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12:00 AM

PEGASUS

Jessica was scared Jonathan could feel it

They haddown Division like a stone skipping on water, then gaining altitude froiant obstacle course out of the Bixby skyline The Mobil Building was the tallest in town, and now they were high atop the winged horse with the darkened city spread out below them

But Jess had see over her shoulder, not trusting in their speed to keep thereen eyes still scanned the horizon The ht, and the connection that Jonathan usually felt when they flew together was

"Are you okay?"

"What?"

"You seeed

He s seen without over the dark, empty city "Yeah, if any slithers tell my mom about us, I&039;m dead" She paused, then blurted, "Anyway, you&039;re the one who&039;s all antitouching during daylight"

Jonathan blinked "Really?"

"Yeah" Jessica looked away "Ideal, but it&039;s not like you ever put your arrab my hand"

"We hold hands all the tiet all anxious about it"

He frowned, annoyed and wondering if it was true "Well, we&039;ve got to rest sometime Or we&039;ll wind up with Nintendo wrist"

Jess pulled away her flying hand and flexed it "I guess so"

Jonathan gently took it back and started to in to relax "So what are you really nervous about?"

Her gaze swept the skyline "How safe do you think we are up here?"

"We&039;re in theon ten tons of clean steel Mobil Building has thirteen letters in it And we can fly if we need to Pretty safe, I&039;d say"

Jess ran a finger along the rusty strut they were perched on "How do you know this steel&039;s clean? It&039;s been here a long time, looks like"

"I asked Dess if Rex could take a look with his glasses off When Pegasus is lit, you can see it from all over Bixby, you know He said the horse doesn&039;t show a bit of Focus It&039;s clean"

She sed "Rex can be a pain, but the guy&039;s good for so her hand

Jonathan hadn&039;t told Jess, but over the last week he had spotted a few slithers at the edges of don, daring to cos than he&039;d ever seen before They were tentative, slithering across the loarehouses on the fringes, blurring the claiht creatures were pushing their way in, a little closer every night It rown certain that eventually there wouldn&039;t be any clean places left in Bixby The slithers and their darkling asus

Where would he and Jess go then?

"But we can&039;t sit on top of this sign forever, Jonathan"

He looked up at her, wondering how she knehat he was thinking He dreaded that Jess&039;sHe hoped not Jonathan had no idea how Rex could stand to hang out with Melissa He shivered No privacy, not even in your brain

"We&039;re safe for now, Jess And rounded today," she said

"That&039;s great! Why didn&039;t you tell me?" he said Then he saw her expression "Jess, why isn&039;t that great?"

"Well, because now I&039;ht, out at Rustle&039;s Bottom"

"Oh, the snake pit" Jess had told hio The idea had sounded dangerous enough when it ay off in the future Now that it enty-four hours away

"You know that&039;s out in the badlands"

"They kind of mentioned that But Rex says it&039;s the only way to find out what I am," Jessica said "Dess can make it safe out there, and Rex saysI can protect myself with In the museum he told me there&039;s lots of kick-ass talents"

"If Rex told you to jump off a cliff - ," he started

"Jonathan," she said, laughing, "that would be you telling me to jump off a cliff"

Jonathan smiled "Probably But I&039;d juot to do so, Jonathan I can&039;t spend the rest of hed "So you&039;ve got to do what Rex says He&039;s the only one of us who&039;s got the ht, after all"

Jess looked into his eyes "That&039;s why you don&039;t like him, isn&039;t it? Because he can read the lore and you can&039;t"

Jonathan frowned at her "It&039;show much he should say "You don&039;t know Rex and Melissa as well as I do Let&039;s just say I don&039;t trust Rex I don&039;t think he tells everything he knows, even to Melissa"

"Why would he do that?"

"To keep control of the whole thing If everyone else knohat he knows, being a seer doesn&039;t give him any power"

"Rex withhold information? Come on, Jonathan Last weekend at the museum he told me stuff about the blue time for, like, six hours I had to tell hi to explode"

"Six hours, and he didn&039;t tell you about ht He did kind of forget to mention you"

Jonathan shters"

She sighed and looked out again He followed her gaze past the city to the horizon Froe of Bixby, where dark clusters of houses faded away into the badlands The low flat plains shone with dark ainst the stars

"So what do I do?" she said softly