Page 58 of Death is My BFF

Alexandru. . .

I’d been so absorbed in the scene I’d forgotten I was standing here. Then again, everything about this strange place made me feel detached. Compelled to follow, I dashed after the boy with the mismatched eyes.

We came to an opening near a stream with flat moss, where a massive, enchanting willow tree anchored its roots beneath a haloing light. Long weeping branches with oval leaves curved over the ground like wings of an archangel, swaying in the gentle wind.

Alexandru grabbed a cluster of vines at the trunk of the willow and wrenched free a blanket of camouflage. This revealed an aging mirror made of silver instead of glass. It blended into the bark of the trunk as though they were merged into one. The mirror had a chipped frame, the silver scarred with imperfections and growths on the surface.

What transpired next between the boy and the willow tree unfolded like the beginning of a dark, twisted tale, etching into my soul. I would never forget it.

With a sudden jolt of pain, I warped back into the warehouse.

Death breathed raggedly, his strong hand wrapped around my throat like a vise. The air was so cold my rapid breaths clung to it.

“Get out of my head!” Death barked. He clutched my throat tighter.“Get out!”

I wanted to delve further into this world, feel more from this tainted heart, but our connection was fragmenting bit by bit. I couldn’t let go; I didn’t knowhow. A phantom hand reached into my chest and squeezed as a great weight pressed against my lungs.

His power vibrated through me, released from my eyes in a torrent of tears.

The link severed. And the black veil fell.

XI

DEATH

Wind and rain whipped around my cloak, a nightmarish storm wreaking havoc on precious Pleasant Valley.

This girl was getting on my last nerve.

From the sidewalk across the street, I watched Faith pace the length of her bedroom, absorbed in the little piece of paper I’d written on. My scowl deepened. She had collapsed in the warehouse, folding into my arms like a doll. I’d taken her home, but I didn’t plan on sticking around to chat once she awakened.

I’d let my guard down. She’d touched me again. Delving into my most private domain and leaving me helpless to a power she couldn’t even control. She’d torn through a barrier between us, paralyzing me, implanting her consciousness into mine like a viper injecting venom into its prey. Now, in the wake of what she’d done, my control wavered. A dent embedded in a cage door that imprisoned the monster on the other side.

I could hear its sinister whispers, leaking into my thoughts.

A cruel, malicious voice, so akin to mine I could hardly tell the difference anymore.End this all, it purred.You know she would betasty.

My neck rolled, a groan tumbling out. I should have snapped her skinny neck in the warehouse. Snatched the light from her eyes and saved myself from the constant burden of keeping tabs on her. A simple thought, a slight movement of my fingers—dead.

The longer I reeled over our interaction, the darker my thoughts dimmed, and the more I wished I had indeed ended this charade once and for all.Temptingwas not the word for the effect her near-ness had on me. Interacting with a human was always a dangerous game when I was depleted of energy, but over two thousand years of experience and adapting to my cravings had not prepared me forherand that sharp tongue.

It didn’t help that her hair products, skin cream, and perfume combined created the aroma of a goddamn dessert. Why couldn’t she reek of body odor and stale french fries, like the other mortals at her high school?

I’d known from the day she took the deal that a power dwelled in her soul. An energy, which made her aura glow like a lantern. I never thought it’d develop into such a pain in the ass.

Faith’s thoughts after she’d entered my conscious were too chaotic to decipher. Half the time, I couldn’t hear her thoughts at all, and when I could, they were often in broken-up fragments, like a poor radio signal. However, this time I’d plucked enough from her brain to know exactly where she’d landed in my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to keep it together.

Facing what I’d buried long ago was inevitable. Memory is the true curse of immortality and forgetting is a forgiveness the wicked are not spared. The night pulsed to the pounding of my undead heart, the roar of my past smothering out the howling winds.

I was around ten or eleven years old, perched below the canopy of the mulberry tree. Rooted at the peak of a grassy hill, it overlooked our entire vineyard with proud emerald arms. Every early afternoon, I would take my meal from the servants to go in my satchel and race through the endless rows of the olive trees to feast beneath its blooming branches. Now the blooms were turning to fruit—deep red berries. I’d pluck them straight off the branches, my mouth stained crimson from their juice.

I dropped down to a lower branch, then another, before landing in the pillowing grass. Ringlets of golden hair fell into my eyes as I pushed aside a worn-out log and dug into the dirt below it with a flat stone. My bare feet were grimed with dirt, and my play tunic, draping off my one shoulder from where it was torn, bore a few stains from adventuring in the woods.

Displayed on a linen cloth to my right were a few rocks, a snake’s skin, and various-sized pieces of wood I would chisel into figurines.

What stood out amongst the rest was an odd-shaped blade, which I picked up and caressed my small fingers over. It reminded me of a jagged crescent moon, with intricate symbols along the blade and hilt. This weapon was my most prized possession and my greatest secret. Uncovering it had led me to something so otherworldly and precious that I felt it was my responsibility to protect it. Which was why I was burying it here, under my mulberry tree, where it would be safe, and my father would never find it.

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