by Nicole Thorn
Anna started sobbing, and I pulled her to my chest. “Shh.” I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back. “I’m here now, and I’m going to keep you safe.” Anna didn’t stop shaking or crying. She held on to me as she cried.
I carried her to the car, and put her in the front seat. The tears stopped, but the shaking didn’t.
We needed a place to stay for the night, so I picked the first hotel that I could find and got us a room. I laid her on the bed.
I went to sit in the armchair, but Anna took my hand before I could. “Wait.” Her big blue eyes looked up at me. “Can, can you hold me? Just f-for a little while?”
I answered by shutting the lights off and getting into bed with her. She took my jacket off and set it aside while I did the same with my shoes. Anna laid on her side and I did the same, putting my arm around her. She held my hand to her chest, and the shaking eased a little. Her fingers laced with mine, warm against cool.
Her breathing evened out after about two hours. I listened to her sleeping as I thought about what I’d done.
I let Travis get away.
I could have killed him, but when I heard her screaming—not just screaming, but screaming for me—all I could do was save her. There hadn’t been a choice in the matter. I did the only thing that I could live with.
Whatever Travis would do tonight—however many lives he hurt—I didn’t care. I’d trade all of them for Anna. Given the chance to choose again, it would remain the same. I couldn’t let her die like that. Not this girl who somehow burrowed inside of my head and heart.
Or so I thought.
If you feel something, that is the only thing that makes it real or not. I hoped it wasn’t true. The day would come soon where Anna stood at the end of my dagger.
As I held this beautiful, fragile girl, all I could think was; how am I supposed to kill her?.
Chapter Seventeen: Through the Trees
Anastasia
When my eyes rolled open, I noticed that Ezra still held on to me. His hand rested on my stomach and I felt his lips against my hair.
I only asked him to hold me for a little while, not the whole night. I had to assume he fell asleep. I knew I shouldn’t have asked him to do it, but I couldn’t think of anything else that would calm me down.
I put my hand on his and didn’t move. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to do that. The need for him only got worse and more terrifying.
His heart beat fast against my back when I touched him.
“Are you awake?” I whispered.
Ezra pulled his hand out from under mine and got out of bed. It left me feeling cheap and unwanted.
I left to go shower without saying anything else. I wasn’t scared from last night anymore, but my heart broke when he got out of bed.I sat on the bed and ignored Ezra while he wrote in his diary. He looked troubled, but I didn’t ask why. I felt too pissed and sad to care.
That isn’t true.
I flipped through the mindless nonsense on TV. I landed on the news and left it.
“…was found last night near her place of work…” the newswoman said. “She worked as a nurse at St. Bell Memorial Hospital. Her body was severally burned, and several lacerations were found on the body. Police believe the murderer attempted to hide evidence, but there is no confirmation yet.”
I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight as my head swam.
I knew what it meant. She had been killed by a Made demon. Burned alive by Travis. It had to be him. The psychic had been warning me about this, the blood he’d leave behind.
Ezra sat on the bed next to me and watched the story intently. I couldn’t hear it anymore.
“That’s my fault,” I said so quietly that I thought Ezra wouldn’t be able to hear.
“It’s not.”
“Tell me how it isn’t. Tell me how if you didn’t come to save me, this would have still happened.”
He breathed out of his nose. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. If I’d taken you with me, then Travis would be dead.”
“Or if you left me to die.”
“What?” Ezra turned to face me. He looked like he couldn’t understand what I meant.
“If you didn’t come when I called you. If you just found Travis and left me, then she wouldn’t have died.”
“But you would have.”
“Am I not dead already?”
“No,” he said. “You are not dead already.”
I tucked my legs under me and looked at the comforter. “But I will be, and she wouldn’t have been.”
He put his hand under my chin and forced me to look at him. “That woman could have died at any time. Hit by a bus, cancer, an aneurysm. You never know what might kill you. And all I knew was that you called for me. I wasn’t going to ignore you. I don’t give a damn that that woman died. I would have cared if you did.”
“Why?” I asked.
Ezra stared at me for a long moment before he said, “Are you in any pain?”
I blinked. “What?”
He let go of me. “Your neck is bruised and there’s a little shadow on your cheek.” He ran his thumb along the sore spot.
“I’m fine. I’ll heal.”
Ezra moved off of the bed and picked up the phone. He ordered us breakfast and went back to his diary.
We finished eating and packed up the car again. I didn’t know what we were doing, but Ezra said that Travis wouldn’t stay in LA.
“Can you still feel the tether?” he asked while we sat in the car, not moving.
“No. It’s gone. I don’t feel anything.”
“Can you get it back?”
I closed my eyes and tried to feel for a direction. “It’s hard to do alone.” I opened my eyes. “Adelina was helping me before, but I don’t know how to do it without her.”
Ezra huffed in frustration. “Well then. I suppose I’m on my own then.”
I scoffed. “So sorry that after a couple weeks of having my powers, I don’t know how to use them like a pro yet. Not that I’ll ever get to that point.”
A grumble from Ezra. “No worries, Pet. I’ve done this job alone long before you and I will long after you. I don’t need a witch.”
“Well, fuck you too.” I crossed my arms.
His posture softened. “I didn’t mean that to sound as cruel as it did.”
“Oops.”
He threw his head back against the headrest. “You are so sensitive. Do I need to get you ice cream to make you feel better?”
A grin broke through my frown as I looked over at him. He returned it with his own crooked, warm smile.
“You do now,” I said.
***
We ate our ice cream in an empty park as we sat on a swing set. As we ate, I tried more to sense where Travis went. I couldn’t let any more people die because of me.
I shivered from the wind and the ice cream.
“When will you learn to bring your jacket?” Ezra scolded me like a child.
“Your jacket,” I corrected him.
“If you insist. You’ve worn it more than I have since I first let you.”
“Well you keep telling me to wear it.”
“Because you shake like a leaf, and I’m too gentlemanly to just let you be cold.”
“I’ll put it on later, Mom.” I shot him a sideways glance.
“I hope you showed your mother more respect than you show me.”
“Oh, and I bet you were such a sweetie to your mom.”
The joy drained from his face along with all color. I’d hit a nerve. Another mystery to add to the pile. I wanted to know him so badly, and I would go to my death never getting to.
I finished my cone and went to lie in the grass. I let my fingers get tangled in the blades of grass as the sun warmed me and the wind cooled me. Ezra joined me, but kept his distance. I didn’t open my eyes, but I knew he was there. Sitting about ten feet away.
My fingers dug into the dirt beneath me, and I felt a twinge in my head. I sat up and loo
ked around.
“Something wrong?” Ezra asked. I looked, and he sat exactly where I thought he’d be. In the grass, but several feet from me.
“I don’t know.” I looked down at the earth. I sat on my knees, and my hands rested on it. I dug my fingers into the dirt again, and tried to focus.
I felt something. “I know what I have to do.” I stood up and started walking back to the car. “Bring me where that woman died.”
“Why?” Ezra asked.
“Because I need to go there. I’m not sure why I do. All I know is that I’m supposed to.”
He looked doubtful, but didn’t fight me.
We got to the hospital in a half hour. The police and news vans had vanished, but the parking lot was full.
“How are we supposed to know where she died? It could be anywhere,” Ezra said as he slammed his door.
“Follow me.” I felt like something pulled to the spot.
I weaved through cars with Ezra on my heel. I stopped dead, and Ezra bumped into me. “Here.” Several drops of blood dotted the ground. I knelt down to look closer.
Okay, what now?
I knew I was supposed to be here, but I didn’t know why. I put my hands on the pavement and waited for something to trigger another instinct.
We huddled between two cars, out of sight to most people. Anyone in the hospital across from us could see us through the windows.
“Dammit,” I quietly exclaimed when I didn’t feel anything. Ezra knelt beside me, and I looked at him with my hands still on the ground. “I don’t know what to do. I feel so close to… something, but I don’t know what.”
He thought for a moment. “The witch said that it was about the intent. What’s your intent? Why do you feel like you’re being pulled here?”
“I—I don’t know,” I said, voice growing more desperate. “I’m trying to focus, to think but—”
“Don’t. Just clear your mind.”
“But Adelina said I needed to focus.”
“Tell me, when you were lying in the grass, what were you thinking about?”
My forehead crinkled. “Nothing. I was just lying there, touching the grass.”
“Your mind was clear, and the answer just came to you. So do it again. Clear your mind, calm yourself. Just do whatever your body tells you to do.”
I shut my eyes tightly and tried to do as he said. I focused on feelings and not words. The wind hitting me again. Ezra’s hand on my knee.
My eyes opened, and my hands went to the blood on the pavement. Agony shot through my whole body as I felt fire under my skin.
“Anna,” Ezra said.
“I’m burning,” I cried. “I’m burning from the inside out. All I can feel is fire.”
Ezra held me to him, and I cried from the pain. I could feel something else, through the pain. I could feel what she thought before she died. Dying for no more reason than he needed a car. Travis left her burning while he drove off.
The pain left me, and I sat up, trying to catch my breath as I told Ezra.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “He could have just rented a car or bought a used one with his cash. He didn’t have to kill her for hers.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He didn’t. He just wanted to.” I could feel what happened, and I could feel where he went.
“He’s leaving the city.”
“Where is he going?”
I stood up, and Ezra went with me. “Somewhere small…”
“A small state?”
“No.” I paced and tried to pick up on something. “The place is small in his head. Somewhere specific. He thinks he can hide until Lucifer isn’t mad anymore.”
“Do you know where?”
“Water. There’s water. He thinks he’ll be there soon.” I couldn’t see any more.
“I assume it’ll be along the coast. Unless there’s a place around here with a lot of water.”
“A lake?”
“Maybe.”
Ezra brought me back to the car, and stayed quiet while he thought. I watched his face as he came up with idea and threw them out silently. He started driving without telling me where we were going.
It stayed quiet in the car for a half hour before Ezra spoke. “Tomorrow, can you try and track him again? I just need an idea of where Travis is going.”
“I’ll try.”
He pulled into the dirt parking lot of a diner in the middle of nowhere. Trees surrounded it, but nothing else did.
“How do you find these places?” I asked in astonishment.
“I’ve been around a long, long time, Pet. I know of a lot of hidden away places.”
We walked into the diner, and we went to pick a booth. There were about twenty in total, and only four occupied ones. The one by the side door had a little family in it. Two parents, a girl that looked about five, and a baby boy. I stared at them for a little longer than I should have. I pretended like it didn’t make me think of how I would never have children of my own now. It wasn’t something that I could have changed.
I slid into a booth by the front door and Ezra sat across from me. We both went to put our feet up on the seat across from us at the same time. I tried not to smile at him when he rested his hand on my legs.
When the waitress came up, Ezra ordered for us. The lady left and came back in under ten minutes.
“Wow, fast service,” I said as I started eating the pickle spear. I nearly gasped with joy when I saw the little pile of extra bacon on the side.
“Yup. This place is great. I’ve been coming here for over fifty-five years. Found it while I was on an assignment. I was after a group of young demons. They liked to set fires with their powers and watch buildings burn down.”
“Fifty-five years? Don’t the people that own this place recognize you? Do they notice that you don’t age?”
He looked at the table. “Yes. I met the boy who used to own this place the very first time I came in. He was only fourteen that day. Over the years I watched him go from a bus boy, to a waiter, a cook, then he bought the place. He never said anything to me about my never aging. He just greeted me and brought me my order—even after he owned the place, he’d make the burger himself.”
I tried to look around to see an old man, but a woman stood around back, cooking.
“Where is he? I want to meet him.” I looked back to Ezra, and his face turned grave.
“He died a couple of years ago. He had a heart attack.” He looked back up at me, and I saw real sadness in his eyes. The kind that he always hid from me and the world. Ezra let his guard down, and he’d never done that with me.
I moved next to him, took his hand, and rested my head on the side of his arm. “I’m sorry your friend died.”
“Friend? He wasn’t my friend.” It didn’t come out harshly; more like he didn’t know.
I looked up at Ezra with my face still on his arm. “You knew him most of his life. He knew you were something not human, and he never asked what. He just let you be. He made special burgers for you when you came in. He was your friend, sweetheart.”
More sorrow filled his eyes. Then he smiled a little, like the thought made him happy. He didn’t know how badly he needed someone. How alone he was.
I saw what this place did for him. A peaceful place hidden in the trees. Somewhere where he might feel safe and at home.
Ezra put his arm around my waist, then rested his cheek on the top of my head. “I had a friend.”
Chapter Eighteen: And A Happy New Year
Ezra
I wrote in my diary as I watched Anna sleeping. She looked too peaceful to disturb.
12/31
She wasn’t aware of the impact her words had yesterday. Telling me that I had a friend that I wasn’t even aware of… It just showed me how disconnected with reality I am. How I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. It fills me with fear; the thought of me not having control. Not knowing what is and isn’t. If I don’t know who I am… then I don’t know anything.
The woman said the fog would clear. I was still waiting. She said it would be followed with blood and sorrow. I wasn’t sure whose, but I have an idea. Anna’s blood, and my sorrow.
I still fear that when the time comes, I won’t be able to do what I have to. The Huntsman and Snow White again. He let her go. Would I? I can’t. It would mean my eternal damnation. Though I’m already damned.
What’s worse, eternity suffering in Hell, or eternity suffering up here because I killed her? It all looked the same from here.
Anna stirs beside me. She sighs in her sleep and a smile appears on her pink lips. She must be having a good dream. She rolls away from me, and I fight the urge to roll her back. That might wake her. It takes three whole seconds for me to miss the sight of her face.
This isn’t real, but it hurts like it is.
I put my diary back in my bag, and waited for Anna to wake up. It didn’t take too long. She yawned and went to shower.
There was something off about her. I saw it in her eyes. I couldn’t quite tell what, and I was afraid to ask.
“When are we leaving?” she asked, and the issue sounded more obvious in her voice.
“Soon,” I told her.
Anna laid back on the bed, and I stared down at her. I gathered the courage to say, “What’s wrong?” I prepared for the wrath to come, but got a docile kitten.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” she sighed.
“Yes, and?”
She put her hand on her stomach, tapping her fingers. “For as far back as I remember, every year my parents would take me out to get a little tree, and we’d decorate it together. Then after midnight, we’d all exchange a gift. Russian tradition,” she added.
She was sad about her parents… a problem I couldn’t fix for her. I had never been good at fixing problems anyway. I tried to make her not see herself as a dead girl, and she ended up crying in my arms. Maybe that had been my fault for calling her dead all the damn time.
I tried to think of something I could do, but I came up empty. We had work anyway.
