“Stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He finally turned and looked at me and there was a challenge in his eyes. “Is that what you’re saying? You’re ready to talk?”
Such innocent questions, and they froze me up quicker than anything that had ever been asked of me before. This whole time, I’d thought it had been a mutual avoidance. When had things changed? Was I now the one shutting down the lines of communication and he was playing along? At least when it came to the subject of us.
And still I couldn’t answer. I tried to make my brain work and my tongue move; I tried to get past the sheer panic that was gripping me more fiercely than anything I’d ever felt.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
He was disappointed in me, and I was shocked at how that disappointment in his voice seeped into me and saddened me in a way I hadn’t expected.
I still said nothing. Why couldn’t I simply tell him? I like you with an intensity that scares the hell out of me. After everything I’d been through, why was it so difficult? I could just say it. And then it would be out there.
And then I came full circle to the problem. What he’d say back. What he’d do. Looming rejection on a level I couldn’t cope with on top of everything else going on.
We needed to talk. There were things that had to be said, however it might turn out—but not now. I couldn’t deal with it right now. And I had the perfect excuse to blow the subject off as Jockey drove up in a buggy and we both sat up.
“A carriage?”
“Even I won’t ride them right now. I almost wasn’t able to harness her to this.” We stood and Fate grabbed the blanket to hand back to him.
Jockey shook his head and motioned for him to keep it. “It’s getting very cold there. You should bring it with you.”
We settled in and Fate laid the blanket over us.
“Whatever you do, don’t get out of the buggy, no matter how long it takes her to come back.”
I nodded, even as I became concerned about this little venture, and wondered if this was the best thing to be doing.
We took off at a much more hectic pace than the last time I’d gone for a ride. This time I was prepared for the ground to disappear and the dark tunnel of visions to pop up everywhere, like riding through the largest multiplex ever created without walls. We didn’t go very far before we were pulled into a nightmare. It was chaotic, people chanting and screaming all around and there, in the center of everyone, was Malokin. And me.
“Try and remember every face you see,” Fate said as we circled the group, all figments of Malokin’s mind.
The dream version of me stood there, docile in front of him. Like that would ever happen. The crowd jeered. Then Malokin’s knife was at my throat. The blade ran across my skin, setting off a spray of blood as it did. I collapsed on the ground, red pooling around me. It was the image Fate had seen or something so close it didn’t matter.
The carriage suddenly jerked around and the mare ran out of the dream as if the scene had spooked her as much as it had me. I turned, transfixed by the image of my death unfolding.
I didn’t turn back around until we were so far away from the horrific scene that it was only a speck in the blackness. But the image was still there, crystal clear in my mind. I felt Fate edge closer to me, silently offering me his support. Now we both knew what my death looked like.
The carriage stopped and everything had a surreal feeling to it. I had the fuzziest recollection of Jockey asking how it went and no notion of what Fate replied, although I knew he did.
I moved in a haze, step after step, unsure how I knew where I was going.
We barely made it out of the nightmare hallway before the panic attack set in full force. Years of being a defense attorney—judges yelling at me, jurors narrowing their eyes at me as if they couldn’t stand the sight of me—and not once had I had a panic attack. Now, one lousy dream and I couldn’t get enough air, no matter how deeply or rapidly I breathed.
My legs decided they’d had enough once we hit the office lobby and my back slammed into sheetrock before I slid down it. It was a dream. That was all.
I scanned the hall, looking for Fate and that’s when it hit me, right in the middle of my panic attack, how much I’d come to rely on him. Not great timing for a revelation like that; it notched my panic up another level of frenzy.
I’d deal with the implications of that later, after I’d reclaimed a respectable chunk of my sanity. Right now, I needed him to tell me it was going to be okay.
He was at the end of the hall, his back to me. “Fate?” My voice was pathetically weak and I detested the sound.
He didn’t move for a second and I called his name again, trying to sound a bit stronger this time. He turned as if it were the first time he’d heard me and then quickly walked toward me. He stopped in front of me and knelt down, resting on his haunches.
“Look at me,” he said, his hands cupped my face. “That will not happen to you. Do you hear me?”
It was his stubborn look that I knew so well. I nodded.
“It won’t happen,” he said again, and I wasn’t sure which one of us he was trying to convince.
I hoped it was working for Fate because I didn’t believe him. It wasn’t from a lack of wanting. Still, I wished he’d repeat it over and over, hoping that maybe, if I heard it enough, somehow I would begin to believe it too.
My breathing eased, and I think he took that to mean I was buying into the whole it would be okay thing. In truth, it was more because I was running out of adrenaline and reality was settling in. Fate had seen it in his visions. I’d now seen it in Malokin’s dream.
What I had to do was come to terms with the fact it was there, the finality of my existence, looming over me. A panic attack wasn’t going to change that. Screaming and running to Fate wouldn’t stop it.
For all that my coworkers put such stock in not being a transfer, we had a definite edge in one area. As a human, you were born knowing you were going to die. We visited the unlucky in the hospital and went to funerals, always remarking on the tragedy. But every time we stepped too close to it, we saw our own demises. We went with the full knowledge that we would one day die as well.
The closest humans got to immortality was the ignorance of youth, but death was always hovering nearby, even for the young. At some point our lives would end. We’d wake up one day and not go to sleep that night. We might have had warning, or it might be sudden, but from the moment we became aware of ourselves we became aware of our impending deaths.
My coworkers? Up until recently, they had been born knowing that as long as they walked the line, they could go on forever.
So yeah, I was a transfer, but that was one area where I had the edge. I had experience with mortality.
I stood, acting calmer than I thought would’ve been possible a few moments ago. I wiped my hands against the back of my pants. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
A blaring horn rang out and I saw a SUV sitting in Fate’s driveway. It looked like the misfit child of a monster truck and a minivan. If I hadn’t watched him get out of the driver’s seat to load a bag into the back, I never would’ve believed Fate would drive something like that.
He was closing the back hatch, looking all sorts of rustic yumminess in his black boots and rugged gear, when I approached.
He sized up my outfit as well and found it lacking. “What’s wrong with a sundress? You said we were going for a ride into the country?”
“On a gun run?”
“I’m sorry, but the boutique didn’t have any army-girl-fabulous in stock.” I walked around the ride he’d supplied. “Talking about style, where did you get this fine automobile?” I asked patting the camouflage paint job.