Blurred kbd-2

by Tara Fuller

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, trying so hard to sound confident. Honestly, I didn’t know how this worked. I’d never met a soul that had lived as many lives as Cash. The only kind of souls that stayed in circulation that long were the ones that continued to search for something. They never felt resolved, so they continued on their path, life after life. Death after death. It was amazing he’d made it this long. And just when his journey was about to end…I kept him from it. I rested my head against his.

  “You wouldn’t be happy if I came out the other side of this Tarik?”

  I turned his face so that my eyes could see his. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…he’s not you.”

  Cash wound around me a little tighter.

  “Tell me what you were like,” he murmured, sleep pulling him under. “When you were alive.”

  I thought back, something I didn’t let myself do very often. Usually the pain was too great. But now it wasn’t so bad. The past wasn’t nearly as scary when you had a piece of it in your present. I rested in the groove of his arm and smiled.

  “My father was a fisherman,” I said. “He even owned his own boat.”

  “Really?” Cash’s cheek rose with his smile. “Did he ever take you with him?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “But mainly I helped my mother. Sometimes I would burn the bread just so I’d have something to feed the birds on the beach after Father sailed away. I used to think if I fed them and sent them off with a prayer, that they’d keep watch over him. Keep him safe somehow.”

  “Did they?”

  I swallowed the bit of pain that rose up my throat like bile. “No. One day he sailed away and never came back. The sea took him away…and it decided to keep him.” I paused, wondering if I should tell him the rest. Cash’s voice echoed in my mind: no more secrets, Anaya.

  “It took Tarik, too,” I said.

  Cash went still beneath me. He didn’t even breathe.

  “We were going to be married,” I went on. “So Father gave him a job on the boat. It was only his second trip out. He kissed me good-bye, promised he’d return, and disappeared on the horizon.”

  Cash turned to look up at me. “Then what happened?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the good. Focus on the boy that fate had given me all over again.

  “He died,” I finally said. “And then so did I.”

  Chapter 27

  Cash

  Sometime before the sun came up, I woke up and Anaya was gone. My arm was draped awkwardly over my chest, like she was still there to support it. I could still smell her on my skin. Like I’d slept in a thunderstorm. Like I was still in a dream. I sat up and scrubbed my palms over my face to rub the sleep from my eyes. To wake myself up enough to realize what I’d done.

  I told her I’d go along with everything. Embrace being a shadow walker. Work for Balthazar.

  And I’d meant every word. Was being a slave to the man who gave Anaya orders to collect the dead what I wanted to do with my eternity? No. But not having to say good-bye to her…I couldn’t help but believe the sacrifice would be worth it. I’d never loved a girl before. Not really. Not like this. But I loved Anaya. I loved her so much it was hard to breathe when she was around. It was even harder to breathe when she wasn’t. And not just because my lungs were failing. I knew now that Noah wasn’t someone I could trust. No way was I going to end up like him.

  I finally managed to drag myself out of my studio and into the house. Every part of me ached. I needed a shower. And coffee. And probably a new heart and set of lungs, but that wasn’t going to happen. With my recent decision, there wasn’t really a point in fighting to get on a transplant list. I searched the house for Finn when I didn’t find him in the guest room, and finally found him in the den sitting on the couch staring at the black screen of the TV. I kicked the leg of the couch to get his attention.

  “You know, when I said you could move in here, I meant you could have a bedroom to sleep in, too.”

  “I know. I just couldn’t sleep.” Finn squinted up at me. “Where have you been?

  “I slept in the studio.”

  “You slept?” He raised a brow.

  “I had help,” I said. The memory of Anaya pressed up against me in all the right places suddenly swept over me and I cleared my throat. “You want some coffee?”

  “Yeah.” He stood up and stretched. “And make it strong.”

  I brewed a pot of coffee, but by the time I’d had my second cup I’d given up hope for anything to warm my insides. I grabbed my burgundy scarf off the back of a kitchen chair and wrapped it around my neck, then shoved my black knit cap over my head.

  “It’s like eighty degrees out there,” Finn said as he sank down into a chair and took a sip from his

  Bank of Lone Pine coffee mug.

  “It doesn’t feel like it to me,” I said. “I feel like I just took an ice bath. That means it’s gonna be soon, right?”

  He shrugged, refusing to look me in the eye. “I don’t know.”

  “Finn.”

  He sighed and looked out the little kitchen window that still had the blue floral-print curtains that

  Mom put up before she left. The sun had faded them but Dad never took them down.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “It won’t be long.”

  I sat my cup down and stared at the table, waiting for the fear to take over. It didn’t. I felt oddly… calm. I’m sure knowing Anaya would be waiting on the other side for me helped that.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Finn drummed his fingers on the tabletop like he was stalling. His jaw clenched.

  “Spit it out,” I said.

  “What are you going to do?” He looked up at me.

  “I’m going to let her take me to Balthazar.”

  Finn pushed his fingers through his unkempt hair. “She offered you an out. You should take it.”

  “I won’t let her go to Hell for me.”

  “Being a slave to Balthazar will be Hell,” he growled. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  I pushed my cup aside and stood up. “I know what kind of hell I’ll be in if I lose her. And honestly…that’s all that matters right now. With what you’ve been through with Emma, you should get this.”

  He shook his head. “That’s different.”

  I laughed and started down the hall. “Whatever you say.”

  “Where are you going?” Finn called out as I made my way down the hall.

  “Studio!” I yelled back. If I stayed here I’d say stuff to him that I didn’t mean. He was just trying to help. But I didn’t need that from him. I just needed him to take care of Emma after I was gone. My fingers were twitching anyway. I needed to finish that painting of Anaya. Her eyes still weren’t quite right. No matter how much I mixed and melded the colors, I couldn’t find a perfect match for that gold. And I needed to finish this before everything went down. One of the things I loved about art was that you could leave your imprint on the world. The things that inspire you, make you tick, you can leave them behind for the world to see. And Anaya was too beautiful to keep to myself. She was the imprint I wanted to leave.

  By the time I pushed through the studio door, my knees felt weak. Shaky. I stumbled into the room, my footsteps echoing off the concrete floor. Something wasn’t right. I felt nauseous. The world was tilted at an odd angle, spinning circles while darkness blurred the edge of my vision. I braced my palms on my knees and sucked in a lungful of ice-cold air that left me coughing until I couldn’t breathe. When I pulled my palms away from my mouth there was blood. Lots of it. My eyes swept over the concrete; wet red drops were splattered against the gray. I stood up, heart hammering in my chest, and wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist.

  “Anaya,” I choked out through the fear in my throat. She needed to be here. What was going to happen to me if I died when she wasn’t here? What if she didn’t get here in time? I heard the hissing behind me and
panic throbbed in my gut.

  I spun around and braced myself on the bar stool in front of my half-painted portrait of Anaya.

  Shadow demons. So many of them they just looked like one big black blur that bled into the darkness enclosing my vision. One of them broke away from the crowd and swirled around my waist like smoke, and I froze. Solid. Still. Like ice. My fear melting off me in a dripping sweat. The shadow demon slithered up my body until its bloody cavern of a mouth was an inch from mine. It smelled like death and rot and things I’d never smelled before. Things I never wanted to smell again. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. This was happening. I wanted to run, but I didn’t think it would do much good. They’d just follow me. Find me. Take me. And then what?

  Another shadow demon circled my ankle. Its tongue flicked out, black like tar, but it felt like a flame through my jeans. I winced at the pain and they went into a frenzy. Hissing and snapping.

  Inching closer to me by the second, but still holding back like they were waiting on a command. I half expected Noah to waltz out of the darkness, demanding order, but he didn’t. What kind of control did these things even have without him here to fight them off?

  Shit! They were going to eat me. No! I couldn’t go like this. Anything but this. Forcing my body into action, I shook the thing off my leg, stumbled a few feet back, and tripped over my canvas. I hit the cold concrete like a sack of rocks. Pain exploded across my back. Crackled through my chest. I gasped for a breath that my lungs wouldn’t allow me to take. Dust particles twirled through the sunshine spilling into the room through the still open door. I was paralyzed. By fear or the fall, I couldn’t tell which. If I could just get out of here, I could stall at least. Anaya would come. She always came in time. I just needed…

  A big black figure stepped over me, blotting out the light. Its body was massive. But I couldn’t find one feature in its face, other than the gaping hole of a mouth and the two swirling blacker-than-black pits where eyes should have been. It reached its hand out to me.

  “It’s time,” it said, a low rumble that sounded more like a growl than a voice. Using my palms, I pressed against the floor to slide away from it. I didn’t get far, though. It took another step forward and its disgusting minions inched closer.

  “Not yet!” It growled at one of the demons that nipped at my hand.

  Do what they want. Whatever they want. Anaya’s voice rang out in my ears like a warning. It’s what she had told me the night before. The advice she’d given me and promised me I’d never have to use.

  So much for promises. I took a deep breath that left my head swimming and sat up, slowly.

  “I-I-I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want.” I couldn’t believe these were my words, coming out of my mouth.

  The shadow man standing over me grinned and something dark and disgusting dripped from its mouth and landed on the studio floor. “Good.” Its voice rumbled through me like a clap of thunder, setting my insides on fire. It took a step back, motioning for the others to do the same and I sat up.

  The walls stared to shake and my hands flew out to brace myself. The floor under my feet began to rise and bend and crack apart. The concrete buckled and a crevice opened up right before my eyes. I’d stepped out of the way just in time. Screams wafted out the darkness. I had to blink, hoping it would clear away what I was seeing. This couldn’t be real.

  “Go.” The shadow man pointed a dark finger into the opening. I looked up at it and raised a brow.

  “What?” I took another step back, only to met with a wall of shadows. “You want me to jump in there?”

  It nodded.

  “No!” I held my palms up, trying to put some distance between me and the hole. “Hell, no!”

  Damn it! Where is Anaya?

  “Gooooo!”

  I slapped my hands over my ears when its voice rattled my skull. A flame licked my back. No. A tongue. A nip at my calf. I stepped forward, trying to get away from the shadow demons closing in on me from behind. I didn’t want this.

  The concrete disappeared under my toes. Rock crumbled and spilled over the edge. No sound echoed up from the pit to indicate that it had landed. It was hard, but I forced myself to take a breath. Another.

  I looked over my shoulder at the shadows ready to claim me. Let them have me or see what was on the other side? It wasn’t even a choice.

  I stepped forward and the darkness swallowed me whole.

  Chapter 28

  Anaya

  I stood with my toes touching the edge of the cliff and peered over the side. The van hadn’t made it all the way down. A tangle of fir trees held most of it in place. The rest of it was littered along the mountainside. Hunks of twisted metal. Shards of glass and tattered strips of tire. A red leather handbag.

  A body.

  I knew she was dead. I could feel the pull. More than one, actually. The rest must still be in the battered church van. Sometimes I wondered where the feeling went. The urgency to preserve a person’s life. Save them. That impulse had been gone for so long that I didn’t even remember what it felt like. I was about to step over the side but stopped when I felt the heat melt up from the ground behind me. Screams erupted from the soil, then tapered off until they were muffled by the earth.

  Easton.

  I glanced at him over my shoulder and raised a brow. He looked like a six-foot block of midnight carved out of the bright blue sky behind him.

  “Really?” I said. “A church van accident? How scandalous.”

  Easton ignored me and brushed himself off. I stepped off the drop-off and he followed me over the edge without a word. He squinted at the sun, frowning. He looked annoyed. But then again, Easton generally looked annoyed. I started with the woman laid out a few feet from the van. Kneeling down, I brushed the matted brown hair from her face. Her silver butterfly barrette was hanging on by only a hair, so I fastened it back into her curls.

  “Time to go home, sweetheart,” I whispered and reached for my scythe.

  Easton brushed past me and headed for the van. “Why don’t you stop whispering sweet nothings into her ear and get the job done already?”

  “Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine this morning?” I said.

  Easton grumbled something and disappeared into the van.

  I lifted my scythe, and as natural as breathing used to be, I let it drop. It tore into her flesh and when it came back up, a pretty soul came along with it. She stumbled into me and I gripped her shoulders to steady her. She looked back at the van.

  “Do you understand what happened to you?”

  She wrapped her willowy arms around her waist and nodded. She bit her lip like she might cry, but no tears ever came. They never would again.

  “My friends?” she whispered.

  Her friends. I sighed and looked for Easton, who was still rummaging around in the van. I didn’t want to tell her. If he was here, it couldn’t be good for them.

  Holding up a finger for her to wait, I made my way down to the van. Easton came billowing out of the broken window like smoke and I took a step back. He stood up straight and had a soul in each hand. The man looked dazed. The woman looked terrified, her eyes trained on Easton like he was… well, like he was exactly what he was.

  “Two of them?”

  Easton rolled his eyes. “They’re all yours. I’m just helping you.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. Easton never helped me with my charges. He’d taken on all of Finn’s when they asked, but when it came to mine, he refused. None of this made sense.

  “What’s going on?” I followed him up the hill where the friends stared at one another, not knowing what to say.

  “Nothing.” He wouldn’t look at me. His violet eyes stayed glued to the horizon. “Just help me get them over.”

  There was no telling what he was up to. I had a feeling it wasn’t good. A nervous ache started a slow burn in my chest. I didn’t need any more complications. My afterlife was beginning to be defined by t
hem.

  “You’re sure nothing’s wrong?”

  Easton spun around. His eyes on fire. “Anaya! Open the fucking gateway already!”

  I pressed my lips together to hold in the argument brewing. Balthazar had sent him. He had to.

  Easton was notoriously unhappy, but he’d never in over four hundred years spoken to me that way. I nodded and closed my eyes. I raised my palms and felt the world ripple like water around me.

  Warmth. So much warmth swirled around me like a melody you never wanted to forget. How could

  Easton hate this?

  When I opened my eyes, the world had dissolved and given birth to beauty. I smiled at the group of souls, whose faces were lit up with wonder. Their age, their worries, their fear melting off them like candle wax.

  “What do we do now?” Easton said. “Wave a magic wand? Hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”

  “You’ve really never taken a Heaven-bound charge?” I said. “How is that even possible?”

  He bristled. “I have. Just not for a long time.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked down in his black duster. His violet eyes scanned the blinding white terrain. He twitched and slapped at a dandelion fluff that landed on his nose.

  “There.” I pointed to the two towering gold gates. They pulsed with life. With peace. A few angels milled about the entrance. Dressed in white and exuding happiness. Two of them pointed at Easton and laughed. He started forward and I grabbed his hand to stop him.

  “We’re on the same team,” I whispered.

  He pulled his arm away from me, never taking his eyes off the angel boy with gleaming white hair and clear blue eyes that looked like they’d been made from the sea. “Tell them that.”

  “If you’re uncomfortable, go,” I said. “I’ve got it from here.”

  I motioned to the angels at the gates and they smiled at the group of souls I had in tow. Easton didn’t say anything. But he didn’t leave, either. I made quick work of getting the three souls past the gates, and when they were closed, I turned the full force of my gaze on Easton. He squinted when my eyes lit him up like fire.