Page 7 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

ANA VISITED THE gear and apparel building near the Atlas storage and used her ID to get her uniform and fresh gear.

By the time she met up with Jasper, he’d loaded up the horses for the ride into town, a pleasant one they’d taken many times before. The pathway took them alongside the villas, through rows of stone houses, and then to a secluded trail outside the capital.

They stopped at an outlook near a rundown well and shed, a place that used to be their hideout after long days of training. They removed their bags, tucking them inside the shed with their saddles before giving their horses room to graze.

Jasper pulled out a bottle from one bag, shaking it at her with a grin. “Like old times?”

“Sure,” she said, shaking her head as she walked over to the garden she’d planted near the incline of the hill. She sighed, sitting down in the grass.

Jasper sat down behind her, one leg on either side of her. He opened the bottle, smelling it before handing it to her. They traded off taking sips from it, watching the clouds gather and roll in the silence. The time passed quickly; the moment embodied something of a goodbye.

She took a swig of the bottle and handed it back to him.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her with his leg. “We should run away.”

He said it in jest, but she knew there was some truth to his humor. He often hid his truth there.

“Come on. You know I’m suggesting this all for you,” he added when she didn’t reply.

“When we’re sitting in jail waiting for execution, I’ll remember that.”

“They couldn’t catch you. They’d get me for sure. I’m laying my life down for your sake.”

“Right,” she chuckled. “Have you thought about it? You know, with things heating up on the borders? The Mystics living in the State might not be as welcome anymore.”

“They’ve warmed up to me over the years. You’d be amazed what happened once I started dying my hair.”

“And changed your accent, and your clothes, and rejected anything Salem tried to teach you.”

“Wow, someone sounds bitter. All right, Salem.”

She smiled wryly. “One reason I liked you was because you were so different. Remember when I met you?”

“Couldn’t forget it. Salem dragged me out of the house and made me take you to buy new clothes.”

Ana leaned back, enjoying the story as he told it.

“You’d think he’d never seen a street kid, but maybe you were the first girl he’d seen. Maybe that gave him some sense of urgency. I almost felt bad for you.”

“You didn’t?”

He continued on, not skipping a beat. “Then I got to know you. You were so annoying. Followed me everywhere!”

She elbowed him. “That’s not true.”

“You had five questions about everything!”

“Oh, yeah?” She twisted around. “And what about you?”

“Hey, hey—look.” He pointed past her, and she turned.

“What is it?” she asked, and then saw a faint streak against the sunset.

“The black train…Hailey’s Heretical Comet,” Jasper said.

“Jasper, those are just clouds.”

“No, no, follow them. It’s the smoke from the train. You can see the end of the train just—there!”

She watched as the black train emerged from the clouds in the distance, a faint black line. One of the State Var’s least favorite mutations, the black train was known to every country. It traveled by air, earth, or sea, with no apparent rhyme or reason, a perfect symbol of the world’s brokenness.

They both watched as it disappeared.

“What are the odds we’d spot it tonight?” Jasper said.

Ana watched the clouds where she’d seen it. “Someone told me it takes the dead to the afterlife.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“I know. It’s just a mutated train, but it stops and goes with no tracks or destination. It still seems kind of magical, don’t you think?” Ana continued wistfully.

“I don’t think mutated things are ever magical. They’re a representation of what broke the world. I think Hailey’s right on that one. I’m all for neutralizing that thing the first chance we get,” Jasper replied in that same resolute tone he made when making a point.

They settled into silence and looked down on the city, watching as everyone returned to their houses for the night.

He held the neck of the bottle in his hand, gesturing toward the city as the liquid sloshed inside. “Look at them with their normal lives. Could you imagine it? Getting up, going to work, coming home to a family.” He sighed. “That’s it.”

She smiled, eyes drifting from the city to the storm clouds that gave the sunset its brilliant sheen. “A Mystic prince and all you want is to live in a little quaint cottage.”

He chuckled. “I’m a reformed prince, just a refugee now. Let all the other princes have the responsibility of managing that monster of a country. I’m lucky to have been raised here with dreams of a little cottage.”

She rested back against him, breathing in the air that thickened with the coming of rain. For a while, they both watched the rolling clouds swallowing the horizon, shifting the colors in the sky like a kaleidoscope.

“Maybe in another world we could have been something,” Jasper whispered. “Our kids would have been hopeless. Bah, with that black hair. You know they’d all have it.”

“All of our problems and you’re concerned about their hair?” she breathed.

“I’d dye it all,” he said triumphantly.

She forced a quiet laugh, catching his eyes before returning hers to the dark horizon.

The thunder drummed above them.

“It’s not too late, you know,” he said wistfully. “For a life together.”

She looked back at him, smirk fading when she saw the earnest look in his eyes. She faced the horizon.

A spot of rain landed on her hand. She watched it.

He reached a finger to graze the raindrop, and Ana withdrew from him.

“Jasper, I—” She stopped. What could she say that he didn’t already know? They’d broached this topic time and time again. The last time, it had been explosive.

The same old objections didn’t seem to make sense to him anymore. She didn’t know why he kept waiting for her. She of all people wasn’t cut out for a normal life, and with only a year left, it seemed selfish to strengthen her attachments knowing death would soon cut them.

Jasper’s hand fell back by his side.

“I’m sorry,” she said, brief feelings of helplessness soon replaced by anger—anger at Jasper for knocking on that door again.

“I should be apologizing,” he replied with a brief, bitter chuckle.

Hearing his guilt and frustration awoke those feelings in her, and they sat there in mutual suffering for a moment.

“I know. I know. I get it,” Jasper finally said.

She remained still, leaning forward and away from him now.

“Hey.” He nudged her with his knee. “It’s all right. Really. I’m happy to be here. You know that. Look, I was just kidding, all right?”

She looked back at him, searching his face. She accused with her eyes.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. Look, the black train!”

She turned back around. “No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, just look very closely,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder.

A light breeze brought the first sprinkling of rain.

She heard him exhale, and she closed her eyes. His hand found hers again, and he squeezed it. “Hey,” he whispered, as if urging them to leave in the storm’s wake.

She didn’t move.

“Jasper,” she said, followed by a pause he honored with his full attention. “I was almost out.”

Thunder boomed.

“I know.”

The drizzle grew into a steady rain.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone else,” she said.

Jasper pulled her close into his chest, and she tilted her head back against his shoulder, feeling the rain on her face as she closed her eyes.

“I know,” he said.

The rain pattered around them, lulling Ana into a trance. She tried to savor the moment, listening to the thunder churn as she bottled down her uneasiness for what she knew might be the last moment of peace for a long time.

She could feel Jasper’s concern, and maybe he saw the cracks in her armor, but she knew he didn’t understand them.

He thought Dal Hull had scarred her and made her withdraw from the world, but these cracks weren’t from the outside world. She was breaking from the inside—a malfunction in her humanity finally exposing itself after all these years. Her damage was fundamental.

She eased away from him and stood, brushing a strand of wet hair away from her face. “You were right. Let’s get out of the rain, but I’m not ready to head back yet. Is that all right?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, following her to the shed.

Ana chuckled as she sat down under the cover of the shed, leaning back against her saddle. “Yes. Thanks.”

Jasper sat down beside her again, facing her as she sat toward the exit. “You remember when that girl—what was her name? Looked like a bear.”

Ana bit the corner of her lip to hide a smile, eyes still cast out toward the rain.

“What was her name?” Tone unusually jovial, Jasper examined her face as if for the slightest sign that he would lift her mood.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?” he prodded, nudging her gently. “I can’t tell the story unless you give me her name.”

“You just called her a bear. I’m not giving you her name.”

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with looking like a bear, but she acted like one too. If she were a little nicer, I probably wouldn’t think of her as the bear. She made fun of you for not being assertive enough or something like that, remember?”

“Yeah. She said I was giving women in the Numbers a bad name because I was a pushover.” Ana collected her hair over her shoulder and wrung it out. “Said I should go have a bunch of children and take care of a house instead.”

What a wonderful life that would have been , Ana thought.

“And then we got attacked by those Mystics,” Jasper continued. “You took out half of them and then had to carry bear girl halfway up the mountain because she broke an ankle.”

Ana started braiding her hair absentmindedly, still facing away from Jasper. Her hands hid her face from him.

“I know you like that story,” he added, and she glanced past her wrist to see him grinning.

She looked away. “I only had to carry her because you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, and you couldn’t have convinced me to.”

“I know. I tried,” Ana said, faking a tone of frustration.

“I knew you’d be so proud of yourself if I let you do it on your own. I looked straight up that incline and knew it was a job for you. You’re always looking for ways to uh,” he coughed, “torture—oh, I mean better yourself.”

She rolled her eyes at his jokes, but he leaned over, peering past her shoulder to catch the smile on her face that she tried to bite down.

She could no longer restrain herself and laughed when she saw his attentive expression, peering warily into her line of vision. He returned a victorious smile, having broken her from a mood most would never have even noticed in her. She rested her hands on her knees, posture open now.

“Thanks for coming, Jasper,” she said, moving her thumbs over her knees. “I have missed this.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said, allowing the silence to linger for a moment.

He rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling of the old shack.

He folded his hands behind his head beside her, eyes narrowing through the patchy roof that offered only adequate shelter from the rain.

“Did you find what you were looking for out there?” Jasper asked after a while. “The meaning of all of this? Life?”

“No,” Ana replied as if he’d asked any other question.

Jasper seemed to sit on the answer before replying softly, “It’s okay if you don’t find the answer before your time runs out. I know you were hoping seclusion in that cabin might give you the space you needed to figure it all out.”

“Maybe this last mission was the answer I’ve been waiting for,” she whispered, staring out into the rain. “Life has never made any sense to me. Maybe this will be it.”

“Maybe,” Jasper said, but he seemed doubtful. “So, we’re really setting off to find Ares tomorrow?”

“Looks like it.”

“You scared?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. “Scary person.”

“We won’t find him,” Ana said. “If I thought we really would, there’s no way I’d let you come along.”

“You seem pretty confident—and don’t act like this is all your choice, you know.”

“He’s a legend,” Ana said, gazing out at the town. “There’s no way we’ll find him.”

We won’t find him. Never ,she thought. But I will.

Jasper didn’t know it yet, but he would eventually have to stay behind.

If John Hailey was the grim reaper, Ares was the door to death itself.