Immortal City (39 page)

“Both our lives are in danger, Maddy,” he said in a low, urgent voice, color draining from his face.

“My life is in danger because I’m with
you
, Jacks,” she snapped. “It’s like Sylvester said. They will never allow us to be together. If I go back to being a normal girl—”

“But you’re
not
a normal girl,” Jacks said.

“I
am
, Jacks. When are you going to realize that?” Her voice was almost hysterical now. “We come from two different worlds, Jackson, and I’ll never be allowed to be a part of yours. You belong here, in Angel City, saving people’s lives. I belong in my uncle’s diner. It’s just the way things are.” She was trembling now. The nausea rose in her stomach and her head screamed.

Jacks shook too.

“It was
you
who told me I have control over my own actions. It’s simple, remember? So I’ve made my choice. I want to be with you. I’ll keep you safe. We’ll get away.”

He held out his hand with the ticket in it.

“Do you trust me?”

Maddy thought about the night he had held out his hand before they went flying for the first time and then last night, when he had held it out to her in the pouring rain. She wanted nothing more than to take it now, but doing so, she knew, would seal his fate.

“Jacks, I don’t want this anymore. I
want
to go back to the way things were.” She said the words clearly and carefully. His hand dropped to his side.

“Will you listen to me just this once?” he nearly yelled. “I . . . I
like
you, Maddy. I mean, more than just as a friend. Are you so stubborn you can’t see that? Maybe last night meant nothing to you, but it meant something to me.” His eyes were vulnerable, almost tortured. “Did you ever even consider that I might love you, you stubborn, impossible girl?”

The words hit her. Another announcement blared over the platform speakers. It was the final boarding call for the Kansas City train. The words poured out of Jacks.

“You know, there’s something when you just know you fit together. And I fit with you. I don’t care what you are, human or anything else. It’s like a need, Maddy. So please.” He stopped and looked at her desperately. Nakedly. “Give me a chance, Maddy.”

She turned away. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes; she couldn’t let Jacks see her face. She pushed the pain violently away. She
had
to keep her emotions under control. When her words came, they were unapologetic and hard.

“You’re a superstar, Jacks. The only person you know how to care about is yourself. You don’t love me. You’re just . . . in love with the idea of loving me. It’s all about you, Jacks, don’t you see?”

He didn’t move or make a sound. Then he spoke.

“All about me? I saved your life.”

“You did,” she said. “And now I’m saving yours.”

She didn’t need to say more. There wasn’t even time. At that moment something huge and powerful landed on the platform, pushing a wall of wind past them. It almost knocked Maddy off her feet. Panic shot through her system. She put her hands up in defense, waiting for a repeat of the attack at her house, for the Angel to grab her by the throat again. But nothing happened.

A moment passed before she could open her eyes and see the Angel who had just landed.

It was Mitch. Shrieks of surprise and fear gave way to screams of excitement on the platform as all eyes turned toward them.

“Oh my God!”
someone on the next platform yelled, and pointed.
“It’s Mitch Steeple!”

Mitch looked at his best friend.

“Come on, man,” Mitch said. “There’s a car waiting for us out front.”

Jacks’s eyes darted to Maddy. She watched the full realization of her betrayal hit him.

“Jackson Godspeed!”
a young girl shrieked.
“OMG, it’s Jackson Godspeed!”

The chaos was abrupt and all encompassing. People began shrieking
“WE LOVE YOU, JACKS!”
and
“FREE JACKS!”
Maddy saw travelers drop their bags and push toward them like a gathering tidal wave.

“Maddy! There’s Maddy!”
someone else screamed. A sudden mob rushed at her, pulling her away from Jacks.

“Wait!” Maddy called frantically. “Jacks!”

But it was impossible to be heard over the bedlam. The crowd closed around her, and Jacks disappeared from her sight. Phones were held high and cameras snapped as the travelers pressed in desperately to get a picture with her. Maddy shoved her way through the mob, trying to get back to Jacks, but the more she struggled, the farther away he became. It was like they were being carried apart on a violent sea.

When she caught a glimpse of him again, Mitch was pulling him away toward their waiting car. Jacks’s face was still shell-shocked. Expressionless. Blank.

Maddy yelled his name over and over, but Jacks was gone. All that was left was an ocean of strangers screaming and reaching for her. Her head snapped back as a hand behind her yanked at her hair.

“I want a picture!” a little girl demanded.

Maddy turned and ran.

She pounded out the tunnel and into the now-empty lobby. Behind her she could hear dozens of feet and glanced over her shoulder to see a literal crowd of people running behind her.

“Wait! We’re your fans!”
a middle-aged woman yelled.
“Will you sign my T-shirt?!”

Maddy didn’t dare look back again. She pelted out the front entrance and saw Kevin already there, idling at the curb in their station wagon. Maddy said nothing as she tumbled into the passenger seat and closed the door on the horde of people. Kevin quickly put the car in gear and drove away from the station, wordless.

M
addy had thought she would never see her room again, and now here she sat on her bed, back as if nothing had happened at all. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the wall. She listened to the tick of her old alarm clock on the nightstand. If not for the throbbing in her back and the lingering headache, Maddy might have convinced herself she was dreaming and any moment she would wake, back at the train station. With Jacks.

The drive back had been silent, Kevin looking straight ahead at the traffic while she sat numb and bewildered in the passenger seat. At home she had gone straight upstairs. On her way through the living room she realized the house was much less damaged than she had imagined. It appeared only the windows and the front door had been destroyed beyond repair, along with some picture frames and dishes, and, of course, the old TV, which Maddy was kind of glad had finally been put out of its misery. Otherwise, the house was fine. Kevin must have cleaned up most of the mess in the morning, and some company had already been by to cover the window frames in plastic sheeting in preparation for new glass. In a day or two, the house would be back to the way it had always been. Normal.

Maddy wondered vaguely if that’s what would happen to her too. Kevin and Gwen and maybe even Ethan would clean up the emotional mess, and then the irreparable wounds, the memory of breaking Jacks’s heart at the station, would simply be covered in plastic until the damaged parts could be replaced. Time would do its job eroding the memories, dulling the sharp edges and fading the once-vibrant colors. And pretty soon she would be back to the way she had always been. Habitual, average, routine. It was a terrifying idea, she thought. Some wounds were meant to be remembered. Some scars should never disappear.

After an hour of sitting motionless on the bed, Maddy startled at a knock on the door. It was Kevin, in his plaid robe. He sat on the edge of the bed.

“I ordered a pizza. It’s downstairs if you want some.”

“I’m okay,” Maddy said.

“You did the right thing,” Kevin said after a moment. “I just want you to know that.”

“I do know that.”

He sighed and started to explain something about healing, but Maddy couldn’t focus on the words, and eventually she tuned him out. Her eyes drifted to her book bag on the floor. It was Saturday. Monday would she be expected to go to school like she had almost every morning of her life? She wondered if she really could just get up, work the morning shift, and then go to class like nothing had happened. Was she capable of that?

Suddenly something Kevin said caught her attention, breaking through the thickness of her thoughts.

“What?” Maddy said.

“I’m just saying, I know you think you’re in love with him, but—”

“I’m
not
in love with him,” Maddy said, quickly defensive. She saw him flinch at her tone and immediately wished she could take it back. He looked at her with helpless eyes, then shrugged.

“Well, like I said, pizza downstairs.” His parenting now done the best he knew how, Kevin got up and shuffled out the door.

His words hung meaningfully in the once-again silent room.
In. Love. With. Him.

She knew it was true, despite her knee-jerk rejection to hearing the words out loud. She was in love with him. Could it be possible that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life?

Her gaze drifted around the room, looking for any distraction, any escape, and came to rest on her bedroom window. There to greet her, as always, was the sign. She thought about what Kevin had told her on that first morning of school. That their luck was going to change. He had been right, she reflected bitterly, he just didn’t realize it was going to change for the worse. That’s the funny thing, she thought. You always want things to get better, but you never know how good you already have it. Maddy certainly hadn’t. She hadn’t realized that she was happy, with an uncle who loved her, a loyal best friend, and a chance at a good life. It was more than a lot of people could say.

Before, she hadn’t ever hurt anyone, and she hadn’t known what it was like to care for someone and then have them taken away just as quickly. And she didn’t know anything of her own traumatic past. Would she truly be able to live with the knowledge of who her parents were and what really happened to them? If nothing else, there was some small, bittersweet satisfaction in knowing the truth now. Her hand reached up and felt for her mother’s necklace. When she touched it, she discovered something heavy hanging against her chest, near her heart. She pulled the necklace out from under her shirt.

There, dangling from her neck, was Jacks’s Divine Ring.

For a moment she just stared at it in numb disbelief. In everything that happened, she had completely forgotten about it. She held the ring in her hand and inspected its exquisite beauty. She watched the way the light reflected onto her palm and how when she turned the ring, those reflections danced. It was the only thing he had ever wanted, and he had given it to her. Seconds ticked by while she fought to keep her fracturing emotions together. Was she feeling sadness? Yes. But was it also regret? And despair?

Maddy made a decision. He deserved to know. Although she could never be with him, and even though she would never see him again, he deserved to know the truth about how she felt
.
After what she had done at the station, she owed him that much. Getting up, she rummaged through her dirty jeans on the floor until she found her old flip phone. She turned it on, navigated to the recent call log, and dialed Gwen’s number.

The phone rang three times, then picked up.

“Maddy?” Gwen asked skeptically. Her familiar voice caused Maddy’s throat to tighten.

“Hey,” Maddy got out.

“OMG! Where are you?”

“I’m back home. Gwen, I have a favor to ask.”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.

“Yeah, anything. What do you need?”

Maddy looked at the Divine Ring in her hand.

“I need to drop off something. Do you think you could borrow your mom’s car and drive me?”

“I can’t,” Gwen said.

“Oh,” Maddy said, her heart sinking, “okay, then—”

“But I can drive you and then return it before my mom finds out, how about that?”

Maddy smiled in relief.

“That sounds perfect. Can you wait down the street?” She didn’t know if Kevin would let her go, so she wasn’t going to take any chances.

“No prob,” Gwen said. “I’ll come right now.”

Maddy flipped the phone shut. She dropped the necklace and the Divine Ring back under her shirt and felt the ring thump lightly against her chest.

Rifling around in her drawers, she found some old stationery and a pen. She thought only for a moment, then wrote:

Jacks, I’m sorry for being stubborn and impossible, and I’m so sorry for what happened. I know now that I am drawn toward you just as much as you are drawn toward me, and without you, I will always feel incomplete. I lied in the station, but I did it for a good reason. The truth is . . . I care about you very much. Please know that—and please never try to find me or contact me again.

—M

Fishing out a blank envelope from the desk, Maddy stuffed everything in her pocket. Then she stopped.

She didn’t know where he lived.

He had never taken her there, and she didn’t even know where to begin looking—beyond the assumption it was somewhere in the Angel City Hills. She paced back and forth for almost a minute before something occurred to her. She got down on her knees and looked under her bed. It was too dark to see, so she stuck her hand out and swept it back and forth across the carpet. Hair ties, old homework, her iPod box. Then her fingers curled around a folded crinkled pamphlet, and she pulled it out. Bingo. She threw her hoodie back on, stuffed the pamphlet in her pocket along with everything else, and slipped as quietly as she could out her bedroom window.