Page 79 of Death is My BFF

David rolled back his shoulders. “Wings can be considered an intimate part of angel’s body. With you, it’d be the equivalent of showing you my dick.”

Heat crawled up my neck. “Never mind.” It was time to change the subject. “What else can you do? Can you read my mind?”I surehope not.

“No,” he said. “I can only control you slightly, like that trick I did earlier to Marcy. I tried to test the malleability of your mind during our interview, and it proved to be very difficult. ”

“But if you really tried?”

“I should be able to influence you, yes.”

“Try it right now.”

Sighing, he lifted his sunglasses up. I watched the pupils of his eyes stutter. “Tell me a secret, Faith.”

“I have two boxes of packaged cupcakes and my grandpa’s old machete stored under my floorboards in case of a zombie apocalypse.

First day of sophomore year, I wore this really pretty jumpsuit my aunt gave me as a gift. I drank way too much coffee that morning and had to go number two in the worst way. I rushed to the bathroom and into the stall. I almost made it. Bye, bye pretty jumpsuit.”

David burst out laughing.

I snapped out of it, blinking fast. “How the hell did you do that?”

He wiped at his eyes under his sunglasses, crying from laughing so hard. “That time I got lucky. You told me two secrets instead of one. Coffee went right through you, huh?”

Mortified, I covered my face with both hands.

“What are your intentions now?” I asked, urgently trying to direct the conversation back to the point. “With me.”

David pushed his jacket back to rest his hands on either side of his belt. “I want you to trust me, so I can protect you. There’s a spare bedroom at my penthouse in the city and you could lay low there for a while. That way, you would be out of harm’s way, while Devin and I find a way to thwart Death. Whatever connection Death has to you, it needs to be severed first and foremost. I have a feeling Malphas will back off then.”

The day I was supposed to die, Death had seen something special in my soul. I couldn’t explain why, or how, but I’d known all along he’d created an invisible bridge between us to come back to me. I hadn’t seen the last of Death. He’d left his mark on my soul. There wasn’t anything I could do about it on my own.

I looked down at my hands and curled my fingers into my palms.

There was something inside of me, building, peaking at that very moment, and the migraine from earlier shoved through the Tylenol and hit me at full force.

“I meant what I said, about caring about you,” David said, and there was a warm fluttering in my chest that seemed to reduce the headache. “Can you promise to keep this conversation between us?”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I said, withdrawing back. “I have to get back to Marcy, and I need time to think about all of this. It’s a lot to take in.”

David nodded once in acceptance. “Take whatever time you need. Just know it may be of the essence. You know my number.”

Without saying good-bye, we both turned our backs on each other and retreated. I entered Manuel’s more confused and uncertain of the world than ever before.

XV

Marcy remembered she had to pick up her brother from soccer practice, so we parted ways from Manuel’s around six. Now I was alone with my hectic thoughts.

I had tons of schoolwork, which meant I needed to stop in town to get me a vanilla latte to wake up, ASAP, before I risked passing out and falling behind again with my school assignments.

On the richer side of Pleasant Valley, there was a popular road called Station Street, the yellow brick road to my favorite coffee shop. I didn’t visit Main Street often because it was always crowded and hard to park, but whenever I needed art supplies or a real good cup o’ joe, I endured the social anxiety and headed into town.

Lined up on either side of Station Street were beautifully decorated stores. Each building stood apart from the other, colorful and unique, with window displays that made you stop and stare. This month’s theme? Halloween, of course. As soon as I caught a glimpse of the decorations in the coffee shop, a sense of nostalgia brought a smile to my face. Aunt Sarah would always take me here around Christmas for new clothes. We’d check out all the festive holiday window displays and marvel at the strings of rainbow Christmas lights twinkling along streetlamps and stores.

As I approached the cozy shop, I felt like I’d made the right choice in coming here to reboot. I stopped for a moment to view the window display with various carved pumpkins and snapped a photo for Aunt Sarah. Satisfied, I started to walk away, when in the reflection of the window, a motionless figure standing across the street caught my eye.

I spun around and saw a man in all black. He stood apart from everyone else, dark hair, pale skin, beady black eyes. His sharp, unnatural features and malicious stare reminded me of Malphas’s raven demons. I froze so stiffly that I couldn’t breathe.

A bus rolled by, momentarily blocking my view of the man, and when it passed, he was gone.

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