Page 8 of Veiled Fate
Jada Saunders.
That time, the voice wasn’t deafening, though I still cried out in surprise. I wasn’t listening to it. It was simplyin my head. A very unsettling experience.
What was more, however, was that I recognized the voice.
“I’ve heard you before,” I said, feeling slightly silly talking to a speck of glowing green light. “Haven’t I?”
There was a pause. Was I losing it? Maybe the light wasn’t the voice.
Yes.
The light pulsed in time with the response.
“Are you … are you Fate?” I asked.
A ghostly figure appeared where the light had been, outlined in the same emerald light. It was a darker, less pale light than what I’d seen in the Fate Stone.
Fate … A part of Fate.
“You’re the piece stuck in me,” I guessed. “Does that mean you’re free now?”
Free.
The ghostly image turned and gestured at the cave entrance.
Free.
“I don’t know where this place is. What is it? Why show it to me?”
Fate.
“I know you’re Fate!” I shouted, frustrated. “You’re Fate. I’m Jada, and I’m dead. Can you just let me go and be dead already? This is frustrating.”
I never in a thousand years would have expected to so calmly protest about being forced to do something after being skewered by a super-assassin, but come on. I was dead! I didn’t need to be doinganythinganymore. Wasn’t that part of the deal of dying? The not having to act like a living being?
What a rip-off that was turning out to be.
Jada. Fate. Free.
The being gestured at the cave entrance once more.
“You want me to go inside? Is that it?” I asked, taking a step toward the cave. “Fine, I’ll go into the spooky cave for you. After all, what’s the worst that could happen to me? I die again? Might be a bit more peaceful this time.”
Grumbling to myself and wondering if that was why the undead always seemed so cranky in stories, I stalked toward the cave.
As I approached, it started to spin.
No, I was spinning.
Everything was spinning, and I was falling forward into the vortex.
“What thefuuuucckkkkkkk!” I howled as I was flushed like a toilet bowl.
Chapter Five
“Oh, no, Jada,” someone moaned softly from nearby. “Calli damn Arcadus!”
My eyes flicked open to see Andi crouched beside my head, looking down at me with tears in her eyes.
