Page 95 of Love, Nemesis
The first hints of real confusion started to stir in Ana. Jasper was no longer like a prisoner at all.
“Ana!” he called back to her. “Stop fighting!”
Soldiers charged as Jasper called out again in protest. This time, they didn’t listen. They pushed her over as one shoved a knife into her metallic arm, immobilizing it. It fell limp before they tried to pry it off. She struggled harder. She grabbed her Atlas with her other hand, bloody fingers slipping over the triggers.
Jasper and the officers were shouting now; she caught a faint glimpse of Jasper fighting through the crowd.
They wrestled her down. One tried to grab her Atlas, and she yanked it back. The Mystic grabbed it in her hand and slammed it against one of the rocks near her, part of the stone cutting her hand. She wouldn’t let go.
She fought back. The soldier slammed it down again, trying to get her to release it. It cracked.
“Ana! Stop fighting!” Jasper called over the crowd. They closed in tighter around her.
She felt her Atlas slipping through her fingers. A crack split across the front. The world rippled around them. The Mystics flinched away, and then crowded again.
She adjusted her grip, coiling the Atlas back into her chest as they wrestled over her, still grabbing for it.
“Ana!”
The glass split open just as they ripped it away from her. Time released with a drone. The warriors scattered.
The world blurred as she curled up around her wound, but in the release of her time, it seemed quiet.
There was a flash. Another Atlas activated, swallowing hers and neutralizing it.
The noise of the world barreled back into her. She could hear Jasper shouting. The world felt strangely cold and heavy, but still so loud.
A woman knelt by her side and checked her wound.
“Help her!” Jasper shouted, breaking from speaking in Mystic with the frustrated demand. He kept muttering a word, a word Ana vaguely recognized as the title of a Mystic priestess.
The woman rolled Ana onto her back as Jasper’s time centered around her body and wound. She was too tired to resist. The woman checked Ana’s eyes and hissed, lifting her hands away as if Ana’s presence had burned her.
Everything seemed to be moving so quickly outside of Jasper’s time.
“What is it?” Jasper asked, his words sounding rushed outside of the sphere. He was kneeling by Ana’s side. She could see his face now. She focused on it, hoping it would help clear her confusion.
The woman started babbling in Mystic, looking from Jasper to Ana to the soldiers, which seemed to incite some sort of panic.
Jasper made a single word demand, and the woman calmed down.
“We can’t bring her with us. She has a mutation.”
“What?” Jasper replied, the mere tone of his voice insulted.
The woman lifted her hands. “We cannot risk having her with us.” She shook her hands and walked off, shouting something.
Ana felt Jasper’s hand on her face, his fingers wet with blood. She felt her sights swimming off.
“Ana,” she heard him whispering to her, and as he spoke within his own time, his words sounded normal. “Stay with me,” he kept saying, leaning over her.
The world sank away into darkness.
Chapter 25: Daybreak
SHE FELT WARMTH and then mild, aching pain.
She heard muffled voices.
