Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

I looked about the empty room.

"Widow Herbert?" I watched, waiting for her to appear. I hadn't seen her in forever, and I could really use her right now. She'd never stayed away this long.

"Jaysa?" I whispered, willing to take anyone who said they were on my side, even if they weren't alive or necessarily on the right side of things.

I pulled the blanket closer, trying to fight off the feeling of dark coldness that seemed to be taking root inside of me. Even if no one had died, there was something going wrong inside of me. I could feel it.

I got to my feet, pacing the cabin, calling out their names, hoping someone would appear. Maybe it was the cabin? Or this place? Was there something about this building and location that blocked them somehow?

Maybe if I got farther away from here?

There were three men, all with their backs to the cabin, standing out front.

I went to Charlie's room at the back of the house and was relieved to see no one was guarding that area. The cabin was on the uppermost border of the community, without any structures behind it. It was highly unlikely anyone was going for a hike tonight, considering what had happened.

I opened the window, the sounds of the river hiding any noise of my departure.

I hiked up into the mountain, my steps hurried, knowing Kicks would come looking for me as soon as he found the cabin empty. He'd be the only one who would. No matter what the pack thought of me, no one else would have the balls to track me alone.

I pressed harder, pushing myself to hike as fast as I could. This had to be done alone. A conversation like this could not be overheard.

It wasn't more than fifteen or twenty minutes when I sensed something. There wasn't so much as a crinkle of leaves underfoot, but I wasn't alone. I spun fast, trying to spot her. I couldn't see Death, but I could feel her presence.

"I know you're here."

I waited. The feeling of other screamed out its presence to some inner sense I didn't used to possess. That small darkness I'd sensed within me felt like it was pulsing, as if it recognized the presence nearby, maybe even craved it. This feeling that had started after Zetti's death and grown since was somehow linked to her . That realization nearly drove me to my knees, making me want to heave, except I couldn't. Not with her around.

"Where are you? I know you can hear me. I need you to come out." I circled, waiting for Death to appear, knowing she would after she finished toying with me."What do you want from me?" I was nearly screaming, and I didn't care who heard me anymore. My desperation had become palpable.

There was a chill in the air, a frost that was even colder than usual, hovering.

"Don't you know?" Death said.

I spun and there she was, not even five feet away, her head tilted at that unusual angle, staring with those completely black eyes that sent shivers through me. It was hard not to be alarmed by what her stare alone might do to my soul.

"No. I don't know. So why don't you tell me and we'll be done with this game you're playing?" Even speaking to her unsettled me in a way nothing else could. To ask questions of her stole the air from my lungs, but the idea of life continuing on this way was unfathomable to me.

She was smiling, walking closer and shifting the angle of her head in an odd way as she looked me over.

"You're an anomaly," she said. "You're not of my realm, but you aren't of this realm, either. I don't know where you belong. Maybe both. Maybe neither. You're like me but not. I can sense you even when I'm not near you, the way I can sense the other parts of me—but different."

I couldn't stand the riddles anymore. I needed answers only she could give, and I'd get them today. "Did I kill Zetti and Louise?"

" I killed them." She laughed.

"It was you? I didn't do this. I didn't just kill someone for no reason." This whole time, I'd been sick with terror. That it was me. That I'd become some kind of freak. I wanted to laugh, cry, scream. Every possible emotion was pumping through me. Even if it looked like I was the cause, their blood was not on my hands.

"Yes." She circled me, moving too smoothly to resemble anything remotely human.

"Why?" My joy was cut short as she smiled. It was like being doused by an arctic wave. I never wanted to see Death smile again, not like this, in her knowing way.

I'd dreaded her appearance since the moment I first sensed her, even though she'd even offered me favors in the past. Well, if that was how you categorized killing Groza. So why do this now? Why rip me apart mentally? Make me fear being near the people I loved? Kill those around me?

"Because I wanted them dead. They were a threat to you, and I've decided I need you."

"For what?"

"They need to know what they did, what's coming. They all need to know. They took something that wasn't theirs to take. They took what was mine and used it."

She was seething with rage so fierce the trees around us frosted over and the shadows grew darker, and then it was as if it were night. All sunlight perished and an arctic chill began spreading. A foreboding filled me, and I wasn't sure I dared ask the question—but how did I not?

"Do you mean…Death Day? They used something from you to cause Death Day?" I wasn't sure who they even were yet.

" Yes ." Her answer was like a clap of thunder, vibrating through me.

I didn't budge. I was afraid to breathe as she stared, her normally black eyes shining red.

"They took what wasn't theirs, and they will be punished. The people behind Death Day, the ones who purged the world of so many souls at once, stole from me, and I will get vengeance."

Even as the temperature dropped another ten degrees, I could feel the white-hot anger flowing from her.

"What does any of this have to do with me?"

" I. Can't . You will be my vengeance upon them." She stepped closer.

I backed away.

I didn't care about holding my ground, not with Death. There was no delusion of balance of power. She could take my life in a second, and I wouldn't have enough time to beg her to spare me before it was over.

"Why me? You don't need me. You're you . What would you need me for?" I continued to back away from her, but she kept following me.

"I don't only want them dead," she said. "I want them to know they're going to die and why. I want them to be waiting for it to come, to fear it, to dread it. I want them to pay with more than just their death. I want the fear to be so thick that they take their own lives to escape what's coming for them. I want them to pay so brutally that the story will be passed down for a millennium."

"Then do it." I didn't even blame her. I harbored as much hate for these people as she did. But I still didn't understand why she was telling me all this. Why did she need me?

" I. Can't, " she said, and her voice felt like it shook the ground underneath me. "There is a veil that hangs between what I am and what they can see. I need someone from this world, a vessel to carry out my deeds and allow me to flow through them."

She wanted me to be her monster. If I could've, I might've died from dread right then and there, but she'd probably force me to stay alive somehow.

"You will be untouchable. I'll teach you to be even more than you thought capable," she said.

"What if I don't want that?" Even if any of this sounded desirable, which it didn't, I'd learned one thing: magic had a price. You didn't change and only get the upside. There was no way what she was planning wouldn't cause a change in me. Maybe already had? "Are you that dark, cold feeling that's growing inside of me?"

"You should be happy if part of what I am transfers to you. Grateful for the power that it instills in you."

I didn't care what power that darkness inside brought. I didn't want it. It felt like a disease trying to take hold of my soul. If this kept happening, I'd wish for death.

"No. I don't want this. I won't do it."

"You must. You are the only one who can."

"Take some other person. Use someone that wants what you are offering. I don't." I could already kill with a touch. What would become of me after she channeled her magic through me? No. The mere thought of it made me stiffen, nearly strangled me with fear.

"There is no other. You will do this. Not only will you do this, you will beg me to do this." She spoke as if she knew what the future held. Whatever she knew, I hoped it didn't come to pass, because this wasn't what I wanted.

She was gone. The rough bark of a tree scraped at my back and my legs could no longer keep me up. I was nearly hyperventilating, my face wet with tears, sitting in the mud under the tree when Kicks found me.

He knelt in front of me, running his hands over my legs and then arms. "Pips, are you hurt?" He put his hand under my chin, lifting my face. "Pips? What happened? Did someone chase you here?"

"I'm okay. Nobody is here." There was only one silver lining—I might kill when threatened, but I wasn't the indiscriminate killing machine I'd feared. I wasn't that much of a monster. Not yet, anyway.

"What happened?" He scanned the perimeter and the ground, looking for tracks, trying to piece the scene together.

Death was gone from sight, but I still couldn't bring myself to say anything. I didn't know if I could. How did you tell someone that Death wanted you to be its vengeance? To use you to kill people and leave traces of whatever she was behind, inside of you? Planned on doing it again and again until you weren't even you anymore? How did you tell someone that?

He carried me back to the cabin, continuously looking around, trying to piece together what had happened.

He placed me in the chair and then pulled it closer to the fire.

"You have to tell me what happened. And don't say nothing. I can smell the fear on you, and your hands are trembling."

I stared at him kneeling in front of me and choked on the truth. Imagined the disgust on his face if he knew. I had to leave him anyway. I didn't want him to remember me as a monster. Instead of telling him, I looked down at my lap.

"I never wanted to force you to tell me anything. I wanted you to trust me, and to tell me things that bothered you because you wanted to. But no matter what I do, I can't earn your trust. I'll have to accept that. " He stood. "Make sure you pack light."

He walked away.

"It's not like that. I do trust you," I said to his back.

"This is trust?"

It was like my muscles were seizing around me, causing me to feel like my heart was being held in a death grip.

"Then let me leave on my own tomorrow." There was no point in his coming with me. There was no future for us.

He turned his head slightly, only his profile visible as he said, "I don't know why, but I can't seem to let you go to your death, even if I should walk away."