Between Worlds (TEMP HOLD)

Sixteen: Too Late For Remorse

         The watches were already programmed for Jasmime's hometown. It didn't matter how many times I traveled by it before, because it still felt like my insides were twisting and being rearranged; felt like they were on fire, ripping apart and pulling themselves back together.

            I collapse back onto the sand, exposed to the cool night air and the hot desert sand. Night has fallen, and all I want to do is sit here and lay in the sand until Jasmine finds me and hurts me like we hurt Oscar.

          Artemis, Hercules and Ares have all appeared in different parts of the city far behind me. The city buildings were glittery in the moonlight, and I shiver. Game on. I already feel as though I'm being watched. The shadows around me have been comprimised.

            My stomach feels weak, and I feel slightly dizzy. As I stumble to my feet, the walkie in my back pocket goes off, fuzzy and loud, giving away our positions if Jasmine could tune into our private channel. Ares voice calls out to us all in the darkness, "I've got eyes on her." His voice whispers. I stumble to my feet, grabbing the walkie out of my back pocket.

          Already?

          "Don't make your move until I'm there." I tell him. "Where is she?"

           "I'm going in." Ares says, "She's moving. We don't have time to wait, Reyes."

          Damn it! Ares would catch Jasmime, and we would have to hold her for twenty-four hours before I could return to the Underworld with her. If she hadn't traveled today, she could move elsewhere and we would have no chance of catching up with her. I swear to myself, clipping the walkie on my back pocket and moving over the sand and towards the big city in the distance.

           "No, you idiot," Artemis hisses. "She's already gotten into the house. If you go in now, she'll hear you and she'll run. This has to happen. Let her win this round, wait for Ariel and Hercules and then we make our move."

          Her husband lives in an upscale loft, and thankfully didn't require special entrance. It was gorgeous inside, with an expensive looking lobby that looked as though it could pass for a hotel. Insurance money well spent. Artemis meets me in the lobby, and we head up together. We take the elevators up, up, up and the familiar ding seems to echo forever here in the vast, open corridor.

         It's strangely darker here. The walls and floor are dim, holding and hiding secrets and people who have done the worst imaginable things. Ares waits at the end of the corridor, leaning expectantly near an ajar door marked with the number 72. He quietly gestures for us to come to him. Minutes later, Hercules is here too.

           We all lean forward and listen, expexting to hear something. Anything. Their voices are low, and drifting out to us.

          "I killed you. I buried you. How did - how are you here - standing in my office? How did you even find me?" His voice was rich with a thick accent.

          I could hear Jasmine's laugh, even from here. It was low and maniacle and it gave me goosebumps. If I were her husband, I'd be scared out of my mind. His death was seconds away; the air here in the lobby was thick with readiness. We couldn't save Jasmine's husband, and none of us wanted to, but we were seconds away from who we came to get and everyone was tense. What if she left after she kills him? How would we find her then?

         "You touched me. You laughed when I screamed and begged. You left my body to be eaten alive by bugs seven feet underground. You even bribed and threatened my family. I thought death was the end of things for me; but as it turns out, I was given one chance to make things right again. You're going to pay for what you did to me."