Page 10 of Ruled By Fate

She looked around at the seemingly endless woodlands. “Where are we?”

“About fifteen miles inside the boundaries of Hanging Rock State Park.”

“Hanging Rock,” she repeated. “Oh, good. I was worried you’d say something ominous.”

She was silent another moment before the questions poured out like a flood. “How do you know where we are? What’s the nearest town? Why don’t I feel worse? I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be feeling worse. Am I in shock? Are you a hallucination? You have to tell me if you’re a hallucination, you know. It’s in the rules. Like asking if someone’s a cop.”

She paused. Then for good measure, though it seemed unlikely, she asked, “Are you a cop?”

He looked down with another amused expression that seemed both genuine and quite out of place, considering the circumstances. “Yes.”

She blinked in shock. “Yes, you’re a cop?”

“Yes, to all of it. All five hundred questions.”

At that point, she began to suspect he was teasing her. She also decided to revisit the idea that she might be dead. With a look of grim resignation, she lifted her hand again, prepared to strike either one of them, only to have him catch it with that disarming mental power once more.

He chuckled. “I will answer all your questions, I promise. First, let’s get you inside.”

Not good enough.

He glanced at her face and relented a little. “The nearest town is called Eden.” He looked back at the road and shifted her slightly in his arms. “And I always know where you are.”

They lapsed once more into silence. An unending silence, interrupted only by the distant call of birds and the quiet crunch of gravel under his feet. Those questions ate away at her, pushing their way into prominence as far as her aching head would allow. She cast another secret look at him, gauging his resistance, preparing to relaunch the interrogation.

But there was a chance he sensed this, and there was even a chance his miraculous powers extended further than she thought. For no sooner had she opened her mouth, than a wave of fatigue came over her, slowing her breath and making her eyelids suddenly, irresistibly heavy.

Less than a minute later, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

? ? ?

By the time Brie opened her eyes, they were in the lobby of the tiniest motel east of the Mississippi. To her surprise, when her mysterious protector put her down, she was able to stand. In fact, aside from a deep tingling sensation, as though it had fallen asleep, her leg didn’t hurt at all.

She tested her weight on it three, then four times.

How is this possible?

Her adrenaline had started to ebb away, and exhaustion loomed, but she registered the shock of the teenage girl manning the front desk. Upon catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the opposite lobby wall, she immediately understood the clerk’s expression. It looked like she’d been through a war. Her cheeks were smeared with soot, her hair was a tangled mess, and every inch of her clothing was ripped and singed.

That said, she wasn’t the person who’d caught the girl’s eye.

At least I’m not the only one who thinks this is absurd.

The girl’s eyes had swept straight past the crash victim to the man standing behind her — the one studying a brochure about local hiking trails with intense fascination. Under the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights, against a backdrop of knotty pine-paneled walls, he looked even more ridiculously out of place than he had on the side of the road. As though he was taking a brief respite from heaven to enjoy the local scenery and inhale the aromas of Pine-Sol and black mold.

Brie reclaimed her backpack.

“Bad day in the woods?” The girl’s name tag identified her as Lucy.

“You could say that,” Brie answered flatly, rummaging around in the bag. She produced an ID and slid it across the counter. “Just the cheapest room you have, please.”

One with a shower.

The girl nodded and began typing, though her attention remained elsewhere. “Didn’t seem to rough him up too much,” she murmured under her breath.

Brie opened her mouth with a cutting reply, but her savior beat her to it, setting down the brochure and walking up beside her.

“Only my nose,” he answered proudly, gesturing to the blood. “It may never be the same.”

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