Kissing Fate, page 2
I turn onto Papa’s street, and dings on my charm bracelet send my heart into overdrive. The Book of Fates delivers more names onto the list of the dead, and my heart jumps into my throat. I don’t even glance at the charm. I’m still breathing, so it’s not Zane, but that does nothing to calm my fluttering nerves.
The gate is already open to Papa’s, and I slide into the driveway, almost nailing the post before I slam on my brakes, stopping inches shy of the side of the garage in the extra parking space allotted for guests. I don’t wait for Faith. I don’t need a lecture on reckless driving. Not when people have already died.
I tear the keys out of the ignition and bolt into the house, dodging Nana as she ushers Kylee’s sobbing kids toward the garage. She doesn’t say anything to me, but her calico eyes are full of fear and sorrow.
I run down the stairs and nearly plow over Papa. His dark hair hangs over his forehead, and his blue eyes blaze with fury. His hand is stretched before him and a vein pulses on his temple. His power fills the air.
My mother stands a few feet away with her eyes wide and her mouth slack with shock. Her blonde hair falls out of the loose bun on the crown of her head and her sunglasses are forgotten on her forehead, as if she had just returned from one of her morning walks when all this chaos descended.
I halt at the sight of Zane behind Papa’s magical barrier. He’s dripping with blood, growling like a rabid animal as he holds his gore-glazed scythe like a crazed warrior. His glare lands on me, and there isn’t even a hint of recognition in his glowing green eyes. Only malice reflects in those irises, and I shiver under the intensity of it.
For the first time since I met Zane Bradley in grade school, I’m actually scared of the man.
It’s only then that the stench hits me. Death in the form of iron and feces hangs in the air. The walls are painted with blood. There’s even a splotch of red dripping from the ceiling. The raw amount of it sends a shock through me, as if I just walked into Papa’s barrier. There’s so much blood and only two visible bodies despite the carnage. I avoid looking at the bodies directly, but the head of Kylee Andreas pulls my attention. Her dead eyes stare sightlessly in my direction in a silent accusation. Her honey-colored hair, which normally flowed to the middle of her back in beautiful waves, was chopped clean at the point where her neck had been severed. A clear testament to the lethal sharpness of the scythe’s edge.
I swallow the bile that creeps up my throat and refocus on the threat at hand.
“Go,” I say to Papa without taking my eyes off Zane. Papa doesn’t move and I turn, pushing him toward the stairs and the safety above. “Faith is coming. Now go!” I yell in his face. If Zane gets free of the barrier, Papa and his entire family are in mortal danger, despite their powerful gifts.
He still doesn’t budge, so I send the mental order for him to obey.
His jaw tightens, and he shakes his head as if trying to rid himself of my hold. Then he marches out of the room. I know he isn’t happy being manhandled by a whipstitch like me, but I just want my family safe, no matter what happens.
“You, too, Mom.”
Before I impress my will on her to leave, she says, “I need to find out what happened with your father.” Her imploring eyes leave me helpless, and I can’t make her leave. I want to know what Heaven did with my father, too.
She turns back to Zane. “Did you see Nick?”
He growls in response, punching the barrier again. But it stands, sending sparks where he hit, and he yanks his hand away as if he’s touched a flame too long. Yet he punches it a second time, like a feral wolf testing his electric fence.
“He has dark hair like Missy.” Mom points to me as she creeps closer. “He has blue eyes and probably still looks like he’s eighteen?” she asks with a hopeful lilt to her voice.
I can’t help but hold my breath, too.
Zane scrapes the edge of the scythe along Papa’s invisible shield. Sparks shower down on him. I stare, almost hypnotized at the sight of him. The shirt he has on hangs down open, revealing a chiseled chest. It’s more pronounced now than it was ten years ago, and I cannot fathom that. Instead of just being skin and bones like someone bedridden for that long should be, he is cut like a god.
“What? You’ve never seen Death before?” he snaps at me and bangs the scythe against the barrier again.
I allow a huff of air to come out. This version of Zane is far too arrogant to stomach. It’s time I brought him down a couple of pegs. “I was Death before you stupidly ripped that scythe out of my hand ten years ago.”
He cocks his head and narrows his eyes. I have a moment of hope. Maybe that broke through whatever Heaven did to him. But my stomach falls when he laughs at me.
“Bullshit.”
I press my lips together, and the tears almost come. I waited ten years to fall into his arms, and Heaven stole that from me just as surely as they stole my father. Mandy was right. He’s been brainwashed. I glance up the stairs in time to see Faith climbing down. Sparks burst from her hands and the ends of her hair, and her eyes glow in the dim stairwell.
I give her a hopeless shrug and turn back to Zane. “We thought you might say that.”
Faith enters what I will forever see as Death’s killing room as opposed to Papa’s basement. She nearly gags at the sight before her, but then her fire sparks turn the white of angel fire, bringing forth her fiery wings.
Like any power, Faith’s ability to bring the past into the room with us has consequences. Yet, she loves me enough to create a breach or two in Hell in the hopes we can break through to Zane. Otherwise, we were all as good as dead.
I nod for her to go ahead. “We’ll deal with the ramifications later. He needs to see.”
She inhales and blows a long, slow exhale out of her mouth. Then she closes her eyes and turns her palms toward Zane. The space between where she stands and the barrier Zane is caught behind ripples and morphs.
Pinks and purples of a sunset fill the space, reflecting off an ocean view. The transformation of the cellar into Papa’s backyard is humbling. The expanse of lawn is broken by a pool and then a rock wall separating the grass from the deep, tumultuous ocean.
I guess I never noticed just how beautiful the sunset was that day, but as I stare at Faith’s vision, I sigh. The pending battle had wiped out my ability to see the beauty and grace all around me, but I think anyone in my shoes would be more worried about causing the end of the world than an ocean sunset.
My teenage self stands on the grass with an old-school Book of Fates in one hand and Death’s scythe in the other, waiting for Judgment Day.
The view switches from the outside to the inside, where everyone is gathered at the door to witness either my victory or my death. But Zane isn’t having it. He’s struggling to get to the door. The door my father is blocking.
When he doesn’t yield, Zane throws a right hook, knocking my father on the ground.
He mumbles an apology to my dad as he pulled the door open and stepped out. No one else attempts to stop him and he closes the door behind him, sending a final warning glare to those inside the house.
Zane’s stride toward me isn’t as self-assured as he seemed when he hit my dad and the closer he gets, the more tense his shoulders seem.
My younger self turns toward him, and I remember being so irritated I could have wrung his neck. If I could have touched him, I would have done just that, but I still had that awful touch curse.
With my back to the ocean, I missed Heaven’s entrance.
No wonder Zane made the choice he did. If I had seen the thousands upon thousands of angels descending with scowls and swords intent on destroying, I would have done the same thing he did.
I blink, realizing if I had been facing them, I might have actually pissed my pants and quaked in fear despite the power I held. Zane saved me from their wrath that day, and as much as I have held onto my irritation with the way he went about it, a small part of me is thankful for his actions.
The rest of the scene I’ve lived through, so I close my eyes. Seeing Zane die isn’t something I want to witness a second time. It nearly undid me then, and I can feel the tendrils of panic spreading through me again at the sound of his suffering.
My sobbing pulls my gaze back. If I had known then that his taking on the role of Death had nullified my touch curse, I would have crawled over and kissed him despite the ramifications.
The vision fades, and I swallow the lump in my throat before looking at Zane. He still stares at the empty space, blinking. I can’t tell whether or not we made a difference. He seems lost in his own thoughts.
“You can go now,” I say to Faith. If that doesn’t break through to him, I’m not sure what will.
“I love you, Missy. Be careful.” Faith pulls me into a tight hug. I know she wants to say more, but she releases me and scurries up the stairs. I wait until I hear the front door close and then turn back to Zane.
Mom has already crossed half the distance to where he stands. “The one you punched is Nick. Did you see him at all?” she asks.
Zane glances at me and his eyes remain guarded, as if he’s still trying to piece together the puzzle.
“Is he okay?” my mom asks with a plea in her voice. Then she steps closer. Close enough to Papa’s barrier for some of her hairs to stand on end from the electrical current. She looks up at Zane, and I can almost envision her puppy eyes.
Then I see it, the deep hatred etched in his face as he turns the scythe and jams the point toward my mother like a javelin shot.
“You can see for yourself,” he snarls.
My eyes go wide as the point breaches Papa’s barrier and pierces right through my mother’s chest. Fury fills me, and I send a wave of power across the distance. It knocks Zane clear into the wall.
Losing my mother hits me, shaking me from my toes to my teeth. All I see is red, and wrath replaces the loss. I sprint into action, letting the white-hot anger rule over my actions.
This isn’t Zane. It isn’t the boy I loved. This is a monster that Heaven sent to wipe us out.
I charge, forgetting the one cardinal rule of self-defense: never let emotions rule your actions. I jump when I’m close enough to land a roundhouse kick to his head. I spin, expecting my foot to connect, but he bends back far enough for me to miss. I land off-balance and Zane grabs me.
His hands are on me. Death’s hands are around my neck as he slams me into the wall. I try to get away by kneeing him, and all that seems to do is infuriate him more. I scratch at his arms as his angry green eyes glare down at me.
When his grip slips, I gasp for air, but then he squeezes harder. It’s not just the lack of air that’s killing me. It’s his touch. He promised me he would never hurt me.
Tears slip from my eyes as his betrayal stabs deeper than any knife. If I had it in me, I would call on Heaven’s blade and end him. But I still love the idea of my Zane, and if he’s anywhere in there...
I need to break Heaven’s hold on him. I need to destroy that sigil before it’s too late. If I fail, he will go after the rest of my family, and I can’t have that. I conjure my nail to be as sharp as an obsidian knife and then rake my finger across the sigil on his left wrist. Blood spurts out as I sever both sides of the circle with a deep cut that would be devastating to a mortal. But he doesn’t seem to notice. His gaze still holds a hateful resolve, and death is creeping into my bones.
The Book of Fates dings and I don’t know whether it’s because my mother has finally passed or whether it’s my name scribbled on the page. My brain is too fuzzy from the lack of oxygen to decipher the name.
Zane’s gaze darts to my wrist. He blinks and his mouth pops open. His grip loosens as he looks back at me, his eyes widening as recognition flashes.
That’s when I see it—his absolute horror of his own actions.
“Zane,” I gasp, but even I know it’s too late to fix what he started.
“Oh, Melissa,” he whispers, and his thumb passes over my lower lip so lightly that I almost don’t feel it. His eyes fill with tears and they track down his cheeks unchecked.
He does remember. My laboring heart soars.
He crushes my lips with a kiss as though he’s trying to breathe life back into me. I kiss him back through a sob because it’s a hopeless cause. He isn’t a freak of nature like me. He can’t raise the dead.
He lowers to his knees and rocks me, uttering, “I’m so sorry,” over and over again through his own sobs. Everything hurts. My death isn’t fast, and it is every bit as painful as when the essence of Death was ripped from my cells, but I can’t scream through my crushed larynx.
“Zane,” I wheeze out on my last breath, and the darkness comes. I just hope Heaven is ready for the likes of me.
Kissing Fate Chapter 3
THE PAIN IS GONE, and I am falling through the darkness. In the distance, orbs of light approach, but before they can reach me, an arm circles around me, pulling me in a different direction.
I struggle against the grip until my fingers fall onto metal, and I glance down at a brass arm slung around me.
“Shhh,” Mandy whispers in my ear. “I need you to cloak us if you can.”
I glance over my shoulder at her. I have never cloaked myself before. I don’t have the foggiest idea how to do that.
“Your father could make himself invisible if he wanted. I’m sure you can, too. So, do it, before the angels find us!” Her quiet voice carries the edge of panic as we land in a patch of thick bushes and she pushes me down.
Mastering the powers that Papa gave me had not been easy. But I had. And I can conjure things as easily as snapping my fingers, so cloaking us with invisibility should be a snap.
I close my eyes and think of a blanket in the same pattern as the bushes we are in between. Cloth stretches over our heads, covering us, and I glance up at it. I can’t tell the difference between the bushes surrounding us and the blanket above us. But it leaves us blind. With Mandy’s arms still holding onto me, her fast breaths tickle my neck.
Feet shuffle by outside the bushes; Mandy stiffens, and I hold my breath.
“I could have sworn they landed around here,” a gruff voice grumbles.
“Gadrel tried to call Death in to remind him of his task in case killing Fate had triggered a memory, but he’s having issues.”
I trade a silent glance with Mandy.
“Go check the reaper realm. They have to be here somewhere.”
The flap of wings nearly rips the blanket out of place. But I hold onto it with my mind. As soon as Mandy is sure they are gone, she glances at me.
“That’s not exactly what I meant by cloaking us, but it worked.”
I certainly hope it did, and carefully peel the liner back to peer out from our hiding place. “Where are we?”
“Purgatory. And Levi is over there.” She points to a squat building in the distance and the griffin circling it. The deadly sentry doesn’t stop; it just keeps circling and circling.
“I need to go get Zane and bring your body here before they figure out a way to get to it.” Mandy doesn’t wait for me to speak; she just blinks right out of the area under the blanket I have partially folded.
I’m not sure whether or not I should stay put, but I watch the griffin with interest, counting the seconds he takes to completely circle around the building. That thing hurt Mandy, and I find I want to go pluck its wings and de-claw the thing. Then I’d like to see it fight Levi.
I see a flash inside the bars, as if Levi senses me. But there isn’t anything I can do right now to save him.
The air shifts and I turn. Mandy stands beside Zane with the scythe in her hand. Zane still has my limp body in his arms. At the sight of my slack form, my essence recognizes where it belongs, and I glide over the distance and slam into the flesh and bone that was once me, filling my skin again.
It’s strange and awful and exhilarating.
My eyes blink open and I’m in Zane’s arms. He stares down at me with tear-stained eyelashes. “Missy?” he says with a sniffle.
For a moment, I don’t react. Then the last few minutes prior to my death comes barreling back and along with it comes the anger. I push out of his arms and he drops me. I roll and jump to my feet, turning on him.
“You killed my mother,” I snarl. “You killed me,” I add when he just blinks at me.
“I wasn’t exactly myself,” he says. “But whatever you did seemed to knock me out of it.” He mops his face with his bloodied hand, leaving streaks of drying blood across his face like some primal war paint.
I am not sure he even knows what I did to break the spell, and I’m not inclined to enlighten him.
“How could you possibly forget?” I nearly screech. But I’m aware of how close to the griffin we are, and the fact that thing tore half of Mandy’s arm off tempers my need to shout at Zane.
Zane presses his lips together and shakes his head. “You don’t know what it’s like to be beaten to death every hour of every day, only to relive it again and again and again.” His knuckles whiten around the staff in his hand and he looks into the distance as his jaw muscles jump. Then he squints. “What’s that?”
“The griffin guarding Levi,” Mandy says.
The slow grin that comes over his lips makes me shiver.
“That’s the angels’ pet?” He glances at Mandy, twirling his scythe in his hand like a majorette. The blade glistens through the blood and gore still clinging to it. And then he steps toward the monster.
Kissing Fate Chapter 4
“NOT SO FAST.” I put my hand up, and he glances down at me with arched eyebrows.
“But...” He points the scythe toward the hut where they are keeping Leviathan.
“Levi can wait. If we go without a plan, we are likely to get maimed like Mandy did, or worse.”
