She never, ever sat down and worked it out herself. What stage was she on? Was this anger? Was this depression?
It seemed reasonable to her. They’d destroyed her life. She was a spirit without a body. Jin would be okay if she died and her body was buried because that’s life. Life is living until you die. But no, that’s not what happened. They’d saved her. Not because it was their duty like they told her over and over again. They saved her to sacrifice her. To give her body to someone else. Is this what it took for her to get into heaven? Had she done so many bad things while alive that the one path to her salvation was to hand over her flesh and bones for a future that did not concern her? What did a war in heaven have to do with her? Why was she being punished?
Did she deserve this?
She thought of Chaerin.
Yes.
Slowly, she began to piece her bedroom back together because she realized…
Yes. I deserved this.
Day seven she thought of Aiden. Jin let her thoughts linger on him the entire day. She could no longer say that he was the reason she wanted to get out of here. She couldn’t say that it was thoughts of him that kept her sane. She wasn’t sure she still had her sanity. She could say that he was an escape. That when she needed a reminder to smile, which was often, she thought of him. So she spent all of day seven smiling.
Day ten was acceptance. Jin accepted the cards she had been dealt. She laid them out in front of her, examined them, turned them over and over and over to see if there was any other option and there was none. She didn’t want to accept it, but this had never been about what she wanted. She had no other choice but to accept it. These were her cards. She would play them.
She heard a knock on the door. Jin smiled. She knew it was Onyu. Onyu always knew when Jin was ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Jin stared at the lip of the forest with trepidation. To her right was Onyu and to her left was Benja’in-su. Days ago, she was full of anger. Now she was full of curiosity. Curiosity that could get her killed. Third time the charm, hm?
“Question,” Jin said, her hand on her hip. “Every time I need answers, am I going to fight the Birds of Prey because if that’s the case I might pass on being enlightened.”
Benja’in-su laughed. “You’ve scared them enough. They’ve stated they won’t come back out until you leave.”
Jin’s face brightened. “Leave!” she yelled, pointing at Benja’in-su. “You said leave! You mean to leave this place right?”
Benja’in-su grimaced. “Technically…”
Jin’s shoulder slumped. “Technically.”
“We are about to visit a malleable discarded timeline, which allows those inside it to move outside the laws of it. This one is an echo. It mimics the correct and final timeline almost perfectly, so yes, technically, it’s…not this place. ”
“Aria said that when we were on the bridge. That was a discarded timeline, too.”
“That one was a true discarded timeline. Glut didn’t make an appearance during her death and she wasn’t without her weapons.”
“I saw her die and it surprises me every time I think about it. She was so strong, so much stronger and faster than them. I can’t believe they overpowered her. ”
Onyu began to walk deeper into Kowloon. “She was stronger, faster, and more skilled. Qeres is a poison that is deadly to Mutare, Root Angels and those from The Glory Beyond. It wasn’t the sword that did her in. She was weak because she was poisoned.”
“Why would anyone want to kill her?”
“We don’t know. We don’t even know the identity of who killed her. However, it’s not so much why they wanted her dead–a lot of people wanted Aria dead–but rather who they tricked into poisoning her. It’s a very long story, very long and very sad and one day I will tell you but it isn’t important information to know for today. This time we are going to relive something else.” They approached a tree, one a little paler than the others but with twice as many branches. Onyu looked at the strips hanging from the branches with a narrowed gaze before she pointed to one. “Jin. Grab that strip for me.”
Jin looked at Onyu and then back at the strip before scrunching up her face. “Oh, hell no. I don’t care what you said about those hell harpies, I’m not touching a damn thing.” Jin crossed her arms across her chest and stuck her nose in the air in defiance.
“Let me ask you a question. Last time, before your inevitable scuffle with these “hell harpies”, were you able to read the words on the strips?”
“No. It was your angel scribble-scrabble! A bunch of symbols and–” Onyu grabbed her face and turned it towards the tree, “–funny…shapes. Wait.” Jin squinted. The symbols were gone. They were replaced by words, not that she could understand what they were trying to say but the point was they were words that she could read.
“I said you had to see to believe and believe to see. You accepted the truth of your spiritual powers and with that acceptance, you can see the Scripts of Kowloon.” She reached up and plucked the strip from the branch. “Now, Aria–” Onyu started, holding the script out.
“Jin. My name is Jin.”
Onyu paused for a second and looked at her strangely before the look passed and her eyes cleared. “I apologize,” she said, shaking her head. “Jin,” she stressed. “This is a test. I cannot unseal it. Benja’in-su cannot because Morg’ah’nees do not have the power to unseal. Someone other than us will have to.”
Jin raised a brow. “Okay…?”
“You have realized your power. Now it’s time to learn how to control it.’
Jin opened her mouth to complain and Onyu held up a finger. “Listen without talking for once. I can do without your long-winded, whimsical confusion.”
Jin pouted.
Onyu placed the strip on the ground. “To unseal this, we have to crush it, collapse its energy onto itself and only then will it open the discarded timeline. Try folding it over and over again.”
Jin tilted her head and her lip hitched. “With my hands? That sounds too easy,” she said, her voice thick with disbelief.
“No, fool, with your powers. Spiritual power is not some imaginary force that works without affecting its surroundings. It is energy and you can manipulate it. Now,” she said as she looked down at the strip. “Imagine you’re holding it in your hand. Fold the corners towards the opposite end, just as if you were folding it physically.”
Jin huffed and stared at the piece of paper. She imagined, just as Onyu had instructed, folding it, taking the far right corner and folding it inwards towards the other side. Nothing. She squatted and stared at the strip concentrating her focus on it and only it. Fold, she thought in her mind. Fold! Still nothing.
“Sometimes, it helps to use your hands. Like,” and Benja’in-su shoved her hands out over the strip-like she was heating her hands over a fire, “like that. I don’t know why but it helps.”
Jin shrugged. Mimicking Benja’in-su’s motions, she held her hands out and concentrated. She channeled her focus and felt a chill ghost over her palms, up her arms, and across her back. Startled, she pulled her hands into her chest. “What was that?” she said alarmed.
“Concentrate, Jin,” Onyu urged. “If you felt something, you’re doing something right.
Jin hesitated for a moment before she held her hands out again. She zeroed in on the paper and felt the chill again, this time followed by a slow burn. This burn was different from the fire she felt all over her body the day before. She narrowed her focus on the corner of the strip and willed it to move. “Fold,” she whispered, desperately.
It folded and Jin gasped in surprise. Slowly, the upper right edge crept toward the lower right edge, bringing the top of the strip towards the bottom, a crease appearing in the middle of the paper.
“Again.”
Jin nodded. This time she brought the folded halves together right to left, another crease appearing as the paper doubled onto itself.
“Good, good. Keep going.”
Jin repeated the process until the paper was as small as the tip of her finger. The smaller it got the harder it was to make it fold but Jin didn’t give up, struggling through another one.
And then the strip disappeared.
Jin blinked and she was no longer in Kowloon.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Malleable Discarded Timeline
October 4th, 11:28
Spring Street Apartments
Manhattan, New York
“Took you long enough, Jinni.”
Time stopped.
The bright dusky grey of Kowloon Forest had been replaced with the harsh streetlight illuminated space of her New York apartment. The lights were bright and white but her bedroom wasn’t. It was its normal palette, cream-colored walls, champagne duvet on the bed, her lamp with all its vibrant colors on the nightstand in one piece and the beige carpet. Bland. She never realized how bland their bedroom was.
The beep echoed in her ears. In one hand was the cord from the blinds.
Jin’s eyes jutted to the windows behind her and then back to Shen.
Shen glared at her, a smear of blood under his nose and his stance off centered. He was holding a pistol, his pistol. He kept it in his car. Said his father taught him how to shoot a gun when he was twelve. Why she remembered something like that, she didn’t know. She was remembering a lot of stupid things like Shen’s favorite color–green–and how he liked listening to trot on his morning commute to “work” or the fact that he was allergic to shellfish.
Concentrate! Aria’s voice filled her head.
Yes. Concentrate. Jin raised the gun, her hands steady, steadier than they’d ever been, even when she practiced with Aiden.
Do you remember this?
Jin shook her head. She didn’t remember it as if she’d lived through it. She remembered it as if it were a dream. A dream she’d never dreamed but a dream she felt in her soul.
Jin’s hand tightened around the pistol grip.
What would you do differently, cub? How differently would you fight?
Jin’s instincts were sharp like the edge of a knife. She’d always been aware, she couldn’t afford to be anything else. But this was different. It was feral and alive. Her fear was muted and she knew. She knew this was exactly how she died before and she knew there was a possibility it would be how she would die again. When you know a situation will end in death, when you’ve tasted death, the bitterness of it like over salted beef or bitter chord on your tongue, when you’ve felt nothingness…fear means nothing.
She didn’t want to die.
The only answer left was the animalistic desire to fight. To survive. To live. A lioness with her teeth bared.
She glanced at Aiden. The sight hurt to see. She wanted to save him, she wanted to throw her pistol down and give in to whatever Shen wanted, as long as she saved him. She knew that wasn’t the right answer.
What would you do differently?
Jin knew the answer before Aria asked. “He’s…he’s using Aiden to lure me in. He wants me to see him in pain, he wants me to fight for his survival, our survival, using his rules.”
Good. What must you do?
“Change. I have to change the rules. I have to change everything. I need to make him play by my rules. His rules end in death.”
Good, girl. Make his rules obsolete! Go!
Time started.
“I’m simply saying,” he said, his voice dripping with arrogance, “that you—sweet, sweet you—might be capable of a lot of shit, but it ain’t destruction. You don’t explode. Explosions are noisy—people notice them and we all know you’re far too sneaky for that.” The end of the cigarette brightened as the man took a long drag. “Hurry up and put the gun down before I get angry.”
He’s so full of shit.
Now or never. She ignored Shen babbling and gave Aiden one final look, one that she hoped to let him know she loved him, that she was doing this to save him, to save the both of them. He returned the look, his eyes narrowed as he was reading her thoughts. His smile was small and she saw the realization in his eyes. He nodded.
Thank you, Aiden.
She ran. She turned on her heels and ran as hard as she could, as fast as she could, darting from the room and into the darkness. She hoped her gambit worked as she fled through the kitchen towards the front door. She hoped that she didn’t just leave her homicidal ex alone with Aiden so he could finish what he started.
Please. Please.
She released the breath she didn’t know she was holding when she heard footsteps behind her.
Yes! She continued out the door, slamming it close behind her. Every second counted.
The light from the hallway blinded her for a moment, but she ran through the spots in her vision. When clear sight returned, the elevator loomed in the distance.
Too long. Not enough time to wait. Go.
Jin searched for an alternative option. The stairs! She turned for the end of the hallway and ran as hard as she could, using the skills she picked up in high school as a sprinter. She leaned forward and swung her arms as she raced for the stairwell. She reached the door but shrieked when a bullet took a chunk out of the drywall next to her head.
She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide, and her hand shaking. Shen was standing at the threshold of their apartment, his eyes angry, his body tense, and his aura screaming deadly intent.
Jin sneered. You don’t scare me.
You don’t have time for this! Go!
Right. Jin flew through the door at the end of the hall and took off down the stairs. Something strange happened as she began her descent. Something began to change. It was a familiar feeling but also so very new to her.
Do you feel it yet? Do you feel it running through you? Is your blood singing, cub?
She did. She’d felt it when she fought the Goryō. She’d felt it when she attacked Onyu. It felt like a high she’d never felt before but instead of her zoning out, her concentration was tunnel focused. Her ability to seek solutions came faster, all aided by a phenomenon she couldn’t understand.
She could taste proximity, not like you could taste a chilly pepper or a shot of whiskey. The taste translated to sound. Jin could hear sounds on the other floors, the sounds bouncing off the walls and allowing her to calculate how many people were in each room, if any were in the hallway, or about to come through the door, possibly tripping her up with a swinging door. Equations churned in her head, flashing numbers in her mind. As she moved from step to step, her mind calculated how fast she would reach ground level from her current position, all based on the echo her feet made slapping against the floor made.
Speed up.
So she did, doubling her efforts. Jin jumped the last few steps, landing in a crouch. The sound of another bullet bouncing off the walls tried to steal her concentration but she wouldn’t allow Shen to do that. Her eyes jutted from left and right, back and forth, back and forth as she collected herself before barreling through the exit at the landing and through the heated foyer. She scanned the street.
Too many people–it’ll slow you down. A man in a business suit with a wrinkled tie jogged across the street, waving down a taxi. No good.
A building under construction was just across the street. “I need to create more distance. Change the rules.”
Yes, go!
Jin took off across the street, jutting and juking in between vehicles but not swift enough to avoid the taxi that had picked up its business suit wearing fare. She collided with it, but she was able to contort her body just enough to slide across the hood of the car. The gun fell from her grip and slid under the adjacent car. Jin tried to reach under the car for it but her arm was too short and the car would not move.
“Jin, get back here!” ripped through the air. Shit. Shit!
Jin abandoned the gun and rolled to her feet. She didn’t stop running until she was on the other side of the fence keeping street traffic out. The construction was more than halfway do
ne, concrete slab flooring in place and steel beams and drywall. As she ran across the bottom floor, she found a crude set of unfinished stairs covered in dirt and sawdust. She took the steps in two and fours, the heartbeat in her ear loud enough to drown most noises out.
Calm down, inhale, feed oxygen to your blood. Breathe or you’ll tire yourself out.
Could she calm down? All she wanted to do was make it somewhere safe, so she could call the police something, call for help, something!
“I need to hide.”
Jin could hear something akin to disappointment in Aria’s silence. She didn’t understand! Damn it, Aria! She was running from a maniac!
She had to think about herself, her safety, her survival. Jin slid to a stop at the landing of the next floor and dashed through the opening, the plastic construction tarp slapping her in the face.
There! She spotted a stack of pallets on the opposite side of the room, just as wide as they were tall.
Hide, she told herself.
Fight.
Save yourself.
You always run!
You’re doing this for Aiden, okay? You’re doing this for yourself!
Stand and fight!
She shook her head hard, dismissing Aria’s stern commands. She started towards the pallets, spotting a thick tarp she could pull over herself. Hide! That’s what she told herself over and over again. But that wasn’t Jin’s instincts talking. It was her fear. She felt her steps slowing, her resolve crumbling. A thought struck her, foolish, but loud. She didn’t want to run anymore. She didn’t want to hide.
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 20