Page 61 of Death is My Ride or Die

I knew that Death was no longer standing behind me. But his sinister laughter lingered in fractured echoes that bounced off the high ceiling. The sound tricked me into turning toward different parts of the warehouse. At some point, I fisted my hands and tried to create my own light. I let out an exasperated noise and rubbed my hands together as if it would make a fire. Nothing.

“Seriously?” I picked up my arm and let it fall with a slap. “Turning the lights off to make me rely on my senses? You’re skipping over at least thirty stages of hand-to-hand combat for a novice.”I would know, I Googled.

I got no response.

This was another one of the Grim Reaper’s games. I felt his gaze on me in the darkness like a beacon. He could see me, but I couldn’t see him.

I started to move, slowly, feeling with my senses and hoping I didn’t trip over anything. I wouldn’t rush. That was exactly what a predator like Death wanted: a runner.

While my vision was gone, my hearing was heightened. I focused on things I hadn’t noticed before. The small, occasional crack in my left ankle. The clicks from the vents steadily blowing heat into the space.

No matter how hard I strained to listen for Death’s footsteps, I heard nothing. He was too good at skulking in the dark.

I shuffled into something sturdy and nearly fell over. I felt a brief presence at my back and something wet caress my neck. A tongue. It licked up my throat, fangs grazing my skin. I bottled up my shriek, my head flinching away out of instinct, followed by a slow burn of heat that shimmied down my body. I spun on my heel and took a swipe at the air with my fist.

“Your instinct is to react with emotion,” Death’s deep voice instructed from no particular spot. But I couldn’t focus on anything except the idea of strangling him. “This is purely instinctual. Feel me in the room with you.”

I let out a frustrated noise. “This is pointless.”

“Pointless, until you don’t have perfect lighting during a fight. Until you can’t see your opponent, but they can see you. And you . . . look . . .tasty.” I felt the air get colder to my left and took that as a hint that he was there and snatched empty air again. Something tripped me, and I lost my balance, crashing to the floor with a grunt.

“That’s what happens when you don’t focus,” Death said.

“I’m not like you,” I seethed, picking myself off the ground. “I can’t see in the dark.”

“I understand this is difficult, but it’s not impossible.” His voice moved to my left. “Not for you. You may bleed and breathe like humans, but deep down, you know you’re different. You feel it.”

I stood still. “What am I, Death?”

“Definitely not a creature with night vision.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was perched somewhere above me. “You can control your power to come and go at will. But first, you need to build mental resiliency.”

“Don’t I already have resiliency to be where I am now?” I demanded, emotion breaking through my words. “Maybe I should just become immortal. You guys all seem much harder to kill.”

“Immortality comes with a price. A price you should fear more than death.”

“I’m not afraid of death. Not anymore.” I pinched my lips together as those words hit me harder than I expected. “I’ve been thinking about it. Immortality can be a choice, can’t it? Ace must have found a way with magic to extend his life.”

“You want to live forever, Faith?” I felt the air shift and drop to a frigid temperature. The closeness of his voice indicated he was standing right in front of me. “I will assume you wish to be immortal inyourworld. Well then, let me paint the picture for you.”

His voice circled around me.

“Imagine all the mortals around you dying while you remain the same. You’ll seek a companion in this endless time, someone to fill the void in your heart, but they’ll all be temporary and abandon you, until you don’t have much of a heart left anymore. Imagine starting over, creating a whole new identity once people begin to notice your differences. You’ll have to change your name and appearance constantly, or risk exposure and hunters who seek people with your gifts. Eventually, you’ll kill someone.” He ran a gloved hand along my braid as he continued his stalking. “Maybe you’ll like killing, Faith. Maybe you’ll becomeobsessedwith it. You’ll lose yourself to the madness of it all. Time will fly by like a merry-go-round at a carnival. It’ll just circle and circle, and then one day, finally, you’ll see the truth.”

I felt the heat of his body behind me, his breath tickling my ear.

“You’ll realize how selfish immortality is. How wrong you were to ever want it in the first place. But you’re not the person who made that decision anymore. That person is long gone. Youkilledher.”

A life of loneliness, death, repetitiveness. Insanity . . . It wasn’t what I wanted. Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Each day, it weighed heavier and heavier, like a foreboding presence, making me increasingly aware of my own mortality.

His gloved fingers gripped my chin, turning my face toward his in the dark. “If you sacrifice your identity out of fear, then you will never recover it again. Isn’t that what you fear the most, Faith? Losing yourself?”

Yes. But I also fear losing younearly escaped.

And it stunned me.

“Do you know what I wished for on my eighteenth birthday?” I whispered. “I wanted to know who I was. If you think I’m anywhere near existing in that wish, you’re dead wrong. I can’t lose something I never truly had.”

My hands felt hot, and when I looked down, flickers of white were leaping from my right hand, lighting up a section of the dark warehouse. It was scorching hot, and as it burst, a small piece of light burned my cheek. I stared down at my hand in horror, and my throat tightened at the thought of losing control again. The more scared I became, the more violently the light ignited.

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