Page 9 of Ruled By Fate

“Oh.” He shot her a bracing look as if trying to remember a script from a past life. “Well, you know what they say about material possessions—”

“It’s just stuff, right?” she interrupted bitingly. “It’s all replaceable?”

His face went blank. “I was going to say you should treat them with care.”

With a sound like a dying whale, the car roof collapsed in on itself, emitting another puff of smoke. She turned slowly from the rubble to look at him, narrowing her eyes.

Perhaps it’s best if you don’t say anything.

She tested her limbs. Three out of four. Fewer than she preferred, but she’d make it work. She struggled to sit up and made some decent headway before a sharp, stabbing pain made her gasp and sink back to the asphalt with a defeated whimper. There was no part of her that didn’t hurt. She was scraped, cut, bruised, and likely broken in several places. She swore her hair hurt.

That’s when she spotted what was left of her phone, lying on the ground in several pieces.

“The next town is twenty-two miles away,” she said in misery, remembering the last road sign. A wave of hopelessness swept over her. “And these woods are full of raccoons.”

He pursed his lips, following her gaze.

With spirals of acrid smoke curling around her, she honestly didn’t know what the worst part of this situation was: that she had wrecked her car and lost all her possessions, that she would probably never make it to her new home in Virginia, or that she was stranded on the side of the road with a man or hallucination she had recently sworn to disavow for all eternity.

Probably the shadow monsters. Remember the shadow monsters?

…On second thought, DON’T think about the shadow monsters.

It might have seemed impossible, it might have seemed like the only thing in the world she should care about, but there was only so much a person could handle before they simply shut down. She consciously put the terrifying creatures out of her mind.

At any rate, they weren’t new. She had seen them before.

“Twenty-two miles,” she muttered again, shoulders dropping with a helpless sigh.

He hesitated a moment, tensing as if he’d heard the entire parade of despairing thoughts. Then without any warning, he scooped her up as one would a small child. “Then we’ll have a lovely walk.”

? ? ?

For the next twenty-two miles, Brie’s imaginary angel carried her effortlessly down the road, along with the only bag that had managed to escape the crash and the blast radius of the ensuing pyrotechnics. Mercifully, it was her backpack. Inside it, her wallet, a change of clothes, and a bottle of water had all escaped the ordeal unharmed. The water was apparently of premium importance. He’d insisted she take a few sips before he took off at a crisp pace down the road.

As he walked, she stole glances at him, trying to examine him without being noticed.

Well, he’s certainly real.

She was pressed against his body, which was every bit as solid as her own. The warmth of him, the beat of his heart, the rhythmic breathing. He was steady. Everything about him was steady. He hadn’t even blinked when her car exploded.

My car.

An alarming thought occurred to her. Maybe I’m dead.

Oh, she hoped not. Her poor father. He couldn’t lose his wife and daughter like this, so many years apart. It was too cruel. She had to be alive, if only for his sake.

She decided to put it to the test. As discreetly as she could muster, she lifted a hand, preparing to strike herself across the face. Most people might try pinching, but she figured things had escalated several levels past that point. Her eyes closed as her palm flew towards her face, but an inch before contact, it abruptly stopped, hovering in the air, halted by some unseen force. She stared in alarm as a throat cleared softly above her.

“Brianna?”

She looked up slowly, only to see him staring back down at her with an indecipherable expression. It might have been exasperation, but the twinkle of amusement in his eyes gave it away. “This is real.”

She nodded once, deciding to put the matter to rest.

“How did you get here?” she asked suddenly, squirming to see him better, head swimming with concussed questions. “We’re pretty far from civilization. Did you drive?”

“Drive,” he repeated, amused by the idea. “No, I didn’t drive.”

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