Page 10 of Death Match

Michael looked Eli’s way then back at me. A sympathetic smile flickered across his lips. “Elijah, why don’t you take Jade back to the Holdings. I think she’s had enough for today. We can pick this up again another time.”

“Yes, sir.” When Eli reached for me, I turned away sharply and started walking toward the exit on my own. The sting of his betrayal still lingered, and it hurt. A lot.

Eli’s soft footsteps echoed behind me as he followed.

Michael was right about one thing. I had had enough for one day. Enough of everyone’s shit.

My entire body was heavy with exhaustion, and my head spun with chaotic thoughts. Trying to sort through them all was draining.

I was done. Completely done.

Before stepping through the revolving door, I glanced over my shoulder one last time and looked past Eli to where Michael stood. As if he could see me staring his way, he gave me a knowing nod. Then, his body faded away until nothing remained but a bright hovering ball of light. Just like the one Eli could turn into. An angel’s pure state.

A second later, the orb rocketed upward through the ceiling and disappeared.

Eli didn’t say a word to me the entire walk back to the house, for which I was thankful. He was letting me process my thoughts myself, and boy, were they colliding into each other and making a mess in my head.

If I wanted to be fair, I could say Eli had made the gravity of my situation clear from the beginning, so all this shouldn’t be surprising. And wallowing in self-pity and doubt wasn’t helping anything.

But did I feel like being fair right now?

No. I didn’t.

Eli and I had been spending so much time together recently, trying to reform the relationship we’d once had, that it had made it easier to ignore the truth. Being in his bed allowed me to forget, and I reveled in those moments of relief from the complicated. Now, I was being asked to plow forward obediently and leave everything I knew behind. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Actually, I was pretty positive I wasn’t ready.

Once inside the immaculate house in the Holdings, I shucked off my boots and went straight for the oversized brown leather couch. I plopped on it, spreading my body out in a very unlady-like but comfortable way, and groaned.

Eli came over and sat on the opposite end, near my bare foot.

“I know this is a lot for you,” he whispered as a way to start the conversation I didn’t want to have but probably needed. “To go from not knowing anything about who you are to getting all this information at once…”

“Do you know?” I shot back at him, unable to stop the frustration from peaking and revealing itself in my voice. “Because I don’t think you really do.”

He blinked, obviously surprised by my brash reaction.

“You keep saying you understand, but how could you?” I couldn’t help it. The words were rushing out of me now, the dam broken. “To have everything you are ripped away from you? To feel an emptiness inside every day of your afterlife, knowing there was more waiting for you but never being able to find it? Then to be told you’re supposed to be something greater than you could ever imagine? That the universe and all of creation is depending on you not to fuck up. But when in reality, all you are is a fuck-up, and it’s only a matter of time before you let them all down…”

Tears stung my eyes as all the emotions I’d been holding back for so long came speeding to the surface. I pushed myself to sit up.

“These are people’s souls we’re talking about here and everything as we know it. All of it is in my very incapable hands. So, don’t tell me you understand what I’m feeling when I know for fucking sure there’s no way you can. No way. Because that’s a fucking lie, and we both know it.”

Eli stayed quiet. He even glanced away as my biting words hovered in the silence around us.

I swiped an escaped tear with the back of my hand, pissed at myself for letting it show at all. Now that I had laid it all out there—in one very rageful rant—I couldn’t reel it back in. Couldn’t take it back. But embarrassment was beginning to replace the fury for letting Eli see me so emotional and unhinged, and an apology was already pressing against my lips.

With my elbows on my knees, I put my face in my hands and rubbed my cheeks hard, an attempt to snap me out of my own head.

It could be a real dangerous place to visit sometimes.

“I’m sorry…” There it was. The apology had escaped. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I blame it on PMS—”

Technically, that particular monthly issue was no longer a problem after death, but that wasn’t going to stop me from using it to explain my moments of crazy. As a woman, I earned that right.

“You’re right.” His words were sharper than his usual tone. “I don’t know what you’re going through. Neither does Michael. And we never will.”

Well, that surprised me. I hadn’t expected him to agree with me.

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