The Dark Jumper

Chapter 5 - Focus

Chapter 5 - Focus

Jace caught his breath from the long run. His eyes scanned where they stood in the gym, just inside the trophy room before the courts. Several students played there, girls and guys, in three-on-three tournaments.

Russ and his group, alongside several curious students, headed towards the gym.

"How far are the fields from the courts?" Jace asked.

"A little way out of the locker rooms," Max said, recovering himself as he bent at the waist, hands on his knees. "It might put some distance between us, but they'd catch up faster than we think."

Jace nodded. "You mind watching the games in here, then?"

Max blinked. "No, but what's that gonna do?"

"It's called blending," Jace remembered what he told Abby earlier that morning, thinking that she was probably doing a lot better job than he was at present.

Max chuckled. "If you can pull that off, I won't complain."

"Where are the locker rooms?"

Max pointed behind him. "Just through that door, hallway on the right."

Jace knew that the only thing he could do involved both deceiving Russ's group as well as Max. As Max lead him to the hall, they came across an area where an old cart used for concessions stood, as well as a few small crevices that leaned with the natural architecture of the gym.

"Duck under here and lean against the wall," Jace said.

Max's eyes flashed. "Dude, this is the first place they're going to look for us."

Jace shook his head. "Trust me, they won't see us."

Max frowned. "Fine. I just hug the wall like you're doing?"

Jace nodded. He pressed his palms against the wall, leaning against the white painted brick. "Keep your hands against the wall and don't say anything until I tell you."

"Obviously, cause..." Max cut off when he heard shouting from down the hall and the loud thud of a door slamming open.

Here they come.

It took a bit of energy and focus on his part. With Max touching the wall, Jace created a relay point to spread his invisibility to Max so Russ and his group wouldn't detect either of them.

But he had one more task to make sure they didn't look their way, or if they did, the moment would pass too soon for them to notice anything amiss.

His manipulation - sensing small teases of time threads and tugging them to advance or slow, was an ability he'd been able to do since a few years back when .

He could sense time threads and advance them, like rewinding or fast forwarding a movie. He could advance them or backtrack them for no further than about 10 minutes. A small ability, one he’d had since he turned 12.  That was the last of his Tria derived abilities: invisibilty, limited clarivoyance, and limited time thread manipulation.

He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to focus. He heard the footsteps. Russ's voice echoed in his ears. "Where are you, Jupiter boy? I know you're..."

Jace opened his eyes, saw everything in the moment stop. He kept his palms against the wall, and allowed himself to summon his vision to tune into the time waves. The waves appeared faint at first. Then they came distinct, long streams of light around him, thick and thin, long and short. All with different times in milliseconds, seconds, and minutes.

He teased one thread with his mind, pulling it gently as one would comb a tangle out of the hair without breaking it. He saw Russ's crew in the hall running past them. He saw Russ at one point look straight above his head. Jace pushed the thread far enough to see that the crowd that followed them dispersed into the heart of the gym, or ran toward the fields.