I shuddered at the thought. Instead of opening up that can of worms, I snagged the journal off my sister’s desk and flipped through it. Maybe I would get lucky and stumble on the same information Jasmine had.
“I’m going to get the mail,” Anthony said, snatching his keys from the coffee table. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Okay.”
I turned back to the book. I figured it would be safe to start somewhere in the middle and work my way up to the present. Who knew how long these immortal people had been alive? I didn’t feel like reading about colonial times. Entries that old wouldn’t be relevant to the case anyway. I turned a few more pages before I landed on an entry from the early two-thousands.
I am afraid. I am afraid to write, to speak, to breathe. I’m paralyzed. But Dymeka urges me forward. He tells me it is important to write…
I lowered the book into my lap after I’d finished the entry. The pages were shaking a little. Or was it my hands? I shut my eyes, breathing as evenly as I could despite my stuttering heart.
Angela’s words were bringing back horrible memories of being a kid, pacing in front of a window in my new guardian’s apartment, desperately hoping I’d be allowed to go home to my real parents soon. Knowing deep down that I would never see them again. Back then, depression and anger had driven me to torment our nanny, act out in school, scare people to get back at them for calling me a freak. But all I’d really wanted was to be known, understood. Loved.
Uncle Victor and Anthony had done the best they could. And I had Jasmine, of course. It took me years to realize that was enough. I still remembered those dark years, though. I still hated being afraid.
I was about to shut the journal and throw it across the room when Jasmine touched my arm. I almost leapt out of my skin.
“Death didn’t do this to us on purpose, Charlie,” my sister murmured, sounding half asleep still. “She was just trying to figure out the extent of her powers when she cursed us and the immortals. Now she thinks she’ll use up the rest of her power if she tries undoing our curses.” Jasmine tried to sit up, grimacing. “I begged her to try. She wouldn’t listen to me. She’s too afraid of the unknown.”
There was that damned word again: afraid.
I scowled. “How does she not know what she can and can’t do? She’s Death.”
“I don’t think she really understands what she is.” Jasmine rubbed her stomach, as if she were feeling queasy. “The little girl…How’d she die?”
“She found her father’s gun and shot herself by accident.”
My sister shivered. Burrowing deeper into her covers, she murmured, “Awful.”
I nodded in agreement. “Don’t get me started on gun safety for the idiots of the world.” After a few moments of depressing silence, I said, “Anthony mentioned something about a theory you came up with before you died?”
“From reading Angela’s journal, I learned that there are three immortal couples in total,” Jasmine said, holding up three fingers. “The Wards, the Smiths, and one more.”
I gaped at her. For years, we thought we were the only cursed ones and now there were not just two others, but six? I was already feeling dizzy but it sounded like my sister was barely getting started.
“The Wards are involved in politics because they want to shape the world they’re going to live in forever, make things better for themselves.” Jasmine gestured to the book in my lap. “Or so Angela says. The Smiths are humanitarians. They just want to survive and do some good while they’re trapped in this never-ending existence. The third couple is kind of like the anti-Wards; they’re involved in the black market.”
“Okay…”
“I started wondering; if both the Smiths and the Wards knew about the third couple’s shady dealings, why would the Wards be so quick to cast suspicion on the Smiths when Uncle Vic asked who could be targeting the campaign staff?”
“Because they were protecting the third couple,” I assumed.
My sister blinked at me. “Wow. You got there a lot faster than I did.”
“Question is: why?”
“I have an idea.” She gestured to the book. I gladly handed it over. “Death gave the immortals only one way to die: at the hand of another immortal. So the three couples parted ways, started traveling the world, doing their own thing.” Jasmine flipped through the pages until she found the entry she wanted. A strand of hair fell into her face. She quickly tucked it back behind her ear. “Even though they tried to avoid each other, the Wards and the Smiths still managed to bump into each other. And they were working on opposite sides of the spectrum career-wise. Which leads me to believe that the Wards and this other couple—”
“Had to have overlapped sooner and more frequently due to their chosen professions,” I realized.
Jasmine laughed. “It’s uncanny the way you can read my mind. It’s like we’re twins.”
I rolled my eyes. “So if the Wards and this other couple kept running into each other...?”
“I figured they must’ve agreed not to interfere with each other’s work. It’s the only way they could coexist peacefully.”
“And if they did end up interfering with each other’s work?”
“The Salamander,” my sister and I said at the same time.
“But it’s just a theory. I don’t know where this other couple is or what they’re calling themselves nowadays or how to tie the hit man to them or if my theory is even plausible.” Jasmine closed the journal and tapped the end of
