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He doesn’t ask questions, so I go on without further thought.

“I no longer want this life,” I say, my voice higher in pitch than usual. “I would like to start my life, away from all of this, and I never want to look back. So, I’m asking you if I help you get everything you want...will you let me walk away?”

Tipping his head to the side, he inhales deeply before slowly blowing smoke from his lips. “You want freedom?”

Swallowing, I nod. “Yes.”

“And you wish me to give it to you?”

I nod.

“Tell me, first, how did you kill her?”

He’s never going to let that go.

He’s never going to walk away until I tell him.

He wants me to say it out loud, to give him every horrifying detail.

So, that’s precisely what I do.

I tell him everything, including how she begged on the ground before me, blood pouring from her mouth, and I did nothing. I kicked the phone away from her, so she couldn’t call for help, and I stared down at her until the life was sucked from her eyes.

“I am impressed,” he murmurs, walking over to me, “you’ve always intrigued me, but now I must say you’d be a good asset to have on my side.”

“I would rather not be an asset,” I say, firmly. “I simply want freedom. Are you willing to give that to me in exchange for my help, or not?”

It takes him so long to answer, I begin to fear he won’t.

“Very well, if you give me everything I ask for, you may walk away.”

“Free of everything,” I say, “never to be bothered by this life again?”

“As you wish.”

Now, the question that terrifies me the most. “What exactly do I have to do for you?”

He smiles. “Just one thing. You have to take out the one thing that is in my way, that will be in my way until he is removed.”

No.

No.

Please don’t say it.

“You have to kill Death.”

~*~*~*~

THERE IS A LEVEL OFpain in my heart as I sit in the back of the cab on the way back to the club, a level that I don’t know if I can handle.

He wants me to kill Death.

The only thing he is asking in return for my freedom, for a life without him or anyone else in it, a life that I can start anew. If I don’t do it, then he won’t release me. I’ll be forever in his world, and the thought of that makes me almost sicker than the one where he asked me to kill a man I really don’t want to.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how I’m going to make this choice.

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