bolt and began reloading the rifle. “News flash, Reaper, that crap doesn’t work on me.”
Jared stood and I took the opportunity to scramble out of the way. Then I realized he’d just done the impossible: He stood.
“I wouldn’t say that’s the
“Yeah, so do bottle rockets.”
“There’s no blood.” I stared up at Jared in disbelief, unable to blink, to comprehend what had just happened. “There’s no blood. He just shot you.”
I studied the frozen world around us: A mother peered into a store window as her daughter giggled and licked a dripping ice-cream cone, a sizable dollop inches from the ground. A skateboarder hung suspended in the air, his skateboard clinging to his feet as he jumped a park bench. His friends cheered, their laughter captured in time like a movie on pause. The camera crew across the street was staring as if in shock at a delivery truck as it passed through the intersection.
Still lying on the ground, I looked back at Jared, at the holes the bullets had torn into his chest. Yet he was standing, breathing. None of it made any sense.
Especially the smile on his face.
He eyed Cameron from underneath his lashes, flashed him a menacing grin. Then he changed, almost glowed, became so transparent, the bullets fell through him to land on the ground in a succession of light taps.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he said, becoming solid again. His white T-shirt still bore the holes of its recent abuse, each blackened by the blast of gunpowder. But not even a blush of red stained it.
Cameron sighed as he dropped another shell into the chamber. “I know,” he said in almost bored contemplation. “My manners suck. I like to chalk it up to a dissatisfying childhood.”
“I’d chalk it up to that narcissistic personality disorder laced with a smidgen of schizophrenia. Your mother would be proud.”
Cameron’s head snapped up in disbelief. Anger watered his blue eyes and hardened his strong features as he chambered a shell and again pointed the gun at Jared.
I leapt to my feet. “No, Cameron!”
Without unlocking his gaze, he shoved me roughly back to the earth, too intent on baiting Jared to bother with someone so apparently inconsequential.
“You’ll tell Mom hi for me, won’t you?” Cameron asked as he eased the trigger back. He received only a click for his effort.
“Magic,” Jared said with a wink.
Undeterred, Cameron took the rifle in both hands and swung. But Jared caught it millimeters from his face and slammed it back into Cameron’s jaw. He stumbled back, tested his jaw, then charged.
The fight that ensued seemed more mystical than real, as though two gods had chosen Earth as their battlefield. Each possessed strength beyond explanation.
I sat horrified. I winced with every throw, tensed with every collision of fist and body. While the earth stood still, a heated battle raged on the quiet streets of Riley’s Switch. And with every swing, my breath caught, certain it would cause the death of one of them.
But the battle raged on. A fine sheen of sweat covered Cameron’s determined face. Smeared blood trickled from his mouth and temple. He fought as if possessed, as if killing Jared were his one and only goal in life and he was more than willing to die in the process of achieving it.
While Jared seemed physically impenetrable, emotionally he was not so tempered. I felt a war within him. I felt it as easily as I could feel heat carried on a wind. Anger and indignation warred with something higher, something more noble, perhaps empathy or compassion.
The skirmish tumbled across the street, where mother and daughter stood frozen. The only sounds I could hear in the stillness were the raspy breaths of the gladiators and the harsh blows of combat. Even the scents of autumn had ceased to exist in the thick air.
Cameron lifted Jared and threw him onto the windshield of a silver Buick. The car dipped then bounced up and froze, distorted in time as though someone had taken a picture when least expected. The windshield splintered into a thousand shards of sparkling glass, yet held in place, creating a glittering mosaic.
Still on the car, Jared kicked when Cameron charged forward, sending him backwards through the store window, the same window mother and daughter stood peering into. He missed the women by inches.
Again, the glass cracked as if aging before my eyes, fissures webbing throughout the pane. A small crunching sound could be heard; jagged edges surrounded the hole his body created, and yet time held it in place.
Jared slid off the car and eyed the opening Cameron’s figure had carved into the window, waiting for his adversary to reappear.
I held my breath, hoping Cameron had been knocked unconscious so the fight would end.
Please, please let it end.
As I watched the window expectantly, I heard a groan from Jared. I looked over at him. He suddenly seemed dizzy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he clutched his stomach and fell to his knees. My heart jumped in alarm. He struggled unsuccessfully to stand, as I ran to him.
I fell to my hands and knees beside him. “Jared, are you okay?” I asked worriedly.
Of course he wasn’t okay. He’d just been thrown into a windshield. Yet he didn’t have a scratch on him. Cameron bled. A lot. Jared obviously did not. Though his skin remained flawless, his face contorted in agony. He grimaced and doubled over again.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Please, Jared. Please let it stop. This is insane.”
But he seemed lost, confused. “What’s happening to me?”
Just then Cameron kicked through the splintered glass, carrying a ragged piece of wreckage he had pulled from inside the store. He stood over us, bloodied, panting hard with each breath.
I looked up at him. “Cameron, stop.”
“Get out of the way, Lorelei,” he said, a hard warning in his tone.
“He’s hurt.”
“Yeah, but it’s still breathing.” He took the makeshift weapon in both hands like a baseball bat.
“What’s happening to me?” Jared put a palm to his head and gritted his teeth. He held his stomach and doubled over for a third time, as if seized by a wave of excruciating pain. “What’s happening?”
“What’s happening?” Cameron asked with a bright smile. “You’re getting your ass kicked, that’s what’s happening. Now, get out of the way, Lorelei.”
“What are you doing to me?” Jared asked, his voice a caustic whisper.
“I just told you, tough guy. I’m kicking your ass. You have a super short attention span.” He leveled a warning glare on me. “I won’t say it again.”
I realized I was crying. Tears blurred the determined face and ice blue eyes staring down at me.
“Put that down, Cameron,” I said between pathetic sobs. “I mean it.”
Frowning in frustration, Cameron grabbed my arm and jerked me back. I fought his hold with every ounce of energy I had, but he was simply too strong. I felt like a gnat fighting a diesel truck. He tossed me aside as easily as tossing paper into a breeze.
Before I could get my footing, Cameron took the board into both hands and swung. It struck Jared on the side of his head, knocking him onto his hands for balance. Jared looked toward the heavens, as if questioning God Himself, then collapsed onto the sidewalk.
When Cameron brought the board to the ready again, I ran at him. I charged with all my might and rammed a shoulder into his side. It surprised him and was enough to knock him off balance. He stumbled just as the world restarted. And it restarted with a vengeance. The force of time bouncing back knocked the breath out of me.
I gasped for air and glanced around. The skateboarder landed perfectly as his friends applauded his feat. The storefront window shifted with the power surge, showering small shards of glass around mother and daughter. They screamed and jumped back. The everyday noises of town replaced the thick void of silence: cars whirring, birds chirping, people talking—the sounds one becomes immune to until they are no longer there. The Buick’s car alarm began blaring too as it bounced back into position.
