The Secret Hour

“I didn’t mean—,” he started, standing himself.

The two were silent. Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to figure out when this conversation had turned into a fight. He did feel trapped now. Not by Jess, or even the darklings who were after her, but by the words they’d said—by not knowing what to say to make it better.

It was strange not touching Jessica, not sharing his gravity with her. The midnight air seemed cold, as if the space between them had filled with ice. When they flew, everything was so easy. Over the last four nights they’d stopped saying out loud where their next jump would take them. They communicated through their hands much better than with words.

And now they were stuck up here—not flying, not talking, not touching. It felt to Jonathan as if daylight gravity had come already and was crushing him.

He looked down through the rusty framework that held up the Pegasus sign to the rooftop of the Mobil Building forty feet below.

“Jess?”

She didn’t reply.

He reached out. “You should hold my hand. It’s dangerous up here.”

“It’s dangerous everywhere. For me.”

The fear in her voice chilled him. Midnight should have been so beautiful for her, an infinite playground, but it seemed as if something—Rex and his lore, the curfew, the darklings—was always screwing it up.

“Jess,” he said. “Just hold my…” He trailed off as something hit him—maybe the reason she was upset with him, the reason he’d been missing. “I’ll be out there tomorrow night. At the snake pit. You know that, right?”

She turned to look at him, her green eyes softening. “You will?”

“Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m not going to let you guys have all the fun.”

Her face broke into a smile.

“I’ll even let Rex give the orders,” he said. “This might be one of those things where you’d actually want to read the manual.”

“Thanks, Jonathan.” She finally took his hands again, and he could feel midnight gravity reco

Jonathan gri

But before he could finish the sentence, she leaned her head toward his and kissed him.

Jonathan blinked with surprise, then let his eyes close. Jessica was warm against him, even in the summer-night air of the secret hour. He put his arms around her, feeling her feet come lightly up off the ground in his embrace.

When they parted, he gri

She laughed. “It’s about time, Jonathan.”

“That we kissed? Yeah, I was going—”

“No. That you said you were coming out to the snake pit.”

“Jess, of course I’m coming. I’m not going to let Rex get you killed.”

“You should have told me right away,” she said.

“You should have asked me.”

She groaned, pulling him against her again in a too tight hug. “You shouldn’t be such an idiot,” she whispered.

Jonathan frowned, afraid to say anything. Staying close to her, he reached up and undid the clasp of his necklace.

“Here, take this for tomorrow night.”

“Your necklace?”

“It’s called Obstructively: thirty-nine links. It’ll take me about ten minutes to fly out to the Bottom from my house. You might need it before I get there.”

Her fingers closed around the metal links. “But then you won’t have anything to protect yourself.”

“Maybe Dess will give me something. She’s been making toys all week. I want you to have this, though.”

“Thank you, Jonathan.” Jess’s face was lit up by her smile. “Tell me, have you ever kissed anyone be—”

“Duh.” He saw her frown and swallowed. “I mean, yeah.”

“As I was saying,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “have you ever kissed anyone before in the secret hour?”

He blushed, then shook his head. “Not until now.”

Jess’s smile brightened. “Then you haven’t done this.” She grabbed him around the waist and bent her legs. He barely had time to prepare before she jumped, carrying them both straight up into the sky.

“Oh,” he said.

And then they were kissing again.

22

10:31 P.M.

DRESSED TO KILL

“Well, what do you think, Jess? Are we ready to go?”

Jessica stared at herself in the mirror. She recognized the red hair and green eyes, but that was about it.

Constanza had spent the evening doing a makeover on them both. She’d taken one look at Jessica’s party outfit and decided to lend her a jacket. Then some makeup. Then a dress.

Spending a few hours trying on Constanza’s clothes had turned out to be a lot of fun. There were two closets full of them, and a whole wall of her bedroom was covered with mirrors. Most of her things seemed to fit Jessica, and everything was beautiful or at least expensive looking. Constanza absolutely loved every outfit Jessica had put together. It was like being a regular teenager again, getting ready to go to a normal party instead of a snake pit full of evil creatures. Constanza played CDs and Jessica played dress-up, and it had been the first night all week that she’d been able to forget what time it was and what would happen when the clock reached twelve.

Now, looking at the whole ensemble, Jessica was surprised how little she looked like herself. In Constanza’s thigh-length leather jacket, with just an inch of red dress visible below the hem, and the matching dark red lipstick, she looked more like Jess Shady than Jessica Day.

“Are you sure I don’t look… too dressy?”

“Too dressy?” Constanza said. “As in too beautiful or too gorgeous?”

“As in too silly.”

“Jessica, you don’t look silly at all. You’ll knock them dead.”

“Who’s them again?”

“The guys at the party. And these are Broken Arrow guys.”

Broken Arrow was the next county over, where the boys were cuter, the grass greener, and curfew nonexistent, at least according to Constanza. And everyone was a senior, apparently.

Jessica felt weird dressing up like this. She never particularly thought about what she wore to school or even to go flying with Jonathan. She knew she didn’t have to worry about that with him.

“So, do these guys have names?” Jessica asked. She was still a bit nervous about the regular-time dangers of a late night party full of strangers.

“I guess so.”

“I mean, how well do you know them?” Jessica pushed.

“Rick, who invited me, is a friend of Liz, who’ll be there.”

Jessica sighed, reminding herself that the main point was getting out to Rustle’s Bottom. Surviving the snake pit and finding out why the darklings were after her was the only thing that counted.

“Okay, I guess I’m ready. You look great too, by the way.”

Constanza was wearing a houndstooth jacket and skirt with high-heeled boots. She clearly wasn’t pla

“Yeah, not bad, if I do say so myself.” Constanza swept her car keys from off the makeup table and headed out, calling good-bye to her mother.

Jessica dug into the pockets of the jacket she’d brought with her, fishing out a small flashlight, a compass, and a carefully folded piece of paper. Dess had given her the compass and drawn her a map of the Bottom to help her find the snake pit. After a second warning about stepping on snakes in the dark, the flashlight had been Jessica’s idea. Around her neck she was wearing Obstructively, Jonathan’s thirty-nine-link chain.

“Come on, Jess!”

She took a deep breath. Jessica hadn’t mentioned the party to her parents and wasn’t sure what would happen if Mom called after she and Constanza had left. Well, the worst they could do was reground her. Forever.

She looked at herself one last time in the mirror and practiced her tridecalogism of the night.

“Serendipitous.”

On the way out to Rustle’s Bottom, Jessica looked out of the car window to see a roll of razor wire passing by. She realized that they were driving along the fence around Aerospace Oklahoma.