My dripping nose made me aware of the tears pouring down my face. Then I noticed the sideways glances I was getting from the passing officers. If any of them noticed me noticing them, they quickly looked away. Picked up the pace. Cleared their throats. Moved on before the “celebrity” clawed their throats out.
Dabbing at my cheeks with my sleeve, I spun around to face the elevator. The door was open, waiting for me to return to my hidey-hole. Return to the darkness where I belonged. I hated it, but where else was I supposed to go?
“To hell with this,” I hissed.
Once inside, I yanked the door closed, then bashed the down button with my fist. I wiped my face but the tears just kept coming. I howled angrily. The elevator stopped and I opened the door. Down the steps I marched, around the counter, into the kitchen. The bucket of bird seed was dumped into the sink. The medicine cabinet door was thrown open. I reached in blindly, pulling out every pill bottle I could find. I poured them into a bowl at random until it was full. Red pills, blue pills, yellow pills, clear pills. A petri dish of cures.
My one-way ticket to Death. Or so I hoped.
I threw back handfuls of pills in between big gulps of water. I didn’t stop until the bowl was empty. My stomach felt so full. It took effort to walk across the apartment, to sit on the edge of my bed, tug off my swampers, shrug out of my jacket. I crawled under the covers and pulled them up to my chin. If Charlie and Uncle Vic were going to find me dead for real, their final image of me would be in peaceful sleep, like a princess from a fairytale. I felt a pang of guilt, of regret, of heartache, but it was brief. There was no going back now.
I breathed deeply, trying not to think about my belly full of poison, fighting the urge to throw up. But then a new thought made me gasp.
“Charlie,” I whispered into the quiet. “Can you see me right now?” More tears came with a harsh sting. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”
“Exactly what do you think you are doing?”
I lurched into a sitting position, my heart jumping into my throat and smashing into the scream that had been about to pop out of my mouth.
A woman stood at the foot of my bed, arms dangling at her sides, head bowed. Her pale lips were pursed, those violet eyes, although heavily lidded with exhaustion, burned fiercely in rage. Her black hair was impossibly long, reaching well past her butt. That dress...that glow...
“You’re here,” I choked out. “You came.”
“But of course, I came,” Death spat. “You’re killing yourself.” She reached out with her perfectly petite hand as if to grab onto something.
I could almost feel the bite of her nails around my stomach. Doubling over, I cried out. “Wh-What are you doing?”
“Rescuing you, simple creature.”
I looked up in time to see her tug her clawed hand back. With the gesture, the pain in my stomach was gone. I was left panting in my bed, feeling…completely normal.
“There.” Death whipped her hand out to the side, getting rid of whatever excess magic still clung to her fingers. “A valiant attempt, but you cannot escape.” The annoyance melted away from her face, leaving behind only a cold, bitter certainty. “Neither of us can.” Then she was gone.
Chapter 20
Charles
“What the hell, Jazz?” I paced in front of my sister, the only freakin’ reason I was still trying. Thoughts of Esmer threatened to make me take that last part back, but I shook my head. I could live without Esmer.
Jasmine sat at the center of her bed with the covers forming a wrinkled arc around her. Her glazed stare was fixed on something I couldn’t see. “She has purple eyes. They’re not as dark as ours but still…She didn’t just mark us as cursed. She marked us as hers.”
“Are you even listening to me?” I roared. “How could you try to kill yourself?”
“She said there was no escape,” my sister rambled on. “Not for either of us. What did she mean by that?”
“Didn’t you stop to think about what your death would do to me? To us?” I waved a hand at our uncle, who stood beside me, arms crossed, brow low.
Uncle Vic hadn’t said a word since I’d told him about my latest vision. He’d driven us away from the courthouse like a madman, raced through the precinct beside me, and barreled across our apartment to get to Jasmine, but that terrified urgency had vanished the moment he’d seen she was all right. His stony expression was hard to read. Jasmine’s suicide attempt had failed, but I hoped he was as angry and hurt as I was. I couldn’t be the only one thinking about what could’ve happened to us if she’d been successful.
My sister finally scowled up at me. “I was thinking about you. I was thinking about how much more time Anthony would be able to spend with his family if he didn’t have to be watching me twenty-four-seven. I was thinking about the social life Uncle Vic could have if he wasn’t constantly worrying about someone getting too close and finding out our big secret. I was thinking about how much time you’ve been spending with Esmer, how happy that’s made you, and how much happier you could be if you didn’t have to keep rushing back to me every time someone died.”
My face went from warm to blazing. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“I was thinking,” she went on fiercely, “that I’m tired of living in limbo, unable to live, unable to die, unable to breathe
