Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Save Mom from whatever happened to her.
Keep the farm productive.
First, I’d have to convince my parents I was their daughter not yet born.
An old beater truck rumbled by. I stiffened. Then I recognized the vehicle. Then the driver. Then her. Mom perched beside Dad. She turned, looking at me rather than the otherworldly Jasher, as if trying to solve a puzzle.
Did some part of her recognize me?
“That’s them,” I whispered. They didn’t stop, and I was glad for it. Not ready. “That’s my parents.”
Jasher squeezed my hand.
Thunder cracked. Lightning forked the sky, and my breath hitched.
In Hakeldama, the monstra came with the storms.
“Faster!” We sprinted on, ditching the road for grassland. Finally, we climbed the fence delineating Shaker property.
The moment my feet hit the soil, peace washed over me. Home. I was home.
No one was out working the soybean fields, allowing us to cut through and close in on a red barn in better shape than I remembered. Thunder vibrated with such power, the entire world seemed to shake.
“We’re almost there,” I said as rain lashed, soaking every inch of me. My teeth chattered.
At the barn, I shoved open the door, its rusty joints groaning. When I slipped inside, relief surged. Lightning chased away darkness, spotlighting a dust-covered tractor and an old riding lawnmower.
Problem: Jasher hadn’t entered the barn with me.
“Jasher?” Hugging myself, I stuck my head past the door I’d just used.
My jaw nearly unhinged. He stood outside the threshold, mid-step, rain sluicing over skin turned to living steel. His eyes, too, were metal. A polished, unseeing silver. Shadows stretched over his shoulders, as if outlining wings that weren’t there, then broke apart and scattered.
I stood shocked and horrified, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. But there was no sense to be had. I bolted to him, patting his chilled cheek as rain pelted mine. Solid, utterly unyielding.
New lightning exploded across the sky, golden light and shadows twisting over his metal face. I reared back, a single word whispering through my head. Monster.
No, no. Not Jasher. My panic rose. He wasn’t breathing. He didn’t blink. The man who had steadied me in that alley, who wanted to try a marshmallow sundae, who had crossed worlds for me, was gone. A genuine Tinman had taken his place.
2
TOGETHER AGAIN
My chest tightened. I allowed myself a few shallow breaths. That was all the collapse I could afford before I shifted my focus from the problem to a hopeful solution. Maybe Jasher would return to normal if I dried him.
I tried to lift him, then push him into the barn, out of the rain. He didn’t budge.
I shoved, braced my feet, and strained until my vision blurred. Nothing. But give up? No.
Stomach in knots, I tore back into the barn, yanked a tarp off a tractor, and draped it on the ground in front of Jasher. It took everything I had to tip him onto the plastic, inch him toward the shelter, and drag him through the door, but I did it. By the time I crumpled beside him, my hands were numb and my lungs burning.
But even after he dried, not a bead of moisture remaining, he remained frozen in that metal form. My chin trembled. He’d promised he wouldn’t shift, and he hadn’t, but I would have preferred that to this. The unknown.
What if he was stuck like this?
No. I refused the thought and launched a wild search for anything useful. Oil for his joints. Tools to pry at the seams. My own body, pressed against his, willing warmth into unyielding steel. Nothing worked.
Eventually, exhaustion got the better of me. I curled up beside him, resting my cheek on his arm. Cold leached into my skin. He felt like a gravestone.
“I’ll recharge for a couple minutes,” I murmured. “Ten tops. Then I’ll try something else.”
In seconds, sleep lured me under with a promise of respite. But I didn’t rest. I remembered.
Images filled my head. I stood inside a dungeon with the Guardian—Ian, Jasher’s maker. Two guards held a teenager immobile while Ian forced a poison pill down her throat. A pill I was supposed to use on him.
She convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and collapsed, dead. He met my gaze—and grinned. His glee was palpable.
I woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, my heart slamming against my ribs. Sickness churned in my stomach, threatening to erupt. Pretty Patch. Just sixteen. Once my friend. She’d tried to kill me a short while before her own death. The betrayal hurt, but deep down, I’d understood.
She’d craved freedom from her “title holder.” A man named Governor West. He’d held her life in his hands and ensured my death was the key to her prison lock. But even then, I hadn’t wanted her dead.
Focus. I breathed in. Out. In, out. My vision cleared, and with it, my stomach settled. Sunshine poured through holes and slits in the barn walls, spotlighting dancing dust motes. A rooster crowed in the distance.