The Daily Struggles of an Immortal

by Kurtis Eckstein

  A chill ran down my spine and I leaned forward to kiss her again, proud that my girl was such a badass.

  Freya interrupted us. “Right. Well, let’s continue this later. Lily’s got a crime scene to incinerate and I’ve got a computer to hack.”

  25: Equilibrium of Three

  “Well, your boss is definitely our next target,” Freya said, pulling my attention away from the skyscraper of white fire. Lily hadn’t been kidding when saying she had some pent-up frustration to let out.

  “Seriously?” Freya’s comment surprised me, but not nearly as much as the fact that she had literally just opened the computer a few seconds ago. “You already know it was him? That was fast.”

  She gave me a smirk. “They didn’t make it hard. Honestly, these people weren’t very smart. If it wasn’t for their superpowers, then they probably would have been caught a long time ago.”

  Partially focused on my second-sight, I saw that Lily was now heading out of what was left of the building. Her impressive display of power was sure to draw unwanted attention, which meant we needed to leave as soon as possible.

  My thoughts wandered to my boss again. “So how should we handle this then?” I asked seriously, still looking at Freya with my physical eyes. “If he’s responsible for Lily getting abducted, then he will know his plan failed. Obviously, he won’t know we are aware of his involvement, but he might be highly suspicious if you ask him out on a date now.”

  She nodded in agreement. Lily was already slipping through the hole in the chain-link fence I had created with my invisible appendages. Freya’s expression darkened again. “I don’t think we should worry about being discrete at this point. I say we go straight for him and kill the bastard.”

  I considered that. I wanted revenge too. After all, my own boss had literally paid for Lily to be tortured and killed, all while being filmed for the world to see. For me to see. However, there was a reason why Freya didn’t want to kill Nick – a reason she seemed to have currently lost sight of.

  I could see now how she really did have a problem with being impulsive. “But won’t that tip off our real enemy?” I asked hesitantly.

  She stared at me for a second, the logic working on her. “Oh,” she finally said, the evil glint in her eye disappearing. “Oh, I guess you’re right.”

  “Trust me Freya, I don’t want to be right. I want to kill him too. Slowly. Painfully. But if he’s just another pawn, then cutting him down won’t solve the problem long-term.”

  She nodded slowly as Lily opened the door and slid into the backseat. Without another word, Freya threw it into gear and sped off, racing down the road to get as far away as possible. Once we merged with traffic, she slowed down to match everyone else’s speed. She was still covered in blood, but the windows were heavily tinted and it was dark outside.

  “I hope we didn’t ruin your interior,” I commented in passing, really just an excuse to break the silence.

  Freya glanced up at me before shaking her head. “No, it’s waterproof and stain resistant.” Her expression darkened again briefly. “While I try to be good, blood is just a part of my life. It would be foolish of me not to make sure I could easily clean it up.”

  “Oh,” I said simply. “Makes sense.”

  I glanced back at Lily to see her expression tense too. The adrenaline rush had worn off, and everyone seemed more uneasy and worried, rather than pissed.

  I leaned back in my seat and sighed, considering the situation. Considering what to do about Nick. What to do about John.

  If Nick was as ignorant as Freya said, then John would never disclose his actions. Which meant I had to deal with them separately, yet somehow cohesively, so that my overall reaction was consistent. After a moment, I sighed heavily. “I’m going to tell Nick we’re in a three-way, polyamorous, relationship,” I announced.

  Freya’s head snapped in my direction, gawking at me. Lily had a similar reaction.

  “An exclusive polyamorous relationship, right?” Lily asked tentatively.

  I looked at her completely stunned, surprised that she was agreeing to it for real. But I was also surprised that she needed clarification, since I was the only man in existence who either of them could sleep with.

  And then it hit me.

  It was impossible for them to have other relationships…but it wasn’t impossible for me.

  “Oh,” I said as my mind registered what she was implying. “Of course. I’m inherently monogamous to begin with, so having two women in my life is already more than enough for me.” Lily seemed to relax a little, so I quickly continued to explain myself. “But I need a good reason to explain why I abruptly left Nick passed out on my couch. John probably won’t tell him that Lily is supposed to be dead, so I plan on telling him…” I paused, realizing I needed to backtrack. “Okay, so I told Nick that I tried to get Lily to agree to a threesome with Freya – just an excuse to need a guy’s night with lots of drinking involved. I said Lily was pissed about it, but now I can say that she thought it over and changed her mind.”

  Freya glanced back at Lily, who gave her a nod in response.

  I continued, trying not to think too deeply about what they were silently agreeing to. “It’s the perfect reason for why I would just run out like that.” I sighed. “Though that’s going to get awkward fast. Maybe I’ll just tell him we talked about it. I definitely don’t want him asking questions about what happened afterwards. And I’m definitely not making up stories about us having a threesome. I’ll clarify that you’ve both agreed to two separate exclusive relationships.”

  They both made a face of disgust in unison, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the idea of Nick wanting to know, or the idea of a threesome. It could go either way, since technically the things we had done in bedroom weren’t a threesome. I suspected it was the first reason for Freya, and the latter reason for Lily.

  Lily chimed in then. “And I’ll be more careful about what I say to Freya over the phone. The last thing we need is Dave creating more gossip.”

  I nodded in agreement. I was about to speak up when Freya cut me off. “Oh! I have an idea of how we can deal with John discretely.”

  “Yes?” I asked hesitantly.

  Her grin widened. “First of all, obviously we aren’t leaving Lily out of our sight from now on. One of us needs to be with her at all times.” Freya glanced back at her to make sure she was fine with that arrangement. She nodded in agreement. Really, we would just be doing what we had been. After all, for several days now we had all slept in the same bed every night, and Lily and I drove to work together.

  Well, they slept together. I stayed up as usual on my tablet.

  Freya continued. “As long as we make sure Lily’s safe, then we can take our time dealing with John.” She hesitated, looking at me for a moment. “Sam, I want to find out if you can switch people’s souls around.” Lily gasped, but Freya ignored her. “If you can, then we’ll do it to John – switch his soul with some animal. Then people will just think he went insane. We can kill him while leaving his body alive.”

  I was gripping my knee tightly as I listened. I desperately wanted to get revenge, but Freya’s idea disturbed me on multiple levels. Because if I could do it, that possibility opened the door to so many others.

  Lily responded before I could, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sam…you would never do that to me without my permission, right?”

  I looked at her in shock. “Of course not!” I exclaimed.

  “Good.” She sat back in relief, but her expression quickly became pensive. “Because if you can do it, and you decide you want to…like, when I’m older…I want to choose my body.”

  “Shit!” I exclaimed, looking back at her in shock. Even Freya cursed underneath her breath. Neither of us had even considered that possibility.

  Lily was immediately apologetic. “Or not! I know it would be weird having me in another body. I feel really selfish for even mentioning it, especially knowing someone else might have t
o die to make it happen…” Her volume disappeared as she continued to speak, until she was silent.

  The tension was thick in the air now. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Could I really keep her like that? Would it even work? Could I handle seeing Lily in another body? Was it selfish of me to let her die if I had the ability to save her?

  A person’s physical appearance was the primary identifier that it was that person. I supposed that plastic surgery could make her face look the same, but then what we were doing might be discovered eventually.

  There was so much to consider…

  I finally decided to break the silence. “Let’s…just wait and see if I even can.” I sighed heavily. “Honestly, the idea really scares me. Dealing with people’s souls is kind of a big deal. What if I did it wrong?” I shook my head. “I’d never be able to forgive myself if I was responsible for hurting you Lily.”

  Freya abruptly spoke up, almost cutting me off. “Which is why we will test it out first.” She glanced back at Lily briefly. “If we really did do that Sam, then we would first make sure you felt comfortable with your ability.” She paused. “Like with your astral projections. You just found out you could do that today, and yet you’re already using them pretty confidently.”

  I saw a smirk appear on her lips and knew immediately she wasn’t talking about the warehouse. She was thinking about what I had done to her in my attic. And at her place before that.

  “I’ll say,” Lily agreed. “You killed like twenty of those guys at once.”

  I gasped. “You saw?” I asked in disbelief.

  She nodded, her expression confused. “Yeah. I couldn’t control my body, but I could still see and hear everything going on.” Her expression darkened. “That’s why I blasted that girl’s head off. That bitch deserved it. She spent the majority of the ride telling me all the ways she was going to make me torture myself, knowing I was fully aware inside my own body.”

  “Oh…I thought you were unconscious.” I paused. “Sorry.”

  “For what?” She wondered.

  “Just for everything. For you being involved in the first place.”

  Lily reached forward and placed her hand on my shoulder. I quickly covered it with my own. She changed the subject. “You never did say how you found me.”

  I sighed. “Freya called it…astral trailing?” She nodded in confirmation, so I returned my gaze to Lily. “Basically, I saw what happened, as if I was really there. We followed their car to the warehouse – well, Freya couldn’t see what I was seeing of course. But it was so real that at first it was hard to separate the past from the present.”

  “Really?” She asked in surprise.

  I nodded. “I told Freya about your reaction to my news, and she decided to go talk to you, only to discover you had disappeared. When I got there, I felt like there was something important about your chair. And then, suddenly I could see you crying in your seat. It was like you were really there, appearing out of thin air.”

  Lily sighed heavily. “Talk about perfect timing for you to figure out you had this extra ability.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Actually, I might have still been able to do it, even if I didn’t know about my true superpower.” They both looked at me in surprise, so I elaborated. “After the incident with my daughter’s death, I had flashbacks like that, but I just thought I was hallucinating. I thought my grief was pushing me over the edge, shoving me towards insanity. Instead of paying attention to what I was seeing, I tried to ignore it.” My voice grew quieter. “After a while, like months later, it finally went away.”

  They were both silent as they let that sink in, and the implications of it. After a moment, Freya reached over and rested her hand on my thigh. At the same time, Lily tightened her grip on my shoulder slightly. I covered Freya’s hand too, so that I had a hand on each of theirs.

  “Thanks,” I whispered quietly. If I had known about my ability back then – known it wasn’t a hallucination – I might have been able to discover evidence surrounding my daughter’s death. I might have figured out sooner that it wasn’t random.

  At least I paid attention this time. It was the only reason why Lily was still alive.

  26: A New Perspective

  I anxiously readjusted my FRIL bra strap as we pulled up to my place. I had mixed feelings about returning to my house for the night, given that this was where I had been kidnapped. But unfortunately, it had to be my house, because if I had nightmares or any other accidental slips of certain emotions, then I could send their homes up in flames in seconds.

  I knew Freya would stay with me, and Sam would only be leaving long enough to get rid of Nick, but I still felt a little afraid. It had been so easy for them to kidnap me. Too easy, it seemed. I had no idea it could happen so quickly. One moment I was safe in my house, and the next I wasn’t. And I remembered every second of it, minus the falling to the floor just after they came in.

  I was trying to keep myself together, trying to hide how shaken up I felt now that it was over, but I feared I would burst into tears any moment. At least that emotion wouldn’t cause me to explode.

  But no. I had to stay strong right now. For them.

  Sam had to leave to take care of the Nick issue and smooth over the situation. And I knew he wouldn’t leave if I started crying.

  Which meant I needed a distraction. “Hey, Freya,” I asked as she popped open her door, “I assume you’re going to hop in the shower first thing, right?”

  She paused, her voice trembling slightly. I wondered if Sam picked up on it. I wondered if he could sense how killing was affecting her now that it was over. She didn’t want to be a monster, yet every time she killed she was reminded that she was one – at least in her perception. “Yeah. I’m just going to climb in with my clothes on, since I have so much blood on me.” She glanced back at Sam, her voice becoming more confident. Did he notice how her tone seemed to do that when she was talking to him? As if there was something about him that reassured her of herself? “And you should change your shirt before you go.”

  Sam nodded in agreement. “I will.” He then looked back at me. “Although, before I go, I’m going to unhinge one your doors to temporarily replace the front door. They’re all the same size, right?”

  I shrugged. How would I know? I didn’t build the place. I just paid money for them to do it. “Maybe? You can try the laundry room door, but if that doesn’t work than any of them are fine.” Anything to seal up the house again. I knew Sam would be awake all night, but I didn’t like the idea of sleeping with no front door on the house.

  I began sliding across the seat then, realizing they were both hesitating, waiting on me. My heart felt warm knowing that fact. I felt like I had two protective guardians who both lived to protect me and keep me safe – two immortal guardians. It made me fall in love with them both even more, though my feelings toward Freya were purely platonic. She was my best friend, and over the years she had become my only friend.

  Once I was out of the car, I paused to make sure my legs would stay steady before following after Freya. I’d be mortified if I fell down. I didn’t want them to worry about me more than they already were.

  With Freya in front of me and Sam behind, we headed into my place. The first thing Sam did was check all the rooms to make sure the coast was clear. His second-sight made the process pretty fast. He then got started on the laundry room door while Freya made her escape to the shower. No doubt that’s when she would let herself fall apart.

  I bit my lip as I thought about it. I didn’t want to mess with her feelings, but I knew she needed someone right now. She loved Sam, but I was sure she didn’t want to burden him with her struggle, especially not when he had more important things to deal with.

  Dammit. She needed me, and I really did need the distraction of comforting her. Otherwise, I’d fall apart too. “I’m going to hop in the shower with her,” I announced to Sam.

  He gave me a strange look, before his gaze fell down to my
chest and then stomach. I couldn’t blame him. I did look pretty hot in only my FRIL underwear. He blushed and looked away, trying to regain his focus. “Oh…” He began nervously. “Alright…” He paused. “This will probably only take me about ten minutes. Do you want me to say goodbye before I go?”

  Always so considerate of what I wanted. One of the many reasons why I loved him so much. “Of course silly,” I teased. Hopefully, I got my tone right. It was difficult to keep things light-hearted after being traumatized.

  He nodded without looking at me, so I headed to the bathroom. I suspected he was trying not to let his mind go wild, but if he wasn’t going to ask for clarification then I wasn’t going to provide it. He could think what he wanted.

  Other than the running water from the shower, it was completely silent behind my bathroom door. There was no movement. I tried the handle, glad to see she had left it unlocked. Granted, I could have gotten in either way. I opened it to discover the outline of her body standing underneath the water, still in most of her clothes like she said. She was hugging herself, shivering like she was cold. The mirror was already fogged up from the hot water.

  “Freya,” I announced, “I’m coming to join you. I’ve got some blood on me too.” Her hands had been covered in it when she hugged me earlier.

  Her body abruptly stiffened in response. “O-Okay,” she whispered, the sound barely audible over the water.

  I closed the door behind me and began warming my body temperature as I slid behind the shower curtain. Her eyes were closed, her body trembling now – while subtle, I noticed the difference. I hesitated briefly before stepping forward and wrapping my heated arms around her, trying to avoid touching her chest with my hands. My body was much hotter than the water now, enough that it was turning to steam the moment it hit my skin. But I didn’t care. I was doing this for her.

  Even though Freya’s body temperature was the same as a normal person, she didn’t really feel warmth unless it was extremely hot. Hot enough to give a regular person a second degree burn within seconds. It was something only I could do for her right now. Something I was willing to do for her right now