He looked down at his wristwatch. “Slow afternoon?”
And now he was joking. I’d never heard him joke, ever. Under the calm veneer, he seemed almost…happy?
“The four who run everything are starting to see me as a threat. It’s coming down to them or me.”
He stood barely inside the doorway, taking in my relaxed position while I tried to maintain it. I’d been so concerned about keeping him at ease and now I had to force it for myself. The guys were one floor above me. I needed to keep that in mind and proceed with the plan. It wasn’t as if I were truly alone.
I dropped my feet and headed toward Knox’s office, praying he’d come closer and follow me in. I heard his steps behind me and tried not to tense at having him at my back. The masquerade of calm was easier once he was beside me and in sight again.
The interior office felt even smaller with him in there and I took a step closer to the opposite side. We both looked toward the door. The light was blaring underneath, and if Fia were true to her word, when I opened it, the heart of the Universe’s power would be blazing in all its glory.
I thought back to what Fia had explained to me. “That door is a mainline. If we can destroy it, it cuts the head from the beast. Upper management can add another connection but not quickly. It buys time to gain strength.”
He walked closer to the door and let a few fingers trail over the surface. I knew it didn’t look like much, just your average interior door—except for the light of the Universe blazing behind it. “Are there more of these?”
“Mainlines to the heart of the Universe? Not that I’m aware of.” I guessed there were but Fia had only told me the bare minimum. Not that I would’ve passed the information on.
He tucked his hands in his pockets. “How do we do this?”
I’d just walked him up to the key to his victory and he acted like I’d handed him a brunch menu. I had to play this hand though and see the plan out.
“I was hoping you would help me figure that out.” While I open it and kick you through it. It had been at least several minutes since he’d come in the office. The guys should be here soon.
Malokin eyed me. “Nice try.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
“You wanted to recruit me. You really don’t think I can do this?”
“I wanted you for what you could become, not what you were.”
“I’ve got a reason to help you.”
He took a couple of steps back. “Open it.”
Get him in here and open the door if possible. That was the plan, but all of a sudden I didn’t want to do it. I was being silly. I needed to do this. I’d have the door wide open, the guys would come and a simple shove and this part of the nightmare would be over. As far as what Fia said about me being a problem, if we could fix this, we could fix that. As long as I made it that far.
I stepped forward and swung the door open and immediately had to turn my head. It was as if I were staring at the sun, ten feet from its surface. The room was almost blinding in its brightness and I had to squint to keep my eyes even partially open, trying to not lose track of him.
All the feelings of dread finally made sense as I heard footsteps approaching that heralded disaster. Fate and the guys wouldn’t announce their approach. I wouldn’t have known they were here until they’d been at the door.
“Your friends aren’t coming. I’m not the one being destroyed today.”
I couldn’t see his face well but the gloating in his voice was more than clear. I cursed myself as all sorts of stupid. Fia had betrayed me. I wanted to curse him as well but I couldn’t let my anger get the best of me. It would feed him like it had on the beach. Plus, I needed the silence to listen to how many sets of feet were approaching. It was five at minimum.
My window of opportunity was closing quickly. I had one shot to get this done myself and only if I acted quickly. There was no time to contemplate what would come next.
I zeroed in on his location, pivoted and rammed into his midsection with every ounce of strength I possessed. His feet left the ground with an umph. My momentum had us across the office and into the door before we were stopped short. His hands had grabbed the door jamb as we flew through it, halting us at this critical point. Every part of him, down to the tip of his pinky, had to be past the threshold.
“You’re never going to make it out of this,” he said as we struggled, his calm finally shattered.
“I promise you, I won’t go down alone.” I directed all my energy to pushing, digging my heels into the cheap carpet of the office trying to find more leverage.
The footsteps of his people were getting closer. I had seconds left, if that.
“You two thought you knew everything. You walked right into our trap.”
His words were like venom, trying to stir my anger, but I pushed it out of my mind. I couldn’t feed him anything. I had to think of good things, like a life with Fate. Then I felt something start to burn around my tattoo. It felt like a hot poker was being pressed against my skin and that feeling quickly expanded, but instead of collapsing in pain, a burst of power shot through me. The resistance disappeared as his fingers slipped off the frame.
He was gone, and I fell to my knees, almost landing through the doorway myself.
There were too many and I was drained. I willed myself to get up off my knees, thinking if I just dug deep enough I could do it but my body wouldn’t obey. I could hear the people shuffling into the office as I fell forward, trying to use my hands to push myself upward, when I was jerked backward and a blade slid across my throat.
I heard a roar of anguish in the distance. Fate had arrived but it was too late. Another cry, this one from the agony of someone dying nearby. There was fighting all around as I lay there on the floor, in a pool of my own blood. Then he was there, cradling me with fingers pressed against my throat. I knew it was too late and from the look in his eyes, so did he.
I did it. I mouthed silently, using the last of my strength to raise my hand to his.
“I knew you would.” He pulled me closer, hugging my body to his and rocking me. “Don’t go. Please, don’t go.”
My eyes fluttered shut as I heard him whisper, “I love you.”
I tried to say it back but couldn’t as everything faded away.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Blackness everywhere. I’d never experienced absolute darkness. No one had. It didn’t exist in our Universe.
“Where am I?” I said, even though I was alone in the blackness, just to see if I had a voice. Was this the nothingness they’d talked about? But how could I have thoughts?
“No,” a voice answered.
“But I was killed. I shouldn’t exist at all. How can this be?”
“Because I can do anything.”
“Was that you? The shadowy form I saw a night ago?”
“I am everything. The sun, the moon, the planets, the air you breathe, the molecules that created you.”
“What happens now?”
“What comes next is your choice. Make it wisely.”
“Can I go back?”
“Yes, but not as you were.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to. Make your choice.”
The smell of flowers from the florist shop I was working at part-time filled the air of the car. Kit, one of the younger floral arrangers I’d become friends with, always gave me one of the older bouquets to take home on the days I worked. She said it was important to surround yourself with flowers, especially in winter when things seemed the bleakest before the spring.
Nothing seemed bleak this week though. I was driving a brand new Audi I’d won in a lottery some crazy lady outside the mall had talked me into entering. The only reason I’d paused by the table in the first place was everyone kept tripping as they approached the area and I couldn’t quite figure out why.
I enjoyed driving it so much I’d been taking the long way home, even though I
had a ton of studying to do for my finals next week. I didn’t particularly care to drive past this part of town, since it still had burned down buildings from the riots that had happened before my birth.
My mother had told me all the stories. She’d said they’d stopped just as she’d gotten pregnant with me and that I’d been her miracle baby. The thought was ridiculous but I didn’t argue with her. She was whimsical like that. She had all sorts of crazy tales to tell, like how a guy in white silk rested his hand on her belly before she’d even known she was pregnant and congratulated her. Or how Santa left a crib for her under the tree. She still swears that the Tooth Fairy really had been the one to put money under my pillow every time I lost a tooth.
She occasionally said some normal things too, like never to pull over to help a stranger when I was alone at night. But when I saw the old guy who looked like he was twenty years past his due date standing next to an ancient Honda, I had to. The car looked like it might have been even older than he was and he was leaning on a cane. There was no way I could drive past. What if he didn’t carry a cell phone?
Strangely, I’d never had a nightmare in my life but leaving this man out here in the elements not knowing if he’d be okay might cause my first. I pulled the car up behind him and threw it into park, tucked my own phone into a back pocket and walked around to where he stood.
“Sir? Do you need some help?”
“Thanks.” He held out his hand to me and grasped it in a firm shake. “Name’s Paddy.” His cap sat low on his brow and although he was clearly in a distressing situation, it didn’t seem to dent his jovial manner.
“I’m Justine.” I pointed toward where his hood was open. “I’m not very good mechanically but I think I’ve got jumper cables in my trunk.” I pointed back behind me toward my own car.
“Nice car you have there. Very responsible of someone so young to be so prepared.”
He lifted his cane toward my car and it gave me the strangest image of him waving it violently at kids. I shook my head. Lack of sleep was making me think really weird thoughts.
“Not really. I have the strangest luck of parking next to people with car troubles. It doesn’t look like you have a flat but I’ve got a pump as well if it’s needed.” I was up to a count of two flats and one dead battery just this week alone.
“I’m not sure if it’s the battery but let’s give it a try while we wait.”
“Wait?” I looked around getting a little nervous. “Wait for what?”
He frowned for a second. “A tow truck to show up?”
I nodded, wondering if Paddy wasn’t a little senile.
“Oh look! I think we might have some more help,” he said, completely enthused that another car was pulling down the street.
I turned to see headlights coming from the distance but with no indication they were going to stop and help. Just as I made out the shape of a pickup truck, it started slowing down.
It passed us and parked in front of Paddy’s car. The door swung open and a guy of similar age to me hopped out, but where I felt like a girl of twenty, he looked all man.
“Need some help?” he asked Paddy, and then his eyes shifted to me and stayed there. I wanted to look away but couldn’t seem to do it.
“I’m Paddy, that’s Justine. We’d love some!”
“I’m Pol,” he said and grasped Paddy’s hand.
When his hand touched mine, a zap of static zinged us both.
“Justine has some jumper cables in her trunk,” Paddy suggested, then mumbled something under his breath neither of us could hear.
He stepped closer to me. “Let’s go get them and I can hook them up to my truck.”
“Sure,” I tilted my head toward my car and we headed over together.
“Pol is an interesting name,” I said, scrambling for something to say.
He smiled and then laughed a little. “It’s short for Polaris. My mother said as soon as she got pregnant with me, everything else in her life seemed to flow exactly as it was supposed to, like I was her little North Star, guiding her direction.”
I laughed with him then. “I get it. I’ve got one of those mothers, too.”
“Do you know him?” he asked, motioning to where Paddy stood. “You shouldn’t pull over for people you don’t know.”
It should’ve been strange to be lectured on safety from someone I just met but I felt like I knew the guy. “He looked too old to do me much harm.”
“Well, I’m here, so even if he turns out to a be the oldest serial killer still alive, don’t worry, I won’t let you die.” The corner of his lip turned up and he winked in a conspiratorial fashion.
I hesitated, afraid it would sound like a cliché, but then asked anyway. “Do I know you?”
He stopped what he was doing and leaned his hip against the trunk of the car. Something about the way he moved seemed so familiar.
“You know, I feel like I know you too. Do you go to the University of South Carolina?”
“No. I’m at Coastal Carolina but I’m a transfer. I went to Clemson for the first year.”
“Transfer…”
He said the word again, letting it roll over his tongue. Then he just stared at me and kept staring. His face changed and his posture straightened, as if he wanted to grab me.
“What?” I asked, giving him an opportunity to explain when I should’ve been putting more space between us.
“I remember.” His arms wrapped around me and he spun me off my feet in circles as he kept repeating, “I remember.” Instead of being scared, I started to laugh with exhilaration and I didn’t understand why.
When he finally stopped, he stared at me in a way that made me feel like the most precious thing he’d ever discovered. I should’ve thought he was crazy. I kept thinking I should be trying to get away from him, but instead I asked, “What is this about?”
“You’ve got a birthmark on your hip.”
Maybe he was crazy. I didn’t want to move away from him but I forced myself to move out of arm’s reach. “How do you know that?”
“Because it used to be a ying yang sign.”
My hand went to the spot and I could almost envision what he was saying being there.
“‘I won’t let you die.’ I said it to you the first time I met you. You were sick, a transfer to the agency, hired by Harold.”
I watched his face as hazy memories came to me. They were like dreams I was having a hard time remembering.
“You were there. And I was really mad at you,” I said, not sure if they were real or if I was under some sort of hypnosis.
“Because you wanted to be left alone and I wouldn’t leave you.”
“I thought you were being mean,” I said, not sure where the words and thoughts were coming from.
“I was keeping you alive. Then when you got beat up doing a job for Malokin, I said it again.” He stepped forward and I didn’t move away. “Karma, I need you to remember. You have to remember me.”
His hands were on either side of my face and there was a desperation there I felt mirrored deep inside myself, as if my not remembering would cost me something too dear to pay.
He moved his hands to my shoulders and was shaking me, as if that would make something snap loose and give him what he wanted. Then they were in my hair, his lips closing on mine in a kiss that jolted me to my core. I’d never been kissed like that, as if he were trying to touch my very soul. There was that same desperation in his kiss but also love, waves of it flooding through me from his touch.
And then the memories came. It wasn’t a gentle flow but an avalanche that would have had me falling to the ground under the wave of emotions if he hadn’t held me up. My lips trembled as the tears flowed.
“Fate?” I remembered dying in his arms, thinking I would never see him again.
He crushed me to him and I couldn’t stop the sobs from escaping me.
“I let you die,” he said, his voice uneven and broken. “Malokin knew we were there. The room w
e were waiting in was sealed off and by time we busted through, it was too late. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was Fia. It was a trap. But I’m here and so are you.” I pulled back quickly. “How did that happen?”
“After you died, I was desperate. The door was open, blasting light, and I carried you through it with me, not caring what happened next.”
“But I thought that wouldn’t work? Was it Paddy?” I swung around, looking for him, but he was gone, along with the Honda.
Then I saw the paper fluttering in the breeze under my wiper blade and I remembered all the messages that used to appear.
“That wasn’t there before,” I said, walking over and grabbing it.
“What is it?”
I looked down at the writing. “I think it’s…” I looked over it again as Fate peered over my shoulder.
“A want ad?” he asked.
Feeling down or uninspired? Change your luck!
We’re actively recruiting new employees. Take the first step toward an exciting new career that offers travel, excitement and chance to make the world a better place. Get a chance to work with our new management and grow with the company.
If interested, stop by our office and ask for Paddy, Fith or Farrah.
“Looks like she’s gone. I wonder how?”
Fate grabbed the paper and crumpled it before he pulled me into his arms. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing but this matters.”
His face broke into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. He kissed and held me like his life depended on it. I knew mine did.
Epilogue
I grabbed a ticket from the booth, ignoring the usher’s warning that the film was almost over. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why I’d come.
The place was empty except for him, as if the world had aligned for the convenience of my meeting today. It had taken me a while to track him down, after all this time, but I’d finally found him. He was no longer the teen I’d met in Wal-Mart. Time hadn’t been kind to him, and he looked much older than the early forties I knew him to be. Maybe being the leader of an underground gang of anarchists did that to you.
Fated: Karma Series, Book Three Page 23
