When I woke up at one in the morning, my head was pounding, but that didn't seem to slow the visions. Image after image appeared, of a small woman being repeatedly struck in the face by this huge man. I watched him pushing her dead body off a cliff into the ravine below. I saw her falling, dark hair flying among flailing limbs.
They were in a dense forest with tall pines and maples all around. I'd never been there, but I somehow knew exactly where it was.
But how was I supposed to get to Pennsylvania by three A.M.?
I grabbed my phone and dialed Harold, who answered on the first ring. It made me wonder if he was a night owl or simply didn't sleep. I needed sleep; if he didn't, what was he? Hopefully I wouldn't be around long enough to figure it out. Put in my days, take out a killer or two in the process and get out before I was stuck.
I explained every detail to Harold and then repeated it all over again when he didn't respond.
“It hasn't happened yet and I have to get there. How?”
“Are you supposed to stop it?” he asked.
No. I wasn't. I'd seen the log he'd used for the final strike to her head. I saw it placed in his trunk. The traces of her blood I'd add to his clothes. I was supposed to make sure he got caught.
It was time to see how many details Harold had about the assignments.
“Yes.” There was no way in hell I'd sit there and watch him beat that woman to death without trying to stop him. If he didn't know exactly what the job was, I didn't feel it necessary to inform him.
There was a pause, a long one. Maybe he did know? Maybe he got a memo or something?
He finally spoke. “Tell Fate. He'll get you there.”
“I don't want to ask Fate,” I said but he'd already hung up. I knew he'd heard me but didn't want to answer. No, not Fate. Not again, especially not this time, when I was going to go off plan. If he knew this woman was meant to die, it could really mess me up.
So I did what any reasonable person would do. I called him again, and again. Then a few more times after that, for good measure. Fifteen minutes later, and after an unknown amount of ringing, I conceded defeat and accepted that he wasn't going to answer and awaited my dreaded Fate.
Ten minutes of aggravated pacing in the bedroom later, I forced myself to go and ask Fate. He'd been on my couch, feigning sleep, when I'd gotten home, so I knew right where to find him.
I walked out of my room and saw him lying there. He looked handsome, the perpetual scowl he always had for me smoothed away by sleep.
I sighed and meandered across the room, stopping to rinse a glass and put it in the sink.
“How long is it going to take for you to tell me?” I swung around, startled by his voice. He was still lying there with his eyes closed. Did he know I'd just been staring at him?
“Why are you pretending to sleep?”
“Having your eyes closed isn't a pretense, it's called resting.”
“If you know, why do you need me to tell you?”
There was a quick upturn at the corner of his lip. A micro-expression, it’s called. A small snippet of someone's true feelings that slip out sometimes, before the person realizes. I used to look for them all the time as a lawyer. He was amused, even if he didn't want to admit it.
I couldn't understand what he'd find amusing about this, but he was an odd bird.
“Your walls are paper thin. I heard you tossing around in bed, too. Not sleeping so hot, huh?”
Why would he even mention that? What was the point? He knew I was unhappy, why the reminder that it was affecting my sleep?
And I knew out of everyone I'd met, he was the most likely to screw this up on me. But how was I going to get to Pennsylvania? Harold would just have to send someone else here to help me.
Fate sat up on the couch and then stood, stretching his arms out and hogging my living room. He walked over and leaned a hip against my table. He did that a lot. Leaned. As if he couldn't be bothered to exert the energy it would take to stand or something.
And he took up too much room; not physically, but he just seemed to eat up all the space around him. Why couldn't he be one of those people you forgot were there?
Then there was the other issue he had – he was too attractive and he knew it. Yes, he was good looking and well built, but so what? To put it nicely, he wasn't a nice person. He was the type of guy girls with issues would find attractive. I didn't have issues. I was a normal, healthy...
Shit. I kept forgetting I was dead. It didn't matter, I was still mentally healthy and that was all that mattered. No self-respecting girl would date him.
“I don't understand why it has to be you?”
I walked over and sat on my couch, trying to reclaim it. There was nothing left of my old life and I wasn't giving up anything else.
“Even if you weren't under my direction, most of the things you are going to deal with tie into a person's fate. If I go, I might not get the full details you do, but I'll be able to get a general sense of how things are supposed to play out. Murphy, Luck, even Crow, none of them overlap as much as we do.”
“I did the last one basically on my own anyway. Why do I need you to come? All I need is for someone to get me there.” And I don't want you to know what I'm going to do. If I'm going to be Karma, I'm making the most out the situation. If the universe thought it was fair she get beaten to death, it was obviously having slips in the system.
“Your last job was the equivalent of riding a bike with training wheels on it. It was almost full proof.”
I didn't budge. I didn't want to work with him and I couldn't have him there. I'd take the risk of doing it by myself.
“I have to show you how to get there anyway.”
“Harold can send someone else.”
“But he won't. Don't forget, active participation. You start missing jobs and you aren't active.”
He had a point. Thank goodness they didn't say anything about how I decided to participate.
I couldn't get there without someone's help and Harold wouldn't take my calls. I eyed up his “look at me lean on things, I'm so cool” face.
“Fine. But stop leaning on my stuff.”
I stood and grabbed my purse. He pushed off from the table and followed me toward the door.
“I'm sorry you have such an aversion to people leaning on your furniture.”
“Not people. Just you.” If I annoyed him, he didn't let on.
“I'll drive.”
“I want to.”
“Sorry, but I have an aversion to your driving.”
Yep, I annoyed him.
“You can't just dictate.”
“Can't I? You can't get there without me so I think I can.”
Just as I was trying to swallow the bitterness of that tasty bite, I noticed the car he was about to get into. Now, for the record, I'm actually becoming accustomed to my broken down Honda. She gets me where I have to go, even if a little slow.
But a Porsche 911? Are you kidding me? The jerk gets a Porsche? And I'm Karma. Shouldn't I be able to fix this, somehow? The fact that I didn't know how was making me feel very inadequate.
I stopped in the middle of the parking lot and looked up at the sky. “Seriously? I wasn't looking for you. You wanted me. Is this really fair treatment?”
Fate stopped and turned to watch me. “You know, you're a little odd.”
“Please, like you people have any room to talk.” I walked over to the car and got in the passenger side, not surprised in the least that he didn't try and get the door for me. He sped out of the lot before I got my seatbelt on and the way he whipped down the road made it hard to breathe.
“Would you mind slowing down?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so horribly unpleasant?”
“You shouldn't be here.”
“You are such a jerk.”
“It's not just you, any transfer.”
“I agree completely. You should do something about it. Maybe talk to the people in charge?”
“Harold agrees, but he was being honest when he said he couldn't get rid of you until the thirty days.”
“What about the old man? Maybe he can do something?”