“For who then?” It didn’t matter. They’d be eaten, and most likely by me, but I liked to downplay my junk food tendencies around him, shamed into silence by his salads and tuna tartar. I wasn’t even human, the world was falling apart and a maniacal lunatic wanted to kill me, but I was still closet-eating bags of chips?
He looked at me like I had a screw loose. “For you. You might need them after you shoot someone tonight. If you shoot someone, that is.”
I pushed the cart forward, having no idea why him thinking I might need comfort food after my possible kill tonight made me soften toward him. And wasn’t there something integrally wrong to that entire train of thought?
“I have killed someone before.” And not just one, but he knew that. He’d been there each time. “I had no problem then.”
He didn’t know about me chickening out a couple nights ago. I’d bribed the Jinxes with more booze to keep their mouths shut after they’d stopped laughing long enough to hear me speak. I was going to have to buy them an entire distillery soon. Those three knew how to negotiate.
An image of the wad of cash they’d had on them when they were buying their smokes came to mind. “They told you.”
“What did you expect? I pay better. Plus, I’m me. It’s natural. The problem is that cold blood is a whole different game. You had strong motivations with all the others. You were protecting either yourself or someone else.”
He was right. It was why I froze last time as well. I hadn’t been able to do it but I had to. The idea of those people walking around and becoming Malokin recruits drove me on, whether I wanted to turn down that road or not. There was no choice. Savior had become assassin.
I turned down the shampoo aisle, already feeling the need to cleanse myself of the blood soon to come. This aisle also had the added benefit of being devoid of any comfort food he might feel the need to get me.
I looked at the bottles, wanting to change everything in my life right now but only having the ability to change my soap. Fate was popping caps and bringing them to his nose making it obvious which ones he preferred.
“You know, I can finish shopping on my own,” I told him. He was getting as distrustful of the crowds as I was but the people today seemed to be a relatively harmless bunch. It was still manageable at this point.
“I’ve got nowhere to be.” His face froze as I grabbed shampoo and conditioner off the shelf and threw them in the cart. I decided peaches and apricot would be my new signature scent for my hair; it reminded me of the peach pies my mother made.
“What are you doing?”
“Uh, buying items to cleanse myself so that I don’t become offensive?” It had seemed like a pretty obvious action in my opinion. Was I missing something here? I looked down at the cart, his tone making me wonder if I’d grabbed Rogaine, or men’s shaving cream, by accident.
He roughly grabbed both the shampoo and conditioner bottles hastily, and shoved them on the first open shelf spot, as if he disliked having to touch them too long. He turned and scanned the other bottles, dismissing my choices as he said. “Wrong ones. I don’t like those.”
I wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he grabbed my old brand.
“What was wrong with the ones I just had? It was new. I want new.”
I reached down to grab the shampoo he’d replaced it with but before I could, he started dragging the cart forward, effectively cart-jacking my groceries.
“Hey!” I said, having no choice but to move into something close to a jog to follow him if I ever wanted to see my cart again. “You can’t cart-jack me.”
He ignored me as he built up more distance between him and the shampoos.
“You don’t wash your hair with it,” I shouted after him.
He didn’t stop, just yelled back, “I’m with you all the time. I’m the one who smells you more than anyone. I should have a say. Plus, you’ve been using this one for years. Why do you want to change now?” He took a sharp corner down the frozen food’s aisle.
It took about three seconds, or the length of time for me to catch up to him in the ice cream section, for what he said to hit home. “I think we should stock up on some cookie dough too, just to be safe,” he said, reaching in and grabbing a gallon of my favorite brand.
“The shampoo you put in the cart, I haven’t bought that brand since I died.” I’d stopped using it a week after my death, from the first time I’d gone shopping for myself. I took a quick look around, belatedly realizing what I’d said in the middle of the supermarket and making sure no one was too close before I continued. “How did you know what I used before I joined you guys?” I asked in a much more subdued tone. The humans might be getting riled up lately but that didn’t mean they’d become deaf and stupid.
I’d guessed he had some knowledge of my previous lives; he’d alluded to it with a couple of comments but my shampoo? How could he have known such an intimate detail such as that?
“I don’t. I meant months.”
I looked at him and part of me didn’t know if I believed him. I just had the strangest feeling he was lying. But why? Because that meant he’d known me? Had he watched me, and if so, how closely?
I remembered seeing my brand stocked in the condo when I’d taken my very first shower there. I’d thought it had been a coincidence. It was a popular brand. Now I wasn’t so sure anymore. And if he had known me that well, how come he never really talked about it?
“Did you ever come around me when I was human? Did you know what my fate was then? Was I meant to end up here?” The implications of it all started churning in my mind, and I was sure I’d end with a bellyache once it was done. “Did you?”
“Do you really think I had nothing else to do but follow you around all day? Nothing personal, but there were much more interesting lives to watch than yours.”
He wasn’t looking at me but walking away, and I grabbed my now discarded cart and followed after him.
“For your information, I hadn’t been going for burn down the walls, non-stop adventure. I was building a career and looking to start a family with Charlie—”
“I have to meet the guys. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Looking as cold as ever, flirty smirk long gone, he moved past me and started heading out of the store.
“If I ever live again, I’ll try to live life more recklessly for your amusement! Maybe I’ll even be a crack whore if that would be more entertaining for you,” I screamed after him, not caring how crazy I sounded.
He walked out, leaving me with my memories of the past. I couldn’t take a step forward without them dragging like a weight around my ankles. I guess that’s what pasts do, weigh you down, anchor you in another time and place. Sometimes it’s a beautiful bay, with sail boats and warm breezes that uplift you, and other times you’re holding onto your last breath in the cold waters of Antarctica and hoping to crawl your way back out alive. Good or bad, we all had them, and they didn’t sit idly by, forgotten in the rearview. They walked beside you, tainting everything you saw.
Chapter Five
In two minutes, my neighbors—also known as the condo next door’s current weekly rental—would be pounding down my door. Or worse, it might be the cops banging their sticks, trying to gain entrance.
Or maybe not.
We hadn’t exactly become a close-knit unit in the two days that they’d lived in the building. They might not have even heard the high-pitched scream when I walked into my living room, not prepared for company.
After all, Fate was early, and although I was used to him strolling in without an invite, I thought he’d be preoccupied with his boys until later. He must not have liked that plan, and instead of telling me he did what he felt like doing, in typical Fate fashion.
So there he sat, fully reclined with an arm running along the back of the couch like he owned it, hogging up all the space in my small condo with his larger than life presence. He was dressed in black from head to toe, ready for our covert mission, and looking as tempting as the devil handing up my heart’s desire, trying to lure me in for one small taste.