Page 12 of Fractured

“No?” He looked up, and I had the chance to really see his face. The sharp angles of his cheek bones, the defined jaw line, the fullness of his lips. And this time, his eyes were almost completely blue. “Pity.”

Smooth. This man was a grade A charmer. And I’d never been one for charm. I politely smiled and took a ginormous bite of my sandwich. The meal was gone much too quickly, and with a full stomach, I scooted back against the tree, but almost halfway around the side to give my tree buddy some privacy.

Closing my eyes, I imagined what it would be like to be so comfortable with my surroundings that I could take a nap. Forget everything and everyone and drift away into oblivion. At least for a few minutes.

“Do you believe everything has a soul?” The man’s melodious voice broke my relaxation.

It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up with what he had said. Souls?

I’d never been a religious person. If I remembered correctly, I’d only stepped into a church one time in my life. And that was with a foster family at Christmas. They weren’t even regulars, only going on the major holidays of Easter and Christmas.

Kind of ironic since my mother birthed me during one of her manic episodes. They’d been unable to give her any of her psych medication while she was in labor, and when they’d asked her for a name, she’d decided I should be called Lilith. The mother of all demons, because I was surely the cause of hers.

“What’s a soul? A fictional belief that makes most of the human population believe they need a god to follow in order to enter a mythical afterlife?”

“Whoa. That was a little abrasive.” The man bent his head forward to see me better.

“Sorry, you’re catching me on a bad day,” I grumbled and took another sip of my drink to keep from spewing more negativity.

“How about the belief that some part of you is immortal and that once you die, not that you necessarily go to Heaven” —he must have felt it important to clarify— “but that it lives on in the world. Consider it a part of yourself that will never be forgotten in the sands of time.”

With adding a trip to see Lauren to my daily agenda, the last thing I wanted to do was have a philosophical debate in the park.

“Again, it goes back to the human need for reassurance. People need to know they won’t be forgotten. They need to know they will go to Heaven instead of Hell, even if they can’t quite bring themselves to believe in it like the religion demands.”

He whistled under his breath. “I wish I had more friends like you, Miss…” He inched closer so all the space I’d left between us was eaten up by his forwardness.

Even through my pique, I enjoyed myself. Surprisingly. And for that, and his talent for bringing me back to the now instead of perilously stuck in the past, I gave him my name. “Lilith Durand.”

He stuck out his hand. “Ambrose Karras. Resident author and full-time researcher of random things.”

His hand was warm and dry against my own. Instead of giving me the perfunctory shake, he brought it to his mouth for a soft kiss. His lips were harder than I’d imagined as they brushed across my skin.

“A pleasure to meet you.”

“I’d love to say the same, but I… Actually, it’s nice to meet you too.” Even if I had a scathing comment on the tip of my tongue, I couldn’t be mean to him. Not when he was trying so hard to talk to me.

Amusement flashed across his eyes as he laid his open paperback across his thigh and crossed his arms. It was like he knew he was irritating me and loved it. “So, you don’t believe every living creature, whether it be plant, animal, or otherwise, has a soul?”

“No.” I didn’t even need to think about my answer.

“That’s kind of sad.” He dropped his head to the left to rest on the trunk of the tree. “Don’t you want some part of yourself to live on after you die?”

“I hope not.” My mouth turned down at the corners as I thought about what that would mean if it did.

“Why?” He seemed genuinely perplexed and intrigued all at once.

“Because if it did, that would mean some part of my mother and father would live on, and I hope for the sake of the world, everything died or will die with them as they take their final breaths.” I drew in a jagged puff of air and wiped the beading sweat from my forehead. “I’m sorry. You probably wanted some light conversation with a stranger in the park. Instead, you got me, a regular poisonous ball of sunshine.”

He shook his head once. “This is exactly what I was looking for. Who wants a conversation where the other person agrees with them on every aspect of the topic? I’d much rather imbibe a little poison and learn something about the world than live in oblivious and ignorant bliss.”

I grinned down at my lap. “Then you found the right person. I couldn’t be further from ignorant bliss.”

“My kind of girl,” he said lightly, but it was still suggestive enough that I turned my head back toward him.

Resting his head against the tree, he had his eyes closed and hands clasped loosely in his lap. He was the picture of serenity. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine him so at one with the tree that the roots would wind up over his legs and torso and claim him for its own, adding his body to the tree’s.

I had never had that much grounding. In fact, I was quite the opposite, trying much too hard to hold on to everything I knew. Maybe if I hadsomeoneto hold onto, life would be different.

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