Page 81 of Death Match

In this life, I had been bound to a post at the town’s center with a pile of wood and straw at my feet. The terror of knowing my death was coming flashed in my eyes, and when one of the men holding a torch tossed the thing onto the pyre, the woman with my soul screamed.

The memory bubbled and burst like the first. Another sharp pain jabbed at the center of my chest and stole my breath away.

Gasping, I watched as the next memory formed and played out. The one with the girl running through the woods and the man following her in a drunken rage.

Something wasn’t right. I could feel parts of myself slipping away by the second.

Just like before, when the memory ended, it shattered and disappeared. I was stuck feeling the void it left behind.

I was supposed to be gaining all my memories from my past lives. Not losing them. And as the next ones appeared and disappeared in the same way, I realized that definitely seemed to be what was happening.

Panic gripped me. In a blur of speed, the other memories rushed by, all disappearing in tiny eruptions of color and energy. Each one took the wind out of me, and I was left shaking and struggling for breath.

Finally, the image of me as I knew me, with jeans, a tank top, and boots, floated to the surface. My most recent life. The one I wanted to know most of all.

I stared at the scratchy image of myself, hoping of all my past lives, this was the one I’d be able to hold on to.

My living-self looked out with sad eyes. Then, the picture convulsed and ruptured until nothing was left. Just like the others.

I gasped, my soul completely barren.

I had lost them. All of them.

My memories were gone.

Pressure unlike anything I’d ever felt before pushed down on me. Even more than the roof of the church during my second Trial. It was as if an invisible rope had tied itself around my very being and was yanking me backward, while at the same time, something from above was pushing me toward it.

A part of me fought the pulling sensation, but it was so forceful and I was so weak already, I lost the fight too easily. I let out another scream as I was whisked away. From the labyrinth. From Eli. From Michael.

And from Heaven.

When all sensations floated back to me from a distant place, I waited a few extra breaths before peeling my eyes open. The first thing I noticed was the darkness. But not the pitch-black kind I’d experienced while in my own mind. This was a familiar darkness, one interrupted by sparkling stars and a sliver of moon.

Wherever I was, it was night, and I was on my back, staring up at the sky. The scents of fish, gasoline, and fresh dirt perfumed the air, and I sat up quickly—too quickly, actually—because my vision spun out of control for a minute and nausea tumbled in my stomach.

Once the dizzy spell subsided enough, I gulped in a lungful of air and took in my new surroundings. Here, the darkness was so thick in the late hour, it was difficult to make out anything besides strange, shadowy shapes and the bitter cold of the temperature.

Slowly, I pushed myself up to stand. Pain lingered in my muscles, making the simple move more agonizing than it should be. My legs shook and my head whirled as my body readjusted, but when I took my first step forward, my knee collided with something hard, sending new pain sparking through every nerve ending and me stumbling forward. When I threw my hand out to catch myself, it landed on a cool, smooth surface.

Light pulsed from my palms, temporarily illuminating the object beneath me. As I lifted my hands slightly, so that my power could help me see, a large marble stone engraved with a person’s name and year of birth and death lit up in the soft glow.

A tombstone.

I retracted my hands, realizing where I was. Those strange shapes and shadows? The strong scent of freshly tossed dirt? Those were graves. And I was surrounded by them.

I was in a cemetery.

Because I’d been able to touch the tombstone and feel the pain of hitting my knee, that meant I was solid again, alive, and had wound up on the living plane somehow.

Unless I had been thrown into another Trial, but that scenario was less likely—at least I hoped so.

Whatever had happened, I had a hunch it wasn’t good. Especially if I had, in fact, been ripped out of Heaven, away from Eli and Michael, to this side of the veil. Who could do such a thing?

“It’s funny how we keep meeting like this,” a smooth, male voice came from ahead of me, as if to answer my thoughts.

My spine straightened, and I stared into the place where my light didn’t touch.

“Who’s there?” I asked, straining to see through the shadows.

---