Cheat the Grave

I frowned, not knowing. Olivia had never shared it with me. “Um…hot pink is the new black?”

She kept her gaze even and didn’t smile, that iron spine peeking through. “That it ain’t your business what other people think of you. Especially assholes.”

“But they’re wrong.”

“Which is their right.” She shrugged and started playing with some cables, letting them drop when the tech cleared her throat. “Can’t change it. Might as well ignore it.”

“Is that what you do?” I asked, then cringed when I realized I’d just told her people thought she was a bimbo.

“Yes,” Suzanne said resolutely. “I ignore the gossips and naysayers and, yup, the assholes, and just go about doing what I gotta do to claim my own life.”

I glanced back at the party bus containing booze, boas, and stripper poles.

She followed my gaze, pursing her lips. “You know, people criticized me when I married an older man, first saying I was a gold digger, then sayin’ I was the one who put him in his grave.” She swallowed hard at the memory. “But we shared a powerful love, even if it was short-lived.” She lifted her chin as she returned her gaze to me. “So I was never embarrassed about it. After all, I knew true love…”

“And how many people can claim that?” the EMT put in, sighing. Suzanne nodded.

Frowning, I thought of my childhood sweetheart, Ben, whom I’d outgrown through time and experience. Then of Hunter…who’d thrown me away.

“After Cher’s daddy died,” Suzanne continued, oblivious to my silence, “I was also criticized for tryin’ to raise a girl closer to my age than not. I neither had kids nor knew the first thing about ’em, but I knew something those assholes didn’t.”

“What?” asked the tech, wrapped up in Suzanne’s story. I wondered too.

Suzanne’s responding smile was fierce. “I needed that little girl’s love, just as I’d needed her daddy’s. And my little Cher-bear needed mine.”

Olivia had too. She’d escaped to their home after our mother abandoned us, and while I shut down-thinking I’d caused the abandonment-Olivia could only find ways to endure it.

Suzanne addressed the tech now, chatting like friends over tea. “So now people are talking about Arun like he’s a golden egg. Like I laid a trap and he slipped right in. But I’ll just chin up and ride through that too. Ride all the way into my late years like I’m straddlin’ the sunset. And you know why?”

The tech, unblinking, shook her head.

“Because I choose love again. And no gossip or naysayer-certainly no ass hole-is going to keep me from love.”

The tech slumped, leaning back on her haunches. “You’re so right.”

“Yes I am.” Suzanne put a hand on the woman’s leg. Only she could bond with another woman under such circumstances. I’d have rolled my eyes were it not for the force of her words. “True love never dies. Even when it’s gone, its memory keeps you safe.”

Even the loftiest job can’t keep you saf… .

Asshole, I thought again. Though the officer was right about one thing. “Love can’t keep you from getting sideswiped by a bus. Like tonight.”

We’d almost lost Cher.

Suzanne turned back to me, the knowledge stark in her eyes. She finally nodded. “But it isn’t love that’s dangerous. Every life gets sideswiped at one time or another. Sometimes more than once. The question is, what do you do after that? Build something new out of the shrapnel…or just stay safe?”

The now-sniffling tech put her hands on me again, and I squirmed, suddenly tired of being touched. Having lone wolfed it for years after the attack on my life, I still got twitchy with too many people around me, too many hands on my body, even if they were soft and reassuring and supportive. I simply fared better emotionally when my knuckles were wrapped and I was punching something heavy. Having something to beat against loosened tension inside of me, enabling me to drop my worries behind like fallen foes until I was the last woman standing. I shut my eyes, mentally sparring.

Double jab. I am not weak.

One-two-three. I keep myself safe.

Push for space, front kick…take out a fucking kidney. I protect my friends too.

But I was weak. I was not safe. And Cher and Suzanne were not safe around me. Mackie now knew what they looked and smelled like. If he thought I really cared for them, he’d use them to get to me.

I sat up quickly, ripping off the cuff, and pushing the tech’s hands away.

“I have to go,” I whispered, clamoring from the ambulance, tears cutting through the words. I added something about Cher and the hospital, though I had to stay away from her too. Especially now.

Head lowered so my hair hid my face, I picked up my pace, ignoring the EMT’s calls, the watchful cops, and the rubberneckers snapping photos and video to upload to YouTube. Look what I saw on my Vegas Vacation.

“Olivia! Wait!” Suzanne rushed to catch up, her mouth already open in protest. Yet whatever she saw in my face had her mouth moving soundlessly before she managed, “Do you have a ride?”

I jerked my head curbside, where Kevin waited. My driver had practically arrived before I’d hung up the phone. After all, I was Olivia Archer.

Suzanne’s lips pursed, and I could tell she wanted to say more, but at last there was only a teary smile of her own, and a final hug enveloping me in her custom perfume and soap and shampoo. All signature Suzanne. Then her phone trilled from within her handbag, and she untangled herself with a sob.

“Arun-” she was already saying as she lifted it, hands shaking, to her ear. I turned away to give us both privacy, but glanced over my shoulder once. She was curled around that phone like it was a lifeline, arms wrapped around her slim body as if holding herself up. But she wasn’t keeping herself upright, I thought as I turned away. It was Arun. Because she chose him, and love.

And they chose her.

Suzanne may have been right about true love never dying. I didn’t think so, but the things I didn’t know had turned out to be more varied than I’d ever imagined. Still, her determination to hang onto love-and Cher’s Disneyfied dream of it-didn’t match up to my own experience. I couldn’t put my faith in a fairy tale. Sure, I believed in the wicked witch and the fire-breathing dragon parts, but the happily-ever-after? True love?

I scoffed, and pushed the thought away.

Misgivings about love aside, there were a shitload of other things I didn’t understand, all of them more pressing than finding some elusive Prince Charming. For example, who had removed the lock on this side of Midheaven, letting out Mackie and Tripp, and effectively any rogue who still had enough willpower and soul energy to attempt the crossing?

What was this “cell” Tripp was entering-a place to keep him safe? Surely not another lockup. And could I be safe there too? Because how the fuck was I going to dodge a homicidal agent with a soul-stealing knife when my own protection was skin-thin?

“I could use a fairy godmother about right now,” I muttered, and I didn’t mean a rogue Shadow agent fond of shit-kickers and strange cigarettes. Even had I agreed to help Harlan Tripp, he was no match for Sleepy Mac. He’d already been wounded, didn’t seem to have a conduit, and besides, I’d seen the fear in his eyes when he mentioned Mackie.

Cautiously, almost furtively, I reached into my pocket and fingered the phone Warren had given me. I’d been able to count on him and the troop to cover my back in the past, but Mackie had ruled over agents like him in Midheaven. The strongest agent of Light I’d ever known was over there now, though hoping Hunter Lorenzo would rescue me was as reasonable as believing in fairy tales about princes on noble steeds.

Because Hunter hadn’t come after me. And with Mackie and Tripp’s disappearance, he had to know the entry between the two worlds was open…and my life was in danger. His girlfriend-no, his wife, I remembered belatedly and bitterly-had sent Sleepy Mac.

And that brought me to Solange. Ah, beautiful Solange. I sighed, thinking of Midheaven’s queen bee. Sola, Hunter called her. Other women adorned themselves in clothing to entice, makeup to enhance, baubles to catch the eye. But Solange was the adornment and enhancement and enticement of her world. Her