Breathless (20 page)

The man who Jason had his gun trained on stopped.

The other two figures were closer now. I could see that one was Sheriff Damon. The other was my dad.

Sheriff Damon had his gun out as he approached.

Jason pulled the trigger again. The figure who had stopped cried out and fell.

I couldn't help it. I screamed.

Sheriff Damon and my dad stopped.

"Jason," called my dad, "let's talk about this."

Sheriff Damon was aiming his gun at both of us.

Jason pointed his gun at my dad.

"Jason!" I cried. I didn't want him to shoot my dad. My dad might be a crazy Satanist, but I didn't want anyone to shoot him.

Jason ignored me. "You could try shooting, Sheriff," said Jason. "But can you be sure you won't hit the girl?"

What was he doing? Why was he taunting the sheriff like that? And would Sheriff Damon shoot me? I hadn't exactly been cooperative.

"Tell him to lower his gun, Daniel," said Jason to my dad.

My dad's voice was hoarse. "He doesn't answer to me," he said.

"He might shoot your daughter," said Jason. "You better make him answer to you."

"Jim," said my dad, his voice still hoarse.

I glanced back and forth between the sheriff and my dad. The sheriff still had his gun on us. My dad's face was twisted in fear. So, he still cared about me. Weird. He had a funny way of showing it.

"I won't hit her, Daniel," said Sheriff Damon, not taking his eyes off Jason and me.

"You can't shoot him," said my dad. "The ritual has to be performed by the vessel, or it won't work."

Did they really still think they could convince me to kill Jason?

Sheriff Damon's hand wavered, as if he were hesitating. Then he seemed to get hold of himself, tighten his grip on the gun. "She's not going to do it, Daniel," he said. "We have to take him out."

This wasn't going well at all. Now, right in front of my eyes, Sheriff Damon was going to kill Jason. None of my plans to save him—to save us—had worked out very well. Maybe Jason was right to be shooting people.

Jason looked at Sheriff Damon, his gun still pointed at my dad. "I didn't want to have to do this," he said.

Oh God, what was he going to do?

In one fluid movement, Jason pulled me into his arms, so that his stomach was against my back. One arm pinned me against him. The other snapped the gun against my temple.

I whimpered in surprise.

"Trust me," Jason breathed in my ear. To Sheriff Damon, "Put the gun
down!"

Sheriff Damon lowered his gun immediately.

"On the ground," said Jason. "Carefully, slowly, put it on the ground."

Sheriff Damon hesitated.

"For Chaos' sake, do what he says!" screamed my father.

Sheriff Damon knelt and placed his gun on the ground.

"Slide it to me," Jason ordered.

Sheriff Damon complied. The gun skittered across the pavement and rested at my feet.

"Pick it up," Jason told me. I knelt down to get it, Jason still holding his gun against my head. Jason took the gun from me and put it in the waist of his pants. His arm wrapped around me again, pulling me tight against him.

I wasn't afraid of Jason, but I was really thinking this strategy was going to backfire if they called his bluff. Certainly they knew that Jason wouldn't hurt me. Of course, I guess they also thought he was an agent of Order who was going enslave the entire human race. Maybe they thought he was pretty much capable of anything.

And, as frightened as I was, I kind of liked the way it felt to be this close to Jason.

"Okay," said Jason. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to take Azazel, and we're going to get in a car. We're going to drive away. If I hear or see anyone following us, I will put a bullet in your precious vessel's skull, got that?"

God. His voice sounded so hard and cruel. He was good at this.

"We understand," said my dad. He was gazing at me helplessly, like he desperately wanted to help me and didn't know how.

But he'd betrayed me. They all had. Everyone had. Everyone I trusted. I was alone now. And the only person I did trust had a gun to my head.

"Good," said Jason. "Somebody bring me some keys."

My father stepped forward, pulling his keys from my pocket. "You can take my car,"

he said.

But Jason didn't have a hand to take the keys.

"Azazel, take the keys," he told me.

I held out my hand and my dad placed his keys in it.

"Zaza, baby," said my dad. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't talk to her," Jason ordered.

But what was he sorry for? Sorry that he wasn't saving me from Jason? Sorry he and his goons had pursued me all over town, trying to take me somewhere against my will? Sorry that he'd arranged the way his own daughter would lose her virginity, like he was my pimp not my father? What was he sorry for? Could he ever be sorry enough? Somehow, I doubted it.

I didn't look at him.

Jason and I inched down the street to the waiting car. He shoved me in the driver's side door. I had to climb across into the passenger seat. Jason got in after me. He pulled the driver's side door shut.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. Even though I wasn't. My entire world had been shattered over the course of several hours. I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again.

"Good," he said, starting the car.

As we pulled out onto the streets of Bramford, heading for Route 50, Jason shot a glance in his rearview mirror to make sure no one was following us. No one was.

"Well," he said sardonically. "So much for a normal life."

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

-William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Name: Jones, Azazel

Race: White, non-Hispanic

Age: 17

Height: 5'6"

Weight: 125 pounds

Hair: brown

Clothing: Grey short-sleeved t-shirt, light blue baggy jeans, and brown sandals.

Azazel was last seen in her hometown of Bramford, West Virginia, getting in a green Chevrolet Cobalt with a seventeen-year-old white male with dark hair and eyes. She may be traveling with him still.

Anyone with information should call the Bramford Police Department at (304)555-8392.

Jason and I drove through the night, out of Bramford and through the winding roads, tree branches like skeletal limbs hanging in our path. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky. I felt the darkness pressing around me from all directions. It was going into my mouth. It was going into my eyes, my nose. I was drowning in it. When dawn began to burn across the sky, it banished the darkness, but not the feeling I had. I could hardly breathe. It hurt to exist.

I didn't look back, not literally, but as we drove my father's car farther and farther away from my home and my family, I felt like that was all I did. I sifted through my memories of the past few weeks. It seemed so obvious now, how everything had fallen apart. The moment when Jason appeared in my life, my world had cracked. I hadn't seen it, but with every moment since the first time I'd seen him, the crack had widened and splintered my foundations. It was no wonder everything had come crashing down. I felt almost stupid that I hadn't seen it before.

Jason's jaw twitched in the driver's seat. He gazed at the road. I wanted to be angry with him. I thought, "If Jason had never shown up, none of this would have happened." But when it came to Jason, I just didn't think clearly. I recognized that now. Looking at him made me dizzy. His dark, intense eyes. His powerful shoulders.

I couldn't think clearly when I stared at him. How could I be angry? In fact, I was grateful. All I'd left in Bramford was dust. Jason was the one real, brilliant thing in the world right now. I had nothing left. Except Jason.

"You're quiet," Jason observed, after we'd been driving for over an hour.

I
was
quiet. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to think without running into jagged edges in my brain. All my thoughts hurt right now. Everything was wrong. How could I possibly speak when I wasn't even sure how to exist anymore? "Sorry," I mumbled.

"You don't have to talk," he said softly.

I nodded once, a lump forming in my throat. It was all I could do to stare forward.

"Sometimes," Jason said. "Sometimes it helps to just focus on surviving."

Surviving? Was I still alive? Did I exist in this world where nothing I knew was the way I thought it would be?

"For instance," he said. "We do need money. You wanna help me rob a convenience store?" He smiled at me.

I tried to smile back. The corners of my mouth felt too tight.

Somewhere between Winchester and Martinsburg, Jason took an exit off the interstate. It was nearly desolate, so early in the morning, just a country 7-11. Nothing else around but mountains and trees. I stayed in the car, unable to help. I remembered that some part of me thought that stealing from people at gunpoint was wrong. I wondered why I didn't feel guilty now. It took Jason less than five minutes, and he returned to the car with a handful of bills which he made me count.

We'd stolen a little over three hundred dollars.

"Now we're criminals," I said. Funny. It didn't upset me.

"Don't worry about it," said Jason. "The Sons cover up whatever I do. I'm their problem, really. Besides, officially, I don't exist."

I remembered that my family hadn't been able to find any record of Jason anywhere when he'd moved in with us. Then I remembered something. "You do!" I said. "My parents got you registered with the state so that you could be their foster kid." I winced. I hadn't wanted to talk about them. My parents.

Jason shook his head. "I don't buy that. They were planning on killing me, so they had me registered with the state? Besides, that whole process was way too easy. I signed some papers. It was a smokescreen. They were just trying to keep me from being suspicious. Damn it if it didn't work."

Devious people, my parents. Something else Jason had said, though. It was my way out. Something to focus on. The Sons. That was it. Who were the Sons? And how did they cover this stuff up? "What do you mean, the Sons?" I asked.

Jason just shook his head. "Nothing."

"Jason," I said. "I think I deserve some answers if I'm going to be helping you commit armed robbery."

He considered. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Soon. Just not now. I'm too exhausted to get into all of it now."

* * *

I'd never been to New York City. I was so astonished by what I saw, it was easy to put aside thoughts of Bramford and gape at the sights. Jason laughed at me as I gazed up at the towering skyscrapers, my mouth hanging open. The city was tall and breathtaking, but it was also dirty, crowded, and small. The streets seemed narrow, the sidewalks hardly big enough for all the people who strode through them. Mostly, I was simply floored by the sheer number of people. I'd just never seen so many people all together in one place who had nothing in common. They weren't here for a sporting event or a rally. No, they were just going about their lives, walking to or from work, to the store, to a restaurant. None of them paid each other any mind. I could hear them talking loudly on their cell phones. There were simply people everywhere.

Once off the bus, Jason found a payphone and called someone on it.

He stood at the payphone, one hand shoved his pocket, cradling the phone with one hand. He looked . . . nonchalant. Like he knew what he was doing. I realized Jason was more in his element here, on the run, than he had been back at home. He knew how to do this. He didn't know how to be a normal teenager and go to school.

"November One," he said into the phone. He paused, waiting as someone said something on the other side. "Yeah, it's me . . . . Right . . . . I'm going to need to double the order. I've got someone with me . . . . Female." He looked at me as if he were sizing me up. "Uh . . . 5'5 or 5'6, maybe . . ." he covered the mouth piece with his hand. "How much do you weigh?"

"What?" I demanded. How rude!

"It's for an ID," he said.

Oh. "A hundred and twenty," I said, lying a little.

He relayed my weight. "Brown hair, green eyes," he continued. "When can we pick it up? . . . Great, then." He hung up the phone. "Let's go," he said.

Jason walked like a New Yorker. Like he knew where he was going. I followed him as close as I could. Now that we weren't running for our lives, he didn't hold my hand.

I thought back on the dance, which seemed as if it had happened sometime in the 1700s, and wondered how he felt about the fact that we had kissed. I wondered how I felt about it. There were so many other things to consider right now, like the fact that I was homeless, that worrying about whether Jason still liked me seemed petty and pointless.

We treaded over the sidewalks for blocks and blocks. Everything looked the same.

Little shops, restaurants, pizza stands. There were hot dog vendors on every corner. I wanted to stop at one, because I never had, but I felt stupid asking Jason if we could.

So I just trailed after him, trying to keep up as he walked with confidence through the big, big city.

I was getting breathless.

Jason noticed. "Sorry," he said. "I guess we could have taken the subway. I just like walking in New York."

"Yeah," I gasped. "It's great."

"Do you want to slow down?" he asked, laughing.

I nodded.

He slowed his pace. "Next time, say something," he said.

I didn't feel like I could say things like that to Jason. I didn't want to be in the way. I didn't want to bother him.

Even though I'd known Jason for nearly a month, my knowledge of him had expanded so much in the past twenty-four hours. Now Jason wasn't just some mysterious, smart boy who appeared in Bramford. He was a gun-wielding dangerous man who could shoot people without qualms and rob convenience stores. And while Jason had seemed brooding and silent in Bramford, he seemed to get happier and noisier with every violent incident we lived through. Was this the kind of life Jason was used to?