Flicker (Defying Death Book 1)

by Courtney Houston

I hustled back to the museum. Half because it was cold and I had yet to remember to wear a jacket on a regular basis, and half because I had a hard time letting Catalina out of my sight for any length of time. I slowed my pace slightly as I neared the back door. Not surprisingly, a dozen or so Guides had their necks stretched, looking at the building. While their presence made me nervous, their hesitation to get closer was, albeit small, a plus.

  She was in the basement with Seline when I returned. Her hair was pulled back against the nape of her neck with a pen; stray locks had fallen and were framing her face. She was writing something down and her left hand was running over the choker I won for her yesterday. Reflexively, my free hand grazed the broken chain and ring in my pocket. I wished I had a camera. I wanted to keep this moment with me forever.

  “Large gingerbread latte,” I said putting it on the desk next to her, earning myself a smile of gratitude. “How did everything go after I left?”

  “They went fine. Your mom may have some competition.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  “Are they still—” she lowered her voice “—are they still alive, your parents?”

  “I don’t know.” We weren’t allowed to check on our families and were assigned to locations where we would have a smaller chance of encountering someone we used to know. I stayed in Saebo because there was no one here who loved me. Not wanting to talk about my parents right now, I changed the subject. “You changed.”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I had a change of clothes with me. I planned on staying in a hotel last night. Gavin and Jils…I needed some breathing room. Just for a night,” she said. She seemed nervous, glancing behind her at an oblivious Seline, who was faced away from us, immersed in something she was reading. Catalina smiled and closed the distance between us to kiss me swiftly.

  “If this is what I get for coffee, I can’t wait to see what I get for the donuts I got you,” I teased. She was still an inch from my face, and she leaned in a little more, her hand grabbing the front of my shirt to pull me closer. This kiss was what dreams were made of. Against her mouth, I said, “Tomorrow you’ll get a whole dozen.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “Guess I’ll have to up my game.”

  “Nah, I already have it bad for you,” I whispered in a conspiratorial tone.

  The laugh died off slowly, and her smile faltered. Her hand went back to the necklace. Compliments—she didn’t take them well. I’d noticed that the first time I’d given her one. Duly noted.

  “Put that smile back, I like it,” I said. She did, with a little effort.

  “Sorry. I’m a hot mess,” she joked with a fake laugh. “There are so many things going on. I feel like I went from one side of crazy to the other. ”

  “There are and you’re not crazy.” I grasped her hand and held it tightly.

  Her face lifted just a little, though it still held a touch of unease.

  Lina 27

  As cliché as it sounded, I felt like I was walking on air. When five o’clock rolled around, I didn’t want to leave. I’d have happily spent another night sleeping in my office if it meant staying with Telor. To my utter delight, he seemed to be feeling the same way.

  “So,” I said, wondering if it was awkward to ask him if he wanted to come over. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Until last night, my evenings were spent keeping watch over you,” he said with a flirty smile, and my face flushed. Through my lusty haze, my mind stuck on his words.

  “Keeping watch for what?”

  His face fell a little and his eyes averted, looking anywhere but at me.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” he said, his seductive grin back in place.

  “Don’t lie to me. Is there something I should know about?” I asked him. His eyes held that sink or swim look that I was all too familiar with.

  “I just don’t know how long it will take Tori to come looking for us. I wanted to make sure I was close, in case she came looking for you first,” he rationalized.

  “Why?” I blurted. “I’m just one person, like a hundred people die every minute, why waste that kind of time and energy on me?”

  “Numerous reason.” He chewed on his lip, indecision flickering across his face. “My not taking you will be considered an act of defiance, one that she’ll want to punish. You continuing to live is a slap in the face to her. No one escapes death. It’s bad for her reputation if she lets you live. Even if she wanted to, which I highly doubt.”

  “Then why do it in the first place?” I couldn’t stop the question.

  “There is no logical reason for what I did. But I’d do it again. Over and over.” He gave my hands a reassuring squeeze and pulled me closer. “On that note, I was going to see if you wanted to do something with me tonight?”

  “Depends, what did you have in mind?” I allowed the subject change. I needed time to process his words.

  “There is a new place on Market Street that I want to try,” he said. “Alfalfa’s.”

  “That’s not new,” I pointed out. It’d been around for years.

  “It’s new to me.” If it were possible, he upped the charm of that winning smile. “What do you say? First real date?”

  First real date. I wanted to laugh at the simplicity of the situation. A date. He wanted to go to dinner. A small bark of laughter escaped my throat. “Dinner sounds great.”

  And it was. Dinner was amazing. It was so...so...natural. Despite Telor’s obvious paranoia, the conversation flowed between us effortlessly, for the most part. Even the small lapses into silence were comfortable. The only uncomfortable part, on what would have been a wonderful night, came when he walked me home, and there in the driveway was parked a tall glass of icy water in the form of a police cruiser.

  “Maybe we should go to your place,” I suggested, gesturing to the car.

  “I have a better idea,” he told me, a devilish grin I hadn’t seen yet appearing on his face.

  Telor’s ‘better idea’ was climbing the deck outside my bedroom and sneaking in like teenagers. Best. Idea. Ever. Maybe it was the high of being with him, or maybe it was just the absurdity of the situation, but I could get used to this light feeling. He climbed the wooden rods and beams effortlessly, pulling me along behind him.

  “So, let me get this straight. You were sleeping in my backyard...behind the shed?”

  “It sounds horribly creepy when you say it like that,” he said. “The gig at the museum was even easier. Seline needed the help and didn’t question a thing. I could have told her I was homeless and wanted a few hours in the warm building and she would have gone with it as long as I could help out.”

  Telor and I were sequestered in my bedroom, reveling in our evening that I didn’t want to end, tangled in each other and my sheets. His warmth spread through me in a wonderful way.

  “Probably,” I said, my breath wispy between us as his hands moved a stray lock of hair from my face, brushing my cheek, my ear, and then trailing down my neck. I shivered at the intimate touch, feeling wanton.

  “Mostly, I took the first opportunity I could to be close to you. I’d have been a janitor if that’s what it took. Things just seemed to work out with the volunteer job.” Per my request, he was using his inside voice, though, I not only heard it, I felt it. All over me.

  “Because of Tori?” I asked. “Because you’re afraid she might come after me?”

  “There is no might about it.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “She will come after you and me both. It’s a matter of when, not if.”

  “But we have time to prepare,” I argued. “Time to make a plan.”

  “You don’t know her. I’ve seen what happens when someone defies her,” he said, seeming stressed about more than he was letting on.

  “What happens?” I asked him, afraid to actually know the answer.

  “If I had to guess?” He looked so uncomfortable, I almost felt bad for making him answer it. “She’ll send a Guide, like me, to drag you back. Once y
ou’re there, there’s not a lot I, or anyone else, can do to help you. Not really.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Cariad.” His jaw tightened again. “I’ll figure it out, don’t worry yourself about it.”

  “You say Death is going to send her minions after me and then tell me not to worry?” I rolled my eyes. “I am worried. Not just for me, but I’m worried for you, too.”

  “Don’t be.” He looked away from me, the shadows of doubt he tried so hard to hide ghosting over his face.

  I opened my mouth to press him for more information, to tell him that I couldn’t help but worry about him, but he didn’t give me the chance. His lips connected with mine, hard and fierce. This kiss was meant to make me forget what I was concerned about, and I was almost able to fight it until his mouth moved to my neck, gently nipping and sucking. God, he knew what he was doing with that mouth of his. My hands fisted in his hair, and I regained some sort of verbal function.

  “We can’t ignore this,” I murmured. “We can’t pretend like it will work itself out.”

  Telor sighed heavily and rested his forehead against my collarbone. “I’m not suggesting that we do. I’m suggesting that, for the time being, you let me worry about it.”

  “I can’t do that, and you know it,” I muttered, my breath catching as his teeth grazed my collarbone. Against my will, my head lolled back against my pillow, my body arching to press closer to him. “You can’t distract me this way.”

  He chuckled softly at my obvious lie. It was amazing how this was all so new, yet he touched me like I had been his to touch forever. He showed no hesitancy to kiss me, to move his hands under my shirt and across my bare hips, pulling me closer to him so our bodies were flush, chest to chest.

  “I’m not distracting you.” He rolled so he was on top of me, cradled between my thighs. “I can just think of more pressing matters that I’d like to address.”

  “And what issues would those be, Mr. Conway?” He looked amazing and devious, staring down at me. A smirk tilted one side of his mouth upward.

  “The issue that I have a lot of making up to do.” My hands obviously agreed with him, as they had moved his shirt up his chest, exposing the lean, corded muscles of his stomach.

  He made no move to undress me, keeping both hands firmly on the bed, on either side of my head. He also made no move to stop me from undressing him, though I went no further than his shirt. He kissed me with an unrestrained fire that I couldn’t get enough of.

  “You’re making this hard,” he said, breaking the kiss as my nails grazed the exposed skin of his back.

  “Making what—” I started to ask, when loud voices in the hallway made me pause to listen.

  “Walk and talk, I have to grab my overnight bag and head out,” Jilsey said, and it sounded like they were heading toward her bedroom.

  “Have you seen or heard from Lina today?” Gavin asked.

  “I don’t think she’s home,” Jilsey said. “Why, what’s up?”

  “We need to talk about what is going on with her,” Gavin said. “Whoever this is living here with us is not Lina.”

  “Gavin—”

  Their voices dimmed as Jilsey’s bedroom door closed momentarily and reopened.

  “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it, too,” Gavin said.

  “I’ve noticed. But I don’t think it’s anything for us to worry about.” Her placating tone wasn’t lost on me. “People change. Let her figure it out on her own.”

  Telor moved off me and put his shirt back on. He kneeled on the bed, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “I think this is my cue to leave.”

  Shaking my head, I answered, “No, stay.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave me one last kiss and left the way he came in.

  Right. I guessed it was time to go break up their gossip-fest in the hallway. I smoothed my hair and clothes and opened the door. Their conversation stopped immediately. Gavin took one look at me, turned on his heel, and slammed his bedroom door shut without a word. Jilsey just stood there like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

  “So, you heard that?” she asked after a moment of tense silence.

  “Yep.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I have to go do…anything, really,” she said, heading downstairs.

  Late morning sun peeked into my window, waking me. For the first time in a while, sleep had found me easy last night. No nightmares, just sweet dreams of my great, albeit crazy, day. Hand fumbling around on my nightstand, I grabbed a pencil that I didn’t remember being there and secured my hair into a twist. Bagels sounded delicious right now—smothered with cream cheese.

  I lay in bed, listening for sounds of Jils and Gavin coming or going. It was silent. Still a little groggy from too much sleep, I stretched my stiff limbs and shuffled into the hallway. A small glint of silver caught my eye from Gavin’s door. His doorknob was silver and brand spanking new. Unlike the old brass ones adorning the rest of the bedrooms in the house, this one needed a key. Cautiously, as if it might attack me, I reached out and jiggled the doorknob. Not surprisingly, it was locked.

  Forgetting my stomach for a moment, I ran downstairs. The spare key to his car was gone. Right. Didn’t mean anything. It could be a number of things. My walk into the kitchen was the longest five feet of my life. His cell phone charger was still there, as were his sunglasses and Mike, his betta fish.

  Sighing with relief, I tossed my clothes from yesterday into the hamper. There, in the laundry room trashcan, was the biggest slap in the face that he could have given me. The boxers I gave him for his birthday, half of a picture of us—the half with my face—taken at our last bonfire, the note I left him on New Year’s.

  I didn’t need to dig through it to know what else I’d find. Everything I’ve given him, everything that reminded him of me, tossed in the trash.

  Gavin was erasing me from his life. I knew he was upset, but this seemed a little much, especially considering how brief our relationship had been. The logical part of my brain told me this was what I got for playing with the ball of fire that was Gavin Hollow. I should have stopped this while I still could. Now it was too late. Hindsight was a real bitch.

  My first instinct was to play his little game right back. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to be that cruel. Instead, I tucked this Gavin fiasco into a nice little box in my mind, knowing it would sort itself out in time. Time healed everything; at least, that was how the song went.

  “What’s the matter?” Jilsey asked from behind me.

  “Nothing. Just looking at something,” I answered, slumping onto a barstool and rested my chin in my hands.

  “I see you found the stuff.” She motioned to the laundry room.

  Of course, she knew. I really wished I could tell whose side she was on. No, that was unfair. It wasn’t fair for either of us to ask her to pick sides.

  “Yeah. I saw it,” I said, grabbing a handful of grapes from her bowl. “I guess I deserve it.”

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she shrugged and continued with her breakfast. It was later in the morning; I had purposely waited in my room until I felt it was safe to come out. I hated this, hated being a prisoner in my own house. Hated walking on eggshells.

  “Didn’t you have to work last night?” I asked her, filling the silence. “You’re home early.”

  “I planned on covering the first half of someone’s shift, but someone else wanted the time.” She shrugged. “You want to talk about it?”

  I did want to talk about it, but I didn’t want to put her in the position to have to lie to Gavin.

  “You wanna talk about calling my mother?” I asked, deflecting the attention away from me.

  “I didn’t call her, Gavin did,” she defended. We were both silent for a while, Jilsey fiddled with her coffee cup and her knee bounced liked crazy. “You know, sometimes things just are.”

  “Are what?”

&nb
sp; “Just are…just are.” It was a rare occasion to see Jilsey struggle with words. “Sometimes things are just meant to be. You can’t change them, you can’t fight them. You just have to let them run their course.”

  She pulled a small slip of paper from her back pocket and handed it to me.

  Carefully, I unfolded it and read.

  An impossibly huge, goofy grin spread across my face before I could rein it in. Jilsey stayed silent and watched me read and re-read the sweet nothings written on the paper in my hand. The only indication she gave was a small raise of her eyebrow.

  “Um, where did you find this?” I asked, clearing my throat that had gone thick.

  “I thought I heard something when I came home. I cracked your bedroom door to see if you were having another nightmare.” She gave me a hard look. I hadn’t told them I was having bad dreams, and they never mentioned anything either. Apparently, I wasn’t as secretive as I thought. “Anyway, this was on the floor next to the bathroom door, must have fallen off the nightstand when I opened the door. So, who is Telor?”

  It was a simple enough question, though it had too many answers. Some part of me wanted to tell her exactly who he was. I wanted to be able to gush over him and giggle with her about a guy. For some reason, I knew I could tell her and she would understand, that she wouldn’t think I was crazy.

  I couldn’t do that, though.

  “He’s a volunteer at the museum,” I answered, vaguely.

  “A volunteer is sneaking into our house and leaving you love notes? That’s a good way to get himself shot.”

  Jilsey didn’t get the irony in that statement.

  “It’s hard to explain, Jils.” Telling her wouldn’t be fair; it would force her to pick a side. Not telling Gavin would be a lie of omission, and she was already in a bad spot with this. Reason number one why I should never have opened this can of Gavin worms.

  “Things are starting to make sense.” She tapped her finger to her lips. “Just make sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  Her words struck so close to the enigma of my situation that for a moment I thought maybe she knew…something. We stared at each other, silently willing the other to speak. Finally, before things got too tense, she left—just left without a word.