Flicker (Defying Death Book 1) Read online

  “Say it!” he shouted back. “Say it, and I’ll let you go!”

  “Gavin makes the best grilled cheese in the world!” I screamed, sagging with relief as he released me. “I will deny that if you ever tell Jilsey I said it,” I panted at him as he easily got off the floor, holding his hand out to help me up. I took it warily and let him pull me onto the couch next to him.

  “Go ahead and deny it,” he said, tapping a button on his phone. It immediately began replaying me screaming that obscene phrase. “And send.”

  “You didn’t…you wouldn’t send that to her,” I said, in a faux-serious tone. “She is going to come home and kick my ass! She will squash me like a bug under her stilettos then make you cookies for being such a good boy!”

  “It’s done,” he said, all seriousness. “You said it, and now she knows. Don’t worry, baby, it’s better that she found out sooner rather than later.”

  His use of the term baby left me slightly taken aback. He’d used it before, but it never had the underlying meaning it did now. Or maybe it had, and I just chose to ignore it.

  “I will never love your grilled cheese like I do Jilsey’s. Never!” I declared, complete with dramatic foot stomp. “For the love of God, man, you only use one type of cheese!”

  He stood abruptly and dipped me backward, like an old-time dancing couple. “Simplicity is the key, Lina,” he whispered.

  We were face to face. I took a moment to really look at Gavin. He was pretty perfect. I noticed how women checked him out when we were out together. I always felt a wave of satisfaction when they gave me dirty looks. I wasn’t his girlfriend, well, not then, at least—maybe not even now. Still, it made me feel good to know that they thought I was pretty enough to be. Or maybe they didn’t think that and were simply confused. Either way, in the words of Jils: bitches be hatin’.

  I was so immersed in studying his features that I’d completely missed all the warning signs. Before I could fully comprehend what he was doing, Gavin kissed me quickly on the lips. He pulled away, gauging my reaction. I was utterly stunned. Should I kiss him back? Should I stop him? Wasn’t this what couples did? I wouldn’t know, my only other boyfriend had been Josh Adams junior year of high school, and kissing him had always been awkward and wet. But I was supposed to feel something, right? I didn’t—I felt absolutely nothing. Not even the familiar comfort that I’d felt when I’d kissed him in the past.

  A sinking feeling formed in my stomach. For the first time, being in Gavin’s arms felt wrong. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it, though. He lowered his face once more to mine, and I barely had time to subtly turn away before his lips connected with my cheek. With an audible sigh, he set me upright and let go of me.

  “Gavin—” I started, wanting to smooth over my rejection with him.

  He simply waved off my concern like a bug flying around his head and excused himself to go do a load of laundry. I stood in the middle of the living room, staring after him with a mixture of relief that he was gone and guilt that I was responsible for that brief flash of hurt in his eyes. So much for not ruining our afternoon, I mentally chided myself.

  Jilsey was sure to make it home for dinner. She and Gavin were still a little leery of me going back to work so soon, and this was their last ditch effort to get me to take another day—or three—off work, or at the very least start with half days. It made sense, and I saw their point…I really did, but I loved my job and being without it for so long was not my thing. No, I just needed to go balls to the wall and do this.

  With the exception of my tickle fight with Gavin, my mood for the rest of the afternoon was relatively miserable. Something wasn’t right. I felt like there was a hole in my mind. I tried my best to ignore it for Jilsey and Gavin’s sake, but it wasn’t easy.

  Jilsey made penne with feta, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives for dinner—my favorite—with a French baguette, and bread pudding topped with rum sauce for dessert. After they had me sufficiently stuffed and unable to run, not that I ran to begin with, we moved into the living room for a little game of Bullshit. Gavin was a master at the game, he had like zero tells and could spot a lie from across the street with his eyes closed.

  “One ace,” I said, sliding my card to the pile on the floor.

  “Bull-effing-shit,” Gavin said, not looking at me or the cards, but rather keeping his eyes on the TV.

  “How the hell did you know?” I asked, picking up the entire deck except the lone card in Gavin’s hand. “You weren’t even looking.”

  “Because I laid down all four aces already.” He turned and smiled his most charming smile at me. I will not play cards with Gavin, I will not play cards with Gavin. “I did two when I said I had a pair of twos, and the other two were just last hand when I said I had three Jacks.”

  “This whole game is bullshit,” I said, snatching the card from his hand and stuffing them all back into their box.

  “You’ve been a little…anxious lately,” Jilsey observed. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine, why?” I slammed the drawer to the coffee table after returning the cards to their spot. The lamp on the end table tipped and tumbled to the floor.

  “Goddammit!” I screamed, getting up and setting the lamp back on the table. The cord was stuck under it, and it kept falling backward every time I straightened it. Finally getting it to stay, I flopped back onto the couch next to Jilsey.

  Jilsey and Gavin exchanged a look, and she subtly nodded toward the door. Gavin stood his ground in the middle of the room, shaking his head and giving her a meaningful stare. Jilsey glared at him, hard, before flicking her eyes toward the kitchen. When Gavin still didn’t move, Jilsey stood up and mouthed now, looking like she was about to snap his neck if he didn’t get going. With a sigh, Gavin made his way to the kitchen. Given Gavin was such a hardcore badass at work, I sometimes thought Jilsey was the only person he feared.

  “You sure everything is okay?” she asked again once the water started running, and she was sure Gavin couldn’t hear us.

  “I’m fine, Jils,” I said, leaning my head against the couch.

  “Liar, liar.” She took one more look into the kitchen before jerking me off the couch. “Hey, Officer, we’re going upstairs to have some girl talk away from prying penises.”

  “You leave him out of this!” Gavin yelled from the sink, waving a suds-covered hand in the air, as Jilsey kept pulling me up the stairs.

  She didn’t stop until we were securely in her room with the door closed and settled onto her bed.

  “Oh, looky here, it’s just us. Now, you have approximately ten seconds to spill before I talk to your neurologist and let him know that someone has been zoning out and then they put you off work for another week. So, on your mark, get set, ten, nine...”

  I knew Jilsey well enough to realize she wasn’t kidding. But I didn’t know what to tell her. So, I picked the most obvious of my problems.

  “I’m just a little confused about the whole Gavin thing,” I said honestly, sort of. “I mean, he’s Gavin, and I know him, but this whole dating him thing is a little weird.”

  “I know. I was worried about that at first, too,” she said, rubbing my back. “But just think, if things work out with the two of you, you get to end up with one of your best friends.”

  “And if they don’t?” I asked with a raise of my eyebrow.

  “If they don’t, then we’ll split up holidays like a normal divorced family. You get me full time, and Gavin can have me every other weekend and Wednesdays. Yay, two Christmases!” she cheered, throwing her arms in the air.

  “I’m serious, Jilsey. This can go all kinds of wrong. It was one thing to want Gavin, but the possibility of actually having him is completely different.”

  “Then you guys will deal with it,” she assured me, smiling. “Yes, it might suck for a while, but you will both eventually get over it.”

  Relief filled me for brief moment, and then her face turned serious again.

  “So…what�
��s up with the spacing?” she asked. I was sure Gavin told her what happened today. I considered telling her the same thing I told Gavin, that there was a dog. But it felt even more like a lie than it did earlier.

  “I just get distracted about things. That’s all,” I said, which was the truth. “This accident has just given me a lot of time to think. I’m sure once I go back to work and get back into a routine things will get better.”

  Maybe if I told myself that enough, it would eventually be true.

  Jilsey just nodded her head and said seriously, “I hope you’re right.”

  Telor 8

  It had killed me a little to watch her struggle with herself. I could see the internal battle raging in her mind. Fighting against what it knew to be right and what Cheyenne had told it. Even if she never remembered me, it would still be the single most unforgivable thing I’d ever done. Which was saying something. I wasn’t exactly a saint in life.

  Slumped against a tree in Catalina’s backyard, I was able to deflect most of the wind. The fence and garage helped a bit, also. In my haste to keep her safe and out of Tori’s hands, I never thought of what I was actually going to do once I was here. I gave Seline a call about an hour ago, stating that I completed my coursework last month and was looking to volunteer and bank some experience hours before I started job-hunting after graduation this spring. She didn’t need to hear much more after that. She simply told me to show up tomorrow and she would sign whatever I needed to prove my hours.

  Being human, well as human as I was, was exhausting. My body was protesting at the simplest of commands: walk, stay awake, even look that way. All of these things took great effort. Guides were usually only in the physical state for brief periods of time…when we needed to “take care of things.” It usually didn’t last more than a few hours, but I managed to make it to eighteen today before I gave in to the exhaustion. Lucky for me, I seemed to have kept all my Guide “Extras,” like heightened hearing, being just a little bit faster, and a sixth sense for when I was being watched. They would come in handy when things got ugly. Because they would get ugly, sooner or later. My money was on the former.

  How very poetic that Death’s favorite toy defied and left her, all to keep a human alive. Cheyenne was right; Tori would make someone pay. I just wished I would be the one to pay the price and not Catalina. Knowing Tori, that might be too much to ask of her.

  The wind blew harder against the peeling green paint of the garage, whistling through the air. Though it was slightly stalker-ish, I watched her through her bedroom window. Her eyes scanned the yard, passing over me like I wasn’t there, before doubling back and resting on the exact place I was standing.

  Her curiosity was evident. She tilted her head to the side, her hair falling across her face and concealing her expression. Was it possible that Cheyenne’s command hadn’t worked? Right now, I was willing to believe anything was possible. My musings distracted me long enough that I didn’t even see her step away.

  Maybe she hadn’t seen anything; maybe she wasn’t even looking at me. Jesus, I’m going crazy. This girl had me going mental. Resigning myself to another lonely night watching her house, I settled into my spot just as the back door slammed shut. I peeked around the tree. Catalina stood in the middle of the yard looking directly at me, tightening a thin sweater around her.

  She couldn’t see me right now. At least, she shouldn’t be able to see me. Regardless, her eyes were focused my way, and for a moment, I allowed myself to fantasize that she could see me, that she was looking at me.

  “Hello,” she whispered, glancing back at the house before returning her attention to me. “Is anybody there? No, that’s stupid. I know you’re there. I can feel you.”

  Heavy relief pulsed through my body. She could feel it, too. She could feel me.

  “Please, don’t leave.” She almost whimpered the last words. “Stay, please?”

  Every part of me wanted to materialize right in front of her, to take her in my arms and hold her close. That was the type of self-serving bastard that I was. Was—I was that man. I could be different now. She made me want to be different.

  “I can’t remember you. I’m trying, but I can’t. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know there is a you, whatever that means. I can feel this abstract idea of a you.” She wiped angry tears from her face and took a deep breath, releasing it in a puff of smoke and wrapping her arms around herself to help ward off the cold.

  “Go in the house, crazy girl,” I said aloud. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

  Her eyes traveled over me, feeling rather than seeing me.

  “Good, God.” She rubbed her eyes roughly with the heels of her hands and let out a cry of frustration. “Look at me, standing in my backyard, talking to the wind. I’m going crazy. I’m really going crazy. Now, I’m talking to myself.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, my lips tilted upward into a small smile. Wanting to soothe her obvious pain, I made a split-second decision. I stood and walked toward her so we were standing face to face, her hot breath exhaling onto my chin. I wanted to embrace her, hold her in my arms.

  “You’re not crazy,” I told her, sliding my knuckles down her cheek, taking pleasure in the way she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch.

  Her eyes sharpened on my position and she shook herself from her temporary indulgence, whispering, “I need you.”

  If there was any doubt in my mind before, it was gone now. She owns me. All of me. I was hers.

  The back door swung shut, startling us both. Gavin stood on the back porch, searching worriedly for Catalina.

  “There you are. What are you doing out here?” he asked, as he walked up to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  She stiffened for a millisecond before her body relaxed slightly.

  “Just needed some air,” she answered, allowing him to lead her back to the house. With a last fleeting look over her shoulder in my direction, she was gone.

  Lina 9

  My mom was sitting on the stairs of our house. The house I grew up in. Her cheeks were pink from crying, and her whole body shook with sobs.

  I knew this dream. I’d had it before. Not in a very long time, though. It wasn’t so much a dream as a memory. One so burned into my mind it was impossible to forget. So, I covered it with a Band-Aid. I could still feel it, but I didn’t have to see.

  Slowly, I approached her. My hand reached out to wipe the tears from her face.

  “Kit-Cat, baby,” she said, tugging me onto her lap, struggling to pull herself together. After several moments, she took a deep breath, and said, “Kit-Cat, there was an accident today. Daddy and Ollie were on their way home from helping Mr. Ashley and something happened with the car. Then Daddy lost control and the car went off the road and down an embankment.” She stroked my face, moving a lock of hair behind my ear.

  “But, they’re okay, right? You’re just upset Daddy wrecked his car, right?” I asked. Daddy broke a lot of things, and Mom got mad.

  “Oh, Kit-Cat, I’m so sorry, honey,” she said.

  “When are they going to be home?” I asked.

  She gave me a quick kiss on my forehead and sulked into the house. I followed her through the living room and down the hallway. She marched straight into my father’s study, slamming the door behind her. Rather than closing, it bounced off the frame and remained open a crack. I crouched down against the closet door and watched as my mother poured herself a glass of clear liquid. My parents always called it grown-up juice. I smelled it once, and it burned my nose. But Mom gulped the whole glass down in two swallows before pouring another.

  That morning, when Oliver and Daddy were getting ready to go, I’d begged them to let me tag along. Daddy said no, that the seniors were off school for the day, but I still had to go. When I went to Ollie, he’d promised we would hang out when I got home.

  “I’ll take you to the park, I promise,” he said, ruffling my hair. I wasn’t happy about it and conti
nued to pout. “I love you lots, Kit-Cat.”

  “I don’t like you right now,” I yelled, stomping up the stairs to my bedroom.

  “Cariad, wake up. You’re just having a bad dream, wake up.”

  The floor began to shake, then the walls, then me. Everything was rocking back and forth.

  This isn’t real, this isn’t real.

  I closed my eyes, fighting. This was a dream. This was just a dream.

  “Wake up, Lina. Wake up!” someone screamed as they shook me.

  I shot up in bed, my alarm blaring with the morning traffic report. Being only five a.m., the roads were clear as of yet. Slapping the off button, I dragged myself out of bed to head for the shower, and caught a whiff of something masculine and sweet. It might have taken a little extra effort on my part to keep from burying my face in my pillow and inhaling deeply. That smell, I knew it from somewhere. It reminded me of my dream; I’d smelled it in my house.

  With the hot water washing over me, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. Something important. I racked my brain to try to get some inkling of what it was. My mind was fuzzy and foreign. I pushed harder and harder and finally came up with a pair of hazel eyes. Cariad, I thought. Cariad. I’d heard that word before. I didn’t know where, but I knew those eyes, and I knew that word.

  I had been gone from the museum for about two weeks. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how behind we were going to be, seeing as we had been behind before all this. After drying myself, I walked back to my room and dressed quickly, hoping to grab breakfast on the go and get to work early.

  Gavin and Jilsey were still asleep, probably hoping I would sleep in and go into work late. That’s a negative, Ghost Rider. I grabbed a granola bar and filled my travel mug with coffee before I headed out the door. Most of the snow had melted and the sidewalks were nearly dry. It felt good to finally get some fresh air, sans babysitters. Gavin and Jilsey took really good care of me and I was grateful for it, but I wasn’t used to being hovered over that way, and it was a relief to finally be getting back to normal.