“You know, I feel like I know you too. Do you go to the University of South Carolina?”
“No. I’m at Coastal Carolina but I’m a transfer. I went to Clemson for the first year.”
“Transfer…”
He said the word again, letting it roll over his tongue. Then he just stared at me and kept staring. His face changed and his posture straightened, as if he wanted to grab me.
“What?” I asked, giving him an opportunity to explain when I should’ve been putting more space between us.
“I remember.” His arms wrapped around me and he spun me off my feet in circles as he kept repeating, “I remember.” Instead of being scared, I started to laugh with exhilaration and I didn’t understand why.
When he finally stopped, he stared at me in a way that made me feel like the most precious thing he’d ever discovered. I should’ve thought he was crazy. I kept thinking I should be trying to get away from him, but instead I asked, “What is this about?”
“You’ve got a birthmark on your hip.”
Maybe he was crazy. I didn’t want to move away from him but I forced myself to move out of arm’s reach. “How do you know that?”
“Because it used to be a ying yang sign.”
My hand went to the spot and I could almost envision what he was saying being there.
“‘I won’t let you die.’ I said it to you the first time I met you. You were sick, a transfer to the agency, hired by Harold.”
I watched his face as hazy memories came to me. They were like dreams I was having a hard time remembering.
“You were there. And I was really mad at you,” I said, not sure if they were real or if I was under some sort of hypnosis.
“Because you wanted to be left alone and I wouldn’t leave you.”
“I thought you were being mean,” I said, not sure where the words and thoughts were coming from.
“I was keeping you alive. Then when you got beat up doing a job for Malokin, I said it again.” He stepped forward and I didn’t move away. “Karma, I need you to remember. You have to remember me.”
His hands were on either side of my face and there was a desperation there I felt mirrored deep inside myself, as if my not remembering would cost me something too dear to pay.
He moved his hands to my shoulders and was shaking me, as if that would make something snap loose and give him what he wanted. Then they were in my hair, his lips closing on mine in a kiss that jolted me to my core. I’d never been kissed like that, as if he were trying to touch my very soul. There was that same desperation in his kiss but also love, waves of it flooding through me from his touch.
And then the memories came. It wasn’t a gentle flow but an avalanche that would have had me falling to the ground under the wave of emotions if he hadn’t held me up. My lips trembled as the tears flowed.
“Fate?” I remembered dying in his arms, thinking I would never see him again.
He crushed me to him and I couldn’t stop the sobs from escaping me.
“I let you die,” he said, his voice uneven and broken. “Malokin knew we were there. The room we were waiting in was sealed off and by time we busted through, it was too late. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was Fia. It was a trap. But I’m here and so are you.” I pulled back quickly. “How did that happen?”
“After you died, I was desperate. The door was open, blasting light, and I carried you through it with me, not caring what happened next.”
“But I thought that wouldn’t work? Was it Paddy?” I swung around, looking for him, but he was gone, along with the Honda.
Then I saw the paper fluttering in the breeze under my wiper blade and I remembered all the messages that used to appear.
“That wasn’t there before,” I said, walking over and grabbing it.
“What is it?”
I looked down at the writing. “I think it’s…” I looked over it again as Fate peered over my shoulder.
“A want ad?” he asked.
Feeling down or uninspired? Change your luck!
We’re actively recruiting new employees. Take the first step toward an exciting new career that offers travel, excitement and chance to make the world a better place. Get a chance to work with our new management and grow with the company.
If interested, stop by our office and ask for Paddy, Fith or Farrah.
“Looks like she’s gone. I wonder how?”
Fate grabbed the paper and crumpled it before he pulled me into his arms. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing but this matters.”
His face broke into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. He kissed and held me like his life depended on it. I knew mine did.
Epilogue
I grabbed a ticket from the booth, ignoring the usher’s warning that the film was almost over. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why I’d come.
The place was empty except for him, as if the world had aligned for the convenience of my meeting today. It had taken me a while to track him down, after all this time, but I’d finally found him. He was no longer the teen I’d met in Wal-Mart. Time hadn’t been kind to him, and he looked much older than the early forties I knew him to be. Maybe being the leader of an underground gang of anarchists did that to you.
I made my way down the aisle and took a seat, leaving a chair buffer in between us.
There was a loud sigh before he spoke. “Great. I’m so excited I can barely express it.” His words were exaggeratedly flat. “I thought you were retired?”
“I am,” I said, sounding no more enthused than him. I hadn’t wanted to see him but I’d felt compelled. If Fate had known I was here, he would’ve killed me. We’d decided we were going to live out at least one human life together in peace before we even contemplated going back to work.
We’d bought a little house a few blocks off the beach. He’d taken a job with the local police department and I was working as a therapist in the hospital. It wasn’t a glamorous life but I was happier than I’d ever imagined. We were planning to get pregnant by the end of the year, and we’d even got a dog.
Still, I’d had to come.
“What do you want?” he asked.
He looked at me through antique-looking glasses and I could see the scars on his face and wondered how much I didn’t know about his actions.
“Wanted to let you know I was in the neighborhood.” And bringing a child into the world knowing that he existed might have been the exact reason I was there.
“Why show up at all? You’re powerless. You’re out of the game.”
“Am I?” I asked as I met his gaze. He didn’t scare me. I’d seen every side of this life and knew that certain things were worth dying for.
“You don’t wield the power you used to have.”
“Don’t I?” I asked, really looking at him, wanting him to see the truth of who and what he was dealing with.
He leaned as far as his seat would allow him. “How can that be?”
I didn’t know myself but I didn’t tell him that. It had started creeping back in after I remembered. When I’d been given the choice to return, I’d thought I’d lose that part of myself, that special something that allowed me to twist things to fall into place the way I wanted. But I hadn’t. Paddy’s piece was gone, but I was the same me I’d always been. If I could get hold of the Universe I’d ask if that was what he’d intended but it wasn’t like I could pick up the phone and call him.
Perhaps when he had told me I couldn’t return as I was, he’d only meant the Paddy part. Maybe Fia had been wrong. Maybe I’d been created just the way I was supposed to be.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said when I didn’t explain. “Go back to your little house with your fellow retiree. This isn’t a fight you can win. Without evil, there is no good.”
“But I’ll never give up trying.”
“Neither will I.”
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Dead Ink