faltered as she stared. His room, similar to hers, now bore a resemblance to a museum, untouched, albeit more organized and less dusty. The bits and pieces of baseball history he’d accumulated through the years remained immaculate.
Ben sat at his desk, head down and scribbling on a piece of paper.
“You’re not writing a suicide letter, are you?” she asked, truly frightened. Since the funeral, Ben had become a shell of his true self. No more smiles that tried to hide what he really felt. He displayed it for all to see: depression, like his soul had been taken from him. And like Arianne, he’d lost a significant amount of weight. The mourning diet. There was nothing like total and utter devastation to remove any form of appetite. His father had watched him carefully, even threatening to send him to a facility in Atlanta.
His shoulders rose slightly with an exasperated breath. “Homework,” he said.
“You’re doing
“What else should I be doing?” Ben twisted around in his seat and faced her. “Killing myself won’t bring her back, Ari. I thought you knew me better than that. And I’m trying home school for a while. I can’t bring myself to walk into Blackwood and see all those faces, knowing they’d want to comfort me.” He shuddered.
Arianne understood all too well what he meant. She’d refused to take calls from Tammy after the funeral. No one could fill the hole Carrie had left behind. She came forward and hugged him. She did know him, and Ben would never bring added grief to those he loved.
Ben returned her hug briefly. “What are you doing here?”
The question brought back Arianne’s sense of urgency. “I need your help.” She launched into the story of what happened that night. She glossed over why she’d been walking around aimlessly and focused on Darla trying to run her over.
“You were supposed to die?” Sadness entered Ben’s eyes when he asked in a whisper.
“But Niko defied Death to save me. God knows what’s happening to him now, especially with that psycho bitch Janika.” She continued her narration by detailing the fight between Niko and Janika and how Niko had teleported her to her room right at the end.
“Smart guy. I respect him more now for saving you.” Ben rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe Darla tried to run you over.”
“That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have outed her.”
“When did this happen?” Ben’s eyes were wider than the moon. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
Arianne waved her hands frantically. “That’s not what’s important right now. I need to go to Niko’s house and ask his Caretaker to take me to the In Between, where I think he’ll be. If we make it out alive, then I’ll tell you everything you want to know about Darla.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said sternly.
“Why do you think I’m here?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him to the window. “Come on, we can’t waste any more time.”
Ben and Arianne stood on Niko’s lawn, staring at the front porch. Arianne knew she had to climb the four steps, move to the door, and ring the bell. But a heavy aura of foreboding kept her from following her brain’s orders. The house looked empty and more than a little creepy, almost as if it had been abandoned for years. Add some weeds choking the grass, faded and peeling paint, missing shingles, rotting wood here and there, and the look would be complete. The structure itself still looked sound, and very clean, but Arianne couldn’t shake the feeling that it was empty.
Ben, fed up with waiting, strode to the door, each step purposeful and sure.
“Ben, what are you doing?” Arianne followed him, arms stretched out as if she wanted to yank him to her.
“What you seem to be hesitating about,” he said over his shoulder. He rang the doorbell, which produced a grandfather-clock-type chime.
Arianne reached his side and dropped her arms. “You feel that? The house, there’s something so wrong about it.”
“Ari, do you love him or not?” Ben pinned her with a hard gaze.
“I do.”
“Are you willing to do whatever it takes to save him?”
Ben asked all the right questions. She couldn’t understand why she hesitated in the first place. “Thanks.” She gave him a quick smile. “I needed that.”
Arianne pounded at the door with an open palm. “Sickleton, I know you’re in there!”
The door opened suddenly, causing Arianne to stumble inside. Ben steadied her as he crossed the threshold. The darkness that surrounded the outside apparently leaked from the inside. Not pitch black but a heaviness similar to a cemetery after a service.
“Oh, I forgot!” Arianne looked up at Ben. “Niko has to invite you in.”
“What?”
“If you start feeling woozy, tell me right away, okay?”
Ben raised an eyebrow skeptically.
“I don’t have time to explain.” She poked him on the center of his chest. “Just promise me.”
“That won’t be necessary,” a deep yet genteel voice said.
Arianne whirled around so fast, she felt sick for a second. “Who are you?”
A man with the bearing of a king, all confidence and self-assurance, appeared before them. He stood by the elaborate, yet wilting, floral centerpiece in the foyer, his salt and pepper hair combed away from his ageless face. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of his impeccably pressed trousers. His suit screamed luxury, down to the expensive silk tie. “I am Tomas. You are Arianne Wilson and Benjamin Freeman.”
Arianne’s eyes felt like they would leap out of their sockets. “I think asking you why you know who we are would be stupid right now. You’re Niko’s mentor.”
“Clever girl.” Tomas smiled. “I see he’s told you about me. He must really love you.”
The admission had Arianne’s chest all warm and toasty inside, but she pushed away the feeling for now. She kept getting sidetracked. “Do you know where he is?”
Ben must have heard the desperation in her voice because he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, grateful for the support. She’d brought him for a reason. Not that she couldn’t have done it alone.
“I take it you’ve come to save him?” Tomas asked in return.
“Yes,” Arianne answered.
“What if I told you he couldn’t be saved?”
“I don’t care. I’m going to try anyway.”
An emotion Arianne couldn’t decipher sparked in Tomas’s eyes. “Then are you willing to enter the Crossroads?”
Without faltering, Arianne said, “Yes.”
“What if you had to die to get there?”
Chapter 25
DEATH HAD NEVER LIKED the concept of torture. Sure, he’d invented it, but only out of necessity as one of the ways to keep unruly Reapers in check. History had proven torture to be an effective tool in changing a person’s mind. During the Roman Empire, one of his first beta testing grounds, he’d perfected some of his techniques. The Romans had been so creative too. They took initiative and thought up so many ways to convince someone of what they’d wanted.
In his room of endless space and time, he stood a few meters away to avoid the blood pool spreading
