Page 153 of White Lights
Now the mountains start receding. Lights twinkle in the flat expanses that must be eastern Utah. Dez is moving at a speed that’s hard to fathom, especially given that everyone else in the world is frozen in time. Even the sun will stay nearly fixed where it hangs in the sky, from now until the Soma wears off.
She watches the ground as she flies over the Martian recess of land she recognizes as her own. Death Valley. The place she spent her whole life until six months ago. Her heart pinches for her brother, for her mother, for Silas and her shitty old laptop and the date palm outside her bedroom—and then, just like that, her home is a distant spec on the horizon, and Dez has no choice but to keep looking forward.
She can see the ocean now. She tips Jet’s eye down slightly, beginning her descent. The jutting rocks in the distance must be Point Mugu. As she gets closer, she’s able to see more fully the strangeness of the Soma. First, it’s the stopped cars on the Pacific Coast Highway.
No, not stopped, but massively slowed.
For all perceptible purposes, everything is at a standstill.
Even the ocean is frozen in time. Its waves hang suspended on the sea. The birds in the goldening sky, and the wind rippling the leaves of palms, all of it is reduced to the lowest rate of movement that still allows inertia. It is the most peculiar feeling, to be free when everything else is frozen. When somewhere nearby, Asher is frozen, too.
She turns her focus back to the coast. The map on the navigation system shows that the parking lot where Dez can discreetly land is a third of a mile up the coast from Point Mugu. She sees the long and sandy stretch of beach, and at its edge, where the Pacific Coast Highway gives way to rocks again, she looks for the suggested landing zone.
When she finds it, she tips Jet’s solitary gaze down, and the jet responds by making a clean descent, near but not in the parking lot of the trailhead. She touches down between the trees, blending into the natural world. She clutches her heart in gratitude. She is moving at a different frequency than everything around her, but she is not invisible. She wonders what it looked like to the frozen people parking their cars, loading children into carriers, and putting on sunscreen when she basically fell out of the sky. Could they see her in their periphery? What will they remember when they come back into time?
But she can’t worry about that now. She’s out of the jet, Jet’s eye in her hand. She’s running for Point Mugu.
She reaches the beachfront parking lot, gasping for breath. A few cars are there, but no green Jeep. She runs to the edge to be sure, to look out at the stuck ocean. She doesn’t see him on the beach or in the water. She’s gotten here in time. And yet, something dangerous is waiting out there. Something out there wants to kill Asher. Dez must stop him from going in.
But where is he? Turning from the beach, she notices another entrance to the parking lot, about a hundred yards away. She sees the bumper of a green Jeep, stopped in time, about to turn into the lot.
Asher.
She sprints.
Reaching the car, Dez stops running. She’s seen Asher a thousand times over the past several months, but it’s only the second time she’s been with him in person. His beautiful reality takes her breath away.
For several moments, she simply lets herself stare. At his lovely, tanned skin. The blond hair falling softly into his eyes. His strong, broad hands on the steering wheel. The thumb that once pulsed against her wrist, a secret language in a late-night parking lot.
The impact he has on her, even through the windshield of his car, makes her wonder what Asher will do when he sees her. Her palms sweat, imagining it. A few months ago, Dez was sure Asher had forgotten her. Now, with what she did to his Lifeline, she feels certain he’ll know her. At least a version of her from an altered Lifeline.
But won’t it feel real to him? In his bedroom, his eyes fell on her sweatshirt for longer than seemed necessary. Hefeelssome way about her from that unknowable night, and Dez must face whatever it is. She wishes she could get him away from this beach without having to bring him back into real time, without having to explain that his life is in danger, and Dez is here to save it.
But she can’t haul him back to the jet without touching him. And even if she could, sooner or later, he’d wake up and she’d have to explain how he got there, why she ripped him away from his life.
No, she needs to do this, face him, save him, now.
Without thinking, she plants both hands on the hood of Asher’s Jeep. She feels the deep, shuddering jolt of time like the floor’s dropping out from under her. The world comes screeching back into motion—cars blurring by on the highway, wind lashing her hair, the ocean crashing behind her—and Asher slamming hard on his brakes.
She looks up and locks eyes with him through the windshield. Both of them gasp for breath.
He’s just saved her life. Time to repay the favor.
Asher’s out of the Jeep in half a second. “What the hell is wrong with you—”
And then he breaks off because he’s standing right in front of her, a wild, dazed look on his face. He’s so close that she can hear him breathing. He’s wearing white board shorts and a red hoodie that readsCatalina Island Marine Institute. And his eyes. She can see the complexity of emotion in his hazel eyes. She could take one step forward, reach out, and touch him. Being this close to his living, breathing body makes all the difference in the world.
“Desdemona?” he whispers.
Like he’s seen a ghost.
“It’s me,” she whispers. “Asher.”
Anger flashes in his eyes as he takes a step away from her. Like she might hurt him. Like she already has.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Dez aches. She hears in his voice that when she spliced the clip of herself into his Lifeline, they didn’t just kiss on the beach. They went for coffee, or dinner, or a long drive, or the skate park.
