Deserted Highways

But I'll Be Close Behind

hit Jace like a brick, sending him toppling to the floor wheezing for breath. "Ah shit," Ben gasped, lunging off the bed and landing on his knees next to Jace. "Are you okay?"

"You want to be my boyfriend and this is how I get treated? Kaelie would never have done this to me," Jace quipped, and her name still hurt to say, but then it passed and him and Ben were roaring with laughter on the floor as Jace massaged his now sore abdomen.

"Anyways," Ben said once he'd calmed enough to stop giggling every time he looked at Jace. "I meant that I could pose as your boyfriend and go with you today. I can keep an eye out for any more attacks, and I can watch this Hera girl. She wouldn't question my presence if I have a connection to you. And, if, somehow, this is Kaelie, she'd likely kill me on the spot just because she's pissed."

Jace almost broke up laughing again at the thought. "You might be onto something there, Ben. Kaelie would put a knife in your trachea on principle if you spouted off like that. But what if it isn't her?"

"But what if it is?" Ben said, his brown eyes soft and excited. "What if it is, Jace? We have to know, one way or the other. I need it. You need it, to move on."

Jace nodded, he knew Ben was right. He had to know or he'd sink deeper and deeper in the blackness of the hurt that swallowed him up each night when he fell asleep. "You're right," he said. "I'm going to shower. We need to leave in like 30 minutes, so get your shit together."

He walked out and down the hall to the bathroom, remembering his first night in this house after Kaelie had woken up, how he'd stood in the same bathroom under the same shower thinking about the electric tingle of her mouth on his and if he'd ever get to feel it again, and now he was here again, wondering the same thing.

The water was hot and soothing, removing some of the deep ache that tension had seemed to leave in his muscles. He stepped out after a few minutes, toweling off his hair and rubbing away stray droplets of water. He swiped his towel across the mirror before wrapping it around his waist and for a minute he just stood there. He didn't know what he expected to see, if he expected hope to put a change in his face, if he expected the stress to appear on his skin.

He left the bathroom as Ben was coming out of Kaelie's room. Ben eyed him with a grin and Jace just shook his head, stepping back into Kaelie's room and shutting the door. He'd started keeping sets of clothes and things here in case something went wrong, and he pulled out a pair of jeans and a soft gray shirt.

"Michael and Lilith are gone," Ben said, confusion edging into his voice. "I checked their rooms. Sarah is still asleep but the others are gone. They took the car too."

Jace raised an eyebrow. "Where would they have gone?" he asked. Ben shrugged.

"I'd have thought, given everything, that they would have at least said something to someone about where they were going and what they were doing. And why wouldn't Sarah be with them?" Ben asked.

"I don't know that she knows," Jace said slowly. "I think something is going on with Michael and Lilith. When I came in yesterday, they were in the kitchen talking but they stopped the minute they saw me. Michael seemed agitated, like I had interrupted something important and him and Lilith kept looking at each other like they knew something the rest of us didn't. He seemed surprised when Sarah came in yesterday, like he hadn't expected her to be listening to everything, he almost looked worried."

Ben furrowed his eyebrows, his face scrunching up in thought for a few minutes. "You know, I like to think I'm used to the level of weird that surrounds being a genetically engineered fuck up, and yet, I'm continually surprised." He shook his head and didn't say anything else, just followed Jace out the door and down the road to the campus.