. He had no love for hospitals; they carried too much pain for him. His mother in the psych ward when he was fourteen, him after his car accident... Now Jace was there, waiting for her lover to open his eyes. I should be there with her, he thought. What am I doing here? With a soft grunt, he pushed off the sill and strode to his bed. Retrieving a crumpled t-shirt, he pulled it over his head and then knelt to hunt for his boots. To hell with her request to be alone. He was going to be with her. There. At the hospital.
Before he'd even managed to pull on his boots, there was a frantic knocking at the door. Jack started and dropped the single boot he had found, bolting to his feet and running to the door. This was bad. Really bad. His stomach suddenly twisted and he almost stumbled from the ache mixed with a jolt of agony to the scar over his shoulder. What the hell was going on? His hand fumbled with the doorknob, he was panting, and it took him a moment to fling the door open. "What happened?" slipped out before he saw who was there.
It was David Kellen, dark eyes wild and scanning over Jack's shoulder even as the young man opened the door. All the color had drained out of his tan face, leaving it ashen and him looking utterly frightened, an emotion Jack had never seen Jace's father display.
"Where is she?" he rasped. "Where is she? Is she with you? Has she been here?"
"Who? Jace?" Jack went as pale as the man on the other side of the door, green eyes huge in his face. "What happened? Is she alright?" Even as he asked, though, another blister of pain ran through his shoulder and he was forced to grip the door to remain upright.
"She was at the hospital." David was speaking so fast his words were tripping over each other, obviously sagging in dismay that Jace wasn't with her best friend. "Oh, shit - there was a bomb, Jack, and it went off in the wing she was in, with that Parfett..."
"Tibby." Reeling away from the door, Jack headed deeper into his little apartment, leaving David the option of following. "Oh, god," he groaned, rubbing roughly at his face. Maybe this was a dream, one of his nightmares. He would wake up screaming any moment now. A bomb. That was how Jace and he first met; she had told him that she had a bomb. She couldn't die by a bomb. Not her. "Oh, god."
"And there was one of those goddamn gang members," David continued, shutting the door behind him and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Apparently Parfett's room is a shell and his equipment's melted and at least half a dozen staff on that level are injured and... they said they took the body. He's dead. Couldn't survive out of that and... Oh, God, my poor poor little girl... Where is she?"
Jack couldn't answer right away; he felt like he was choking and he only managed to collapse on his bed by sheer luck. Closing his eyes, he shuddered. "I, I don't know, Mr. Kellen," he finally managed. "I don't know."
"They won't let me in!" he raged, more to himself than to Jack. "They won't even let me in the place and my daughter could be lying around shot up by some fuckin' psycho!"
Who did it? Which senshi did it? Suddenly, time seemed to stop for Jack and he felt the breath catch in his lungs. Oh, god, is this what dying felt like? Knowing that it might have been her that destroyed the place. She was capable of it but she would never... The lanky brunette sat up abruptly and stared at David. When the words came out, he did not recognize his own voice. "She might be okay. She might be. Right?"
David looked like he was waking from a long sleep, nodding at Jack tiredly as he looked up at him. The horror in his face echoed his own and his heart was hurting. "Yeah. Yeah. I... I have the police looking for her, they need her anyway, to identify... She can't get far, not in her wheelchair, and she's been feeling all queasy anyway with the little one."
"I'll go. I..." Jack ducked his head; he still couldn't catch his breath. "I'll look for her. She... Can't be gone."
"It's okay, son." David softened, harshness dropping from his voice. "She'll be all right. You know her."
Jack nodded, his hand rubbing again at his scarred shoulder agitatedly. Long, silent moments passed and then he looked up to meet David's eyes, pain beyond words in the green gaze.
David moved next to him, sitting down on the bed, one arm gruffly moving over his shoulders as he gave Jack a half-hug. "Come on," he murmured. "I'll take you in my car. We'll go looking."
Another shudder ran through the teenager's lanky frame and, suddenly helpless, he turned to press his face into David's shoulder. "I should have been there with her tonight," he whispered. "I shouldn't have listened to her. Oh, dammit. I'm sorry, David."
"My brat didn't even let me and her mother visit that stupid hospital, son. And she's too used to getting her own way with us. Spoilt redheaded monster. It's not your fault."
Oh, but it is. Jack remained silent but pulled away again.
"Come on." David stood up, trying to inject optimism into his voice. "Maybe she's home with her mom already and I can beat her within an inch of her life with the Dustbuster."
"That'd be... Nice." Head once more lowered, Jack pulled on his boots and laced them up with numb fingers. "She's gonna be okay. She has to be."
"You know she is." David's voice dropped to a velvety mutter; his mouth was aching for a cigarette. "And if she isn't, I'm going to kill her."
The lanky artist merely nodded as he stood and grabbed at his coat. His gaze was too haunted and stripped bare to risk meeting his best friend's father's eyes anymore.
David's eyes were distant as he held open the door for Jack, obviously running through places where the littler redhead could be where he hadn't looked.
Suddenly, as he passed, Jack touched David's shoulder lightly, long fingers barely making contact. Jace was somewhere out there and they would find her. I can feel her ache and her pain. If only I could use that to find her. If only I knew where she was. If only I had been with her in the first place. If only... His life was suddenly, completely, full of "if only's" and his heart throbbed, threatening to overload. "We'll find her," he whispered. "I have to find her." Then, without another word or a look at the man behind him, he strode out of his apartment. Please let her be safe - a final, silent prayer to a being that never gave a shit about him before but could still, maybe, save his dearest friend in the world. His other half.
Hephaestos didn't run for long. She had nowhere to go. In the darkness, her brain couldn't think of the first place it had to go; Jack's apartment, Jack, arms to hide in and weep in. But instead she wandered down into a darker alleyway across the road, to recoup her thoughts, pressing her forehead against the cool wall and dropping the sheet-wrapped bundle with a fleshy thump. She couldn't stay there for ever.
"Jace?"
The sudden surprise of a voice in the darkness made her jump slightly. Even more surprising was the owner of the voice -- though it wasn't all that suprising given where she was. Talos looked up from a pizza box nearby.
"Why are you transformed? Is there a battle?? Is that--" He cut himself off. "Jace? What's going on?"
"Talos?" She closed her eyes, starting to shiver convulsively, back against the brick wall of the building. Her voice felt like she shouldn't use it, trembly and weak. "Talos."
The partridge hopped out of the box and approached slowly. As he neared, he noticed that the shadowy, hospital-gown-clad figure was not moving at all. His fears were confirmed. It was most definitely Tibby. A cold hand gripped his heart and his breath caught in his throat. "Jace," he rasped. He leaned against her leg, both exhausted and comforting. "By the gods..."
"He's dead." She sounded wooden, shaggy red spikes of hair falling over her face. "And... and I think I might've killed a bunch of people in the hospital, Talos. Fucktards. But he's... Dead."
Talos's mind worked furiously to take in this new information and formulate a plan. Police sirens in the area forced him to think quickly. "We can't stay here. Jace, I want you to come with me. We'll go to the Plant and figure things out, okay?"
Hephaestos crouched with difficulty, picking up the half-wrapped corpse again. "But... The DU. Demantoid. The entire 'opposite sides and you want to destroy my planet thin...'" Her voice trailed off. "I don't give a fuck. Take me there. If he kills me he kills me."
"Bjerlo won't touch you," said Talos seriously. "You'll be safe. Come on, this way." He led her down into the alley, accessing the labyrinth used by city garbage trucks to collect trash. The dark alleys blended together, and Jace was not sure she coudl trace her way back, not that she wanted to. They soon came out on a small side street next to the railroad tracks. The hideously pink exterior of the abandoned American Chemical Plant shone a light purple in the darkness. Police lights flashed on the road nearby, searching the area around the hospital. If they had not yet searched the building, they soon would, but Talos seemed not to notice this fact.
They entered through the side door, Talos activating some sort of ground-level mechanism to open the door. Hephaestos entered, her arms about ready to fall off.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. It was something not quite human; obviously a byproduct of the alien sleeping in the corner of the room, curled up in a wrap of blankets. Talos ran over to Bjerlo, ignoring Jace for the moment.
The Graikos senshi wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar smell, fighting the nausea bubbling up in her veins. She clutched tighter at the body in her arms, clinging close; he was beginning to go cold and heavy and stiff, she noted absently. With a sigh - it wasn't as if he'd be upset - she dropped him again with a thump.
Talos seemed to have finished explaining the situation to Bjerlo. The alien sat up, rotated his eyes independently, and looked at her. There were noises outside.
"That's probably them. Can you do it, Bjerlo?"
"One moment." He rose, shook out his limbs (they had an ungodly amount of reticulation), and crossed his arms. "Demantoid Stiria Power, Make Up!" His long hair flew up into the air and he began to spin, quickly becoming a blur. Suddenly, his arms were out and he had stopped, wearing the same costume he had on that fateful day at the school.
Taking as much note of Jace as a horse might an ant, he crossed to the window and peered cautiously over the frame. "Just two. Give them a moment, they're almost within range."
Uneasy silence followed. Suddenly, Bjerlo seemed to concentrate furiously. The policemen outside stepped up to the door, waving their flashlights around. Beams of light shone through the dirty and broken windows. The beams suddenly stopped and Demantoid relaxed.
"Did you get them?" asked Talos eagerly.
"Yes."
"Good, now get rid of them."
"Planting thoughts in their heads isn't easy, you know," hissed Demantoid.
"I don't think I need to tell you how important this is. Just do it." Talos finally walked back over to Jace. "Everything's gonna be fine now, Jace."
"Fine," she said dreamily. "Just fine. Thank you, Tally."
And then she fainted dead away, fading from Hephaestos to Jace as she hit the floor, wheelchair lying static by her side.
"Shit," said Talos. Demantoid looked over.
"Should I stay transformed?"
"Yes, in case more come. We've got to get her out of this area. It's too easy to be surprised here. Take the, uh, Tibby... body..." Talos gulped. "Take that upstairs first. I'll try and deter any more cops."
With his version of a shrug, Demantoid did as Talos instructed and extricated Tibby's corpse from Jace's side, careful not to jostle her too much. He disappeared into the next room with it draped in his arms. Talos listened as Demantoid headed up the stairs and turned his attention to Jace.
She looked absolutely terrible. Fluttering around, there was little he could do. Had she always been so pale? So thin? He put his head against her stomach and listened. Was that the baby, or merely stress?
Demantoid finally returned. "I put it upstairs. What do you want me to do now?"
"You carry Jace. We'll all move upstairs. That way, we can get the cops before they can reach us, if they come back."
Shrugging again, Demantoid leaned down next to Jace. The gravity difference on this planet was such that lifting things came easily, not that he wouldn't have been able to lift her easily on his own planet. Humans were so light in comparison.
Something stopped him from picking her up.
"Talos, are you sure?"
He could see the distress in the bird's demeanor. "Yes," Talos answered finally. "You trust me, right?"
"Of course."
"I trust her."
That was all the explanation Demantoid needed.
It was long hours later before she woke up; her mouth tasted like blood and ashtrays, and she swallowed the sour feeling down. For a few moments, Jace didn't know where she was; she wasn't in her bed back home. The roof was dark and dusty and whatever she was sleeping on - there was a ragged blanket coating the floor - was hard.
She turned her head, eyes adjusting to the dimness. There was a little warmth at her hip, light and dusty - it was Perdix, Talos, obviously asleep, curled up in another part of the blanket. She was in the Dark Universe headquarters, and wherever the hell that was she wasn't quite sure, but...
Everything came back to her in a rush and she bit her lip hard to keep herself from racking up a dry sob. Too many tears had been shed already. No use wasting them now. "Tally?" she whispered.
The bird shuffled, perked his head up, and swiveled his head around to look at her. He gave a small yawn, beak stretching open and revealing a small bird tongue and bird throat. He quickly snapped his beak shut. "Good morning. I think. Are you feeling any better?"
"My body does." Everything else has cancer. A quick hand flew to her stomach; her baby was all right. She let out a sigh and relaxed back again. "Just a bit achy. Talos?"
"Hm?" he replied sleepily.
"D'you know what's going to happen now?" Her voice was small.
That was a difficult question. "Whatever you want to happen, I'll make sure it does," he said.
"I want Tibby back." Her voice was even softer. "I want to go back five hours ago and stop myself from being such a fucking lunatic."
That, unfortunately, was one of the things he was not able to do under the circumstances. Nevertheless, he had to try and continue to be reassuring. "I can't turn back time, but don't worry. Maybe there's something in the DU that can bring Tibby back." Mentally, he began to kick himself.
Jace's eyes went absolutely huge and she almost stopped breathing. "The Dark Universe," she muttered. "The Dark Universe could bring him back." It was only half a question.
"Bjerlo says they have very advanced science and medicine, so perhaps..."
"Perhaps. Maybe. Yes." The redhead half-sat up, leaning on her elbows, staring at the wall.
"I'll do whatever they want, if they can," she suddenly said, and her voice had gone metallic. "I'll fight for them. I'm sick of this fucking war anyway. If they win it's because they deserve to win and there's too much goddamn infighting between the Graikos and the Romanus and the Astronomia and everyone anyway."
Agape, Talos stared at her. He swallowed. "They probably will win," he said. "You should get some more rest. Don't think about it right now. Focus on, uh, the baby. I'll get you something to eat. What do you want?"
"Nothing. Ate a few hours ago. I'd hork anything up." Jace relaxed back, shaggy hair spread out over the blanket, feeling perilously close to tears. "Thanks anyway, Tals. You're so fucking good to me."
"You've got it reversed," he replied dryly. "I'm just desperately trying to even things out."
"Huh, what'd I ever do." Her voice held only the faintest trace of bitterness. "I was only a good Graikos and followed your orders because I liked hurting things."
The topic made him extremely uncomfortable; he was on the verge of starting to cry again. "Never mind. From now on, we just have to think about the things ahead. How long are you going to stay here?"
"I'm wanted for - God, I don't know. Murder, maybe." She sighed, eyes squinched shut. "I can't go to Jack or my family, they'll grab me and lock me up and... I'm not going to leave Tibby." Jace gave an odd little laugh. "I was meant to start prenatal classes in, like, a day. How long can I stay here?"
"As long as you like, of course. Mi casa es su casa." Suddenly, he seemed to realize he was talking about an abandoned building, complete with broken windows and chipped paint. "Some house this is!" he laughed.
Jace peered around, feeling marginally happier. "Hey, couple coats of paint, some whitewash, bleach the whole place and dust it, and it might not be that bad. Where the holy fuck are we, anyway?"
"American Chemical Plant, second floor. Otherwise known as the pepto bismol eyesore on the downtown skyline. Bjerlo and I live here."
"We're in the great pink zit?" Jace raised her eyebrows. "Shit, you guys have balls. You've been hiding out in here?"
Talos nodded. "For a couple of months while Bjerlo was heat-sleeping or whatever he does. We don't have anywhere else to go, though, so here we stay. It's not too bad. There's some running water in the back, and the toilet on this floor still works. There's even a big washbasin for a bathtub. The pipes are kinda rusted, though, so the water comes out brownish, but it's okay. We ran some tests on it."
Jace wrinkled her nose. "I'm not drinking anything that hasn't been boiled the fuck out of and even then, I'd only wash in it. When you're pregnant, you can hardly eat anything that hasn't been vaccuum- sealed and bleached 'cause of cystitis or some other shit. Why are you guys so poor? Can't you hack into a bank?"
"No computer, and, uh, no hands." He looked down for a moment. "Besides, Bjerlo can't read. He could probably mind control someone into giving us their money, but he's been asleep for a few months so we haven't tried yet. I could get back to work on the idea."
"Men. So useless." Jace sighed. "I'd go out and draw my savings out the bank right now, before the police freeze my account or whatever, but I'd be caught immediately." She closed her eyes. "Girls in wheelchairs are too obvious."
"Why would the police freeze your account?" asked Talos, surprised.
"Don't they always do that to murderers? Can't remember. I only watched Murder She Wrote when I was about twelve." Jace rubbed at her temples. "My brain can't think for me."
"To start, we don't what damage you did last night, though I can probably walk across the street and find out. You were transformed, though, remember? They'll never be able to figure out it was you, unless you transformed or detransformed right in front of them. How are they going to explain your powers in a police report..." He trailed off, muttering.
"Let's do the math." Jace held up her fingers. "Girl sits in hospital room. Hospital room gets blown to smithereens by girl wearing different outfit. Girl disappears. Girl sitting in hospital room also disappears. Coincidence? We think not."
"Jace, no matter how much coincidence stacks up like that, people won't figure it out. Look at your schoolmates. All that coincidence, talking animals and all, and they were still clueless."
"Video cameras," she said wretchedly. "There would've been security cameras in the room. And there's such a thing as too much coincidence."
Talos would have smiled if he'd had the mouth for it. "Believe it or not, they could put a photo of you as Sailor Hephaestos next to one of you as Jace and never be the wiser. They also don't routinely videotape hospital rooms, just the hallways. Relax, I'm sure you're not going to be topping America's Most Wanted any time soon."
Jace calculated it mentally again, changing the numbers. It still reached zero; but the thought that maybe she could go home tugged at her. She wanted to go home so very, very badly.
"I could go home?" she whispered. "I haven't fucked things up totally?"
"I can't be sure, but my answer would be no."
"But Theo," she said. "He's got to live. And I can't go back to the Graikos, not for Jack, not for Sophie." Jace let out a breath. "There's so much stupidity there, Talos. Makes me so damn angry."
He sighed. "I know. I feel terrible that they're going to get a rude awakening soon. I tried to prevent it. They'll just have to grow up." That was how he had come to terms with betraying his team, and that as the way it would be.
"Good," she said viciously, before her expression half-crumbled again. Jack. I'm so sorry... God, Reilly...
"I need to bring Tibby back," Jace said finally. "I owe him that much. I owe him more."
"Don't worry about it right now. Everything's going to be fine, once the DU arrives."