Deserted Highways

Somewhere Amongst the Bones

his head rapidly, and Kaelie cursed, shoving her blood speckled hands through her hair. "Michael and Lilith, they aren't there. They were gone when Ben and I left this morning. Sarah's there," he said and Kaelie started pulling him carefully down the sidewalk, slinking through the midday shadows.

"Where did they go?" Kaelie asked and then she shook her head. "I'll find them. Sarah's there, she'll keep you safe."

"What do you- Kaelie, wait, what do you mean? Where are you going? You can't leave," he spluttered.

Kaelie stopped, spinning around and pulling Jace into her. She kissed him slowly, reveling in the taste of home on his lips and he felt tense and then he relaxed and she held his face in her hands. "I'm not leaving. I'll be back. But I need you safe and out of the way before I go find someone who can help us, before I go find Michael and Lilith," she muttered against his mouth. "But Jace, when I get you there, you can't tell. Don't tell Sarah, don't say anything, tell her to get ready, we have to leave."

She didn't give Jace any time to answer, she just kept pulling him down the street trying to listen for the sound of anyone following them, of anyone racking a slide from the rooftops. It felt like years before she finally caught sight of the safe house and it's plain doors and she stopped on the porch. She kissed Jace again, she could feel tears on his cheeks, or maybe they were hers, she didn't know.

"I promise Jace," she said. "I will be back. I'm coming back. Wait for me and I'll explain everything. To everyone."

She turned away, hurrying back down the sidewalk, not bothering to make sure she was out of sight before she took off sprinting at the fastest speed she could manage, still faster then any normal human. In minutes, she was rushing up the stairs to Jordan's appointment and throwing the door open, bouncing it off the wall.

"Jordan?" she yelled. He would know what to do, he had to, he kept saying he had some plan. She closed her eyes and saw Ben on the ground and she opened them again, tearing down the hall to Jordan's room. "Jordan, get your ass up this is important!"

She ripped his door open and she saw the curtain on his window fluttering in the breeze of an open window. "What the hell?" she muttered to herself. A paper lay on his bed, the edges waving in the air. She picked it up, turning it over in shaking fingers.

He got what he deserved, the paper read in Jordan's cramped handwriting. "Jordan," she whispered.

It was him. It was Jordan, calling the hits on Jace, it was him all along. It didn't make any sense. If his goal was to kill Jace, why did he shoot Ben after they stopped the attack, after Kaelie's cover was blown? Why would he have done this?

She ripped open his desk drawers furiously, dumping things on the ground and throwing books to the floor. A torn edge of paper caught her attention, Jordan's handwriting scrawled an address across it, an old building near the edge of the city. On the bottom, she recognized Michael's handwriting, the words we'll be there on the page.

Kaelie didn't think anymore, she needed to get to the building she needed to figure out if Jordan was there, if Michael and Lilith had gone to meet him, they were in danger, she knew that now and she wanted to hit herself for being so naive, so ready to accept that Jordan was one of the good guys because he saved her life.

She ran out of the apartment, her knee aching and quivering under her weight, and she ran to the old hospital on the edge of town, willing herself to keep going, and cursing Michael and Lilith for taking the car. She careened to a stop in front of a huge building, crumbling and rusted and decaying, dirt spraying from under her feet. She saw a door in the side of the building still slightly ajar, saw the slight impressions of someone light footed and sure.