Page 13 of Death

Chapter 3

It’s a dark night in January with snow on the ground and ice in the air, but I’m not cold. I’m thirteen years old and I’m stuck in bed with a fever. It’s too cold without the blanket but too hot beneath it. I keep kicking it off and shivering to the bone as a result. The more I try to get comfortable the worse it becomes.

Then, I see him standing at the other side of the room. I startle up to sit, thinking my mind is playing tricks on me. I know him but I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him before in my life but I recognize his presence, like an old friend or a guardian angel.

“Shh,” he whispers as he steps forward. “It’s all right. Lie back down.”

I do as he says. I trust him but I’m terrified. I’m on the verge of tears but I feel like laughing. I’m so cold but covered in sweat. Everything hurts. Nothing makes sense.

He places his hand on my forehead. I lean into it, enjoying the ice-cold touch on my burning skin.

“Hold still, Tannis,” he says, his face soft and comforting.

I relax, closing my eyes as he places his other hand over my heart.

And just like that, my fever breaks. I can breathe. I feel like myself again.

“You’re okay now,” he says, pushing my hair behind my ears. “Go back to sleep.”

* * *

He’s saved my life before.

It was seven years ago. I’d already been out of school for a whole week. My parents were worried. They never said it but I could tell they were terrified that I wasn’t getting any better.

Then, suddenly, my mystery illness vanished.

When I went down for breakfast that morning, I told them about the man in my room. They didn’t believe me, of course. It was just a fever dream, they said. Just some hallucination my brain created to make sense of it.

But I knew better. I knew what I saw. I knew what I felt.

His ice-cold touch. His deep, soulful eyes. His low voice.

Ari.

I stare at my bedroom ceiling, still wrapped in my warm, blanket cocoon. I’ve been up for hours now just replaying last night over and over again.

The man who pulled me from the path of a speeding car healed me in this very room seven years ago.

Could I be wrong?

Is my brain somehow transplanting the memory of him over another?

Have I finally gone mad?

I roll off my bed and get dressed in a cardigan and jeans before heading downstairs. Voices murmur in from the kitchen down the hall, partially obscured beneath the sizzle of bacon on a skillet.

“It wasn’t him, Moira.”

“Yes, it was.”

“It’s not time yet.”

“It’s close enough, Owen.”

I pause on the final stair, holding my breath to stand completely silent.

Dad lets out a long sigh and flicks off the stovetop. “Then, what do you want to do?” he asks. “Tell her?”

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