Shuffle [YA Paranormal Romance]

by Avery Bell

  “So a few years ago, through certain channels, I started hearing talk of a rebellion. No more death. No more grief. The cycle breaks.”

  I pressed the gauze to my thumb more firmly and leaned in, studying him. Part of my mind was stuck on my sister. She must be at the hospital by now. Were surgeons operating on her? Was she flatlining? Dead? No...

  Toby was here with me.

  “Evi, it was the first ray of hope. You can't imagine how it changed me. All it takes to join the rebellion is just a little more power. A little oomph. Come on, twenty human souls? Fifty? A hundred? That's not too high a price, to eliminate death forever. I know it sounds horrible. Don't you think I thought about it, deeply? Considered it for months and years before I made my decision? The responsible decision, by God. When I saw Wendy keeled over in pain, weeping as she watched her husband die of a disease that had ravaged his body... Cancer has no morals, Evi. Cancer has no reason to exist. Jesus, I revealed myself to her! I made John my first sacrifice. She was comforted, dammit.”

  I almost gagged. “She went insane,” I spat. His words were fair, but I could see through them to the rotten center. “You don't care about us. You certainly don't care about Mrs. Beasley; you've proven that. Only about alleviating your own pain. Can't you even hear yourself? That speech you just gave was all about me, me, me. My suffering, my grief. Honestly, it's beginning to seem kind of like you and the other reapers in the rebellion are just using this 'eliminating death' thing as a noble-sounding excuse to grab power for yourselves. By destroying people. Toby, if we do go on after death, then even one human soul is too high a price!”

  He sat back, smile playing faintly across his features. He seemed to grow subtly in his chair, as if he were drawing the fabric of the world around him for a moment. His black eyes burned.

  “Actually, I'm glad you feel that way,” he said. “Because I have a proposition for you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  He shuffled the cards. They rippled through his hands like water.

  “What?” I asked. My neck was throbbing; I tried to ignore it. Tried to ignore the image of Callie's dead face that seemed to hang in the air between us.

  “The soul of a reaper is much more potent than the soul of a human. More concentrated. Older. And your friend Arbor's soul is very old indeed.”

  “So?” I wished he would just get to the point of all of this.

  Toby shrugged. “Like I said, he's a tricky one to pin down. I don't want to destroy humans, Evi. Come on, try to understand.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes, clutching my injured thumb. “You want to free us from death, yeah, I get it. Our great savior.”

  “When I have to consume a soul... It hurts me just as much as it hurts them. Believe me. I don't want to do it anymore.”

  “So don't.”

  He clicked his tongue and sat back, shaking his head. The police sirens were still wailing outside. But somehow, they seemed to be about a million miles away.

  “That doesn't fix my problem. Your problem.”

  “What do you mean, my problem?”

  He turned over a card and laid it down on the table in front of me. The queen of hearts. Toby beckoned me to take a closer look. I peered down at it. And the face I saw on the card struck me like a blow to the chest.

  Callie's face.

  She was dressed in a geometric black and red robe, clutching her gun with one hand. A single tear marked her cheek. She was scared.

  “Oh my God...”

  “She's not in pain. I have her in a blank sort of limbo. Imagine a plain white room with no doors or windows.”

  “Sounds peachy.” I could barely muster the strength for sarcasm.

  “I can restore your sister's mind to her comatose body with a snap of my fingers, Evi. Just as soon as you do your part for the good of humanity. No soul-eating required.”

  “What is it you think I can do?” I was wary, but I was listening.

  He winked and shuffled the Callie card back into his deck. “Make a phone call. One call, and that's it. I put your sister back where she belongs and I let you go. Then I get the hell out of Dodge and go join the rebellion in Denver.”

  I narrowed my eyes in suspicion, focusing on his unreadable face. “Who am I calling?”

  Toby reached into his pocket and drew out a cell phone. He punched in a local number and sent it across the table to me.

  “Your friend,” he said. “Arbor Vitae Damo da Rosa. You tell him to come over here. Pretend like everything's fine. Maybe you want him to sneak into your room through that famously sticky window of yours.” He winked, and I scowled.

  “What are you going to do to him?” I asked.

  “I think you know already,” said Toby. “But if you want me to say it out loud, fine: I will reap Arbor and consume his spirit. His soul is worth five hundred of you humans. If not more. I will be one of the most powerful reapers alive, the perfect general for the rebellion's second wave.”

  I turned it over in my head. “And Callie lives. She won't be hurt at all.”

  “I can promise you that she will make a full recovery.” He leaned across the table and brushed a white finger over the blistering brands at my neck. “And we'll see what we can do about this...”

  I flinched, and he backed off. “Choice is yours, Evi.”

  The phone lay there in the flashing red light of the sirens outside.

  Callie or Arbor?

  Suddenly the kitchen collapsed around me. As though it were folding and lengthening, sucked into the black holes in the middle of Toby's face. The blue tile and the pale green paint, writhing and cradling me like brittle tissue. Oven mitts and crumbs flew into the void. Wooden spoons, the dirty cereal bowl that I'd left in the sink this morning. A rush of air blew greasy, tangled curls of orange hair into my eyes.

  I blinked.

  The phone was still on the table. Everything was in its place.

  “My generous offer expires in one minute.”

  I looked up, wiping away tears. Toby was smiling at me. “You can agonize all you want over this decision, Evi,” he said. “Consider it a small taste of what I've been through. But let a wiser head give you some advice.”

  I sighed, closing my eyes. Images of Arbor swam before me, juxtaposed with Callie's scared, line-drawn face on that card.

  “You aren't a monster,” he continued. “You don't want to kill anyone. I know it. You know it. The universe knows it. So don't worry your tiny brain about that for one second.” He splayed his hands across his chest, open expression on his face. “I'm the monster. I'm the killer here, Evi. Allow me to take on your burden, just as I've always done. I'm the one who has manipulated you into making this decision, and whatever the outcome, I'm to blame.”

  I struggled against his words, but they were starting to make sense in a horrible way. I spent a few more precious seconds trying to swim upstream in his logic.

  “The truth is, you're a human being. Evangeline Wild. Daughter of Elaine Wild. Sister of Calinda Wild.”

  “Tell me something I don't know,” I snapped. My head was whirling.

  “When the chips are down, human, you'll retreat into the arms of the eons of evolution that brought you to this point. Mother Earth is wise and she has taught you well. So when the time comes to make your decision,” he checked his wristwatch, “i.e. now, you'll do what all humans do.”

  “What's that?”

  Toby smiled. A beatific, calming smile. “Protect your loved ones.”

  More tears coursed down my cheeks; my breath came harder as I wiped them away clumsily with the back of my hand.

  “The people you share your genes with. And you'll protect yourself.”

  “But I – ”

  “Make the call, Evi.”

  He took the queen of hearts out of his deck again and held it up, ready to rip it in half. Slowly, he twisted his hands. The card began to bend...

  “I'll do it!” I cried. I lunged for the phone, hit the call button and p
ut it up to my ear. “It's ringing,” I took in a few shuddering breaths. “It's ringing...”

  My hands were shaking. Oh Lord, the phone was ringing, and for a few seconds I thought that he might not pick up. Where had he been all night, anyway? Pretty crappy protector, if that was his game. My stomach curdled as it occurred to me to wonder just how bad he'd hurt himself earlier, when he was trying to warn me about Mrs. Beasley. Maybe he was dead already.

  Maybe my leverage was gone.

  But I heard a click and a muffled “Hello?”

  I let out a deep breath. “Arbor,” I said.

  Toby whispered. “Try to sound normal. You know, like a teenage girl who wants a late night visit from her boyfriend.”

  I frowned at him and concentrated. “Hi,” I murmured. It came out more like a squeak.

  “Are you okay?” His voice was ragged, but he sounded fine.

  “Yes. Are you?” Toby glared at me. “I mean... um, can you come over? Just to talk.” I sighed as though I were bored. “I kept waking up. Couldn't sleep.”

  “Sure.”

  I heard Toby's chair slide back and then his breath at my ear. “Tell him to climb in through your window. So that your sister won't hear him.”

  I relayed that to Arbor and hung up as Toby thrust open the curtained windows to peer out at the police cars that were still dotting the street.

  “He'll be here in twenty minutes,” I said.

  “I'll have to do something about my colleagues out there. Police,” he snickered. “Always butting in where they don't belong.”

  I stood and watched as Toby stared out the window. At first, nothing happened. The sirens turned. The police tape flapped in the wind. I blinked. It seemed that gradually... very gradually, like the tempo of a song set by an unsure drummer... things were speeding up. People moved with an unnatural swiftness around the scene. The red lights on the police cars flashed faster and faster, until I had to squinch my eyes shut against their aggressive strobe. I felt dizzy, sat down again.

  Then it was over. The front yard was dark and the police cars were gone. They'd all driven away. I glanced at the clock above the stove. It read 3:55 a.m.

  “How did you do that? Like fast forwarding a movie or something.”

  “I'm still learning how.” It was the only reply Toby gave.

  He offered me his hand as I stumbled out of my chair again on weak knees. The glass shard slipped through my bleeding fingers and clattered to the floor; Toby drew me away before I could retrieve it. We walked upstairs together, past the pictures of my family that hung on the wall. Me, Mom and Callie on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was even chubbier then, and my eleven-year-old belly almost stuck out of my t-shirt. Callie was all skin and bones, grinning like a maniac at the camera. Then there was me, Mom and Callie at Pensacola Beach, a vacation we'd saved up for and taken the summer before she died. I was wearing long shorts and a baggy tee, plastered in sunscreen and scowling. Mom had chosen that one to frame because she thought my expression was so funny.

  I missed her.

  “Which room is yours?” asked Toby. I passed him and went to the door, opened it. Some clothes were still lying around from earlier that afternoon when Britta had helped me put together an outfit. I fingered the torn edges of her shirt as I looked around at the mess.

  Toby checked his watch. “Ten more minutes,” he said. “Reapers are a punctual people.”

  He sat at my desk and idly browsed the web. I picked up my clothes, hung them back up in my closet and folded them into my drawers with trembling hands. I didn't know what else to do. When everything was tidy, I sat on my bed and looked out the window. I watched for headlights coming up Dixon.

  I didn't have long to wait.

  “There he is,” I whispered. I forced myself not to think about what was going to happen here in a few minutes. Toby hopped up, crossed over to the back wall and turned out the overhead light.

  “How are you going to do it?” I asked. “How do you reap a reaper?”

  He shrugged. “I'm sure I'll figure something out.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. Toby gestured at me, standing in the shadows near my door, and I lifted up the glass. I knelt on one of the plastic milk crates as a tall figure loped through the backyard.

  Arbor waved up at me. I waved back.

  Then he lifted himself smoothly off the ground in a whirl of fall leaves and sailed through the air up to my window. I gasped, tears blooming in my eyes. He took my breath away.

  “You're like an angel,” I said, “only without the wings.” He was dressed in black, white face hanging just over the sill like in the picture I'd taken.

  “No,” is all he would say. All he was able to say. But he floated up and blew into my room. A puff of cold, fresh air.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said.

  He drew me to the bed and cupped my face in his warm hands. “You're welcome.” He kissed my forehead. “Evangeline, you are eternally welcome.” Then he turned, eyes searching in the darkness for the other heart that beat there. “I would like to know who you are. The one whom the poet loves. The one who has been creating such havoc.”

  He grimaced. He was speaking in vague terms, but even this came too close.

  Toby stepped out of the shadows. He held a gun.

  “Lieutenant Collier,” Arbor sighed. “I should have recognized you at the police station this afternoon.”

  “I made sure you didn't,” said Toby. “I may be younger than you, but I'm much stronger.”

  Arbor's face was flat and expressionless, as always. But I was starting to be able to read those dark eyes. I could almost see the gears in his brain whirring, calculating odds, running scenarios and cataloging available resources. He took my hand, and squeezed it comfortingly.

  Toby waved his gun, indicating me. “I take it you know why Evi has invited you here.”

  “She was obviously manipulated into doing so,” said Arbor. “Who do you have? Ellen?”

  “Callie,” I whispered. “She's in a coma at the hospital. He's trapped her soul in a playing card.”

  “Limbo,” growled Toby.

  “Whatever.”

  The three of us stared at each other for a few seconds. I could feel Arbor's heart beating in his fingers.

  “Evangeline did what you asked,” he said, voice even. “Let her sister go.”

  Toby lurched forward and grabbed Arbor's arm, lifted him off the bed with such force that my hand was ripped away from him. He shoved the shaft of the gun into his throat, throwing him up against the wall with a boom that shook the foundations of the house.

  “You think I'm that stupid?” he hissed. “She gets Callie back when I get you.”

  “Don't!” I screamed. “Please...”

  I jumped up and tried to insert myself between them, but it was like trying to bend steel bars. I hit and clawed, but my blows made no impression. Toby was choking Arbor; I grabbed his arm and tugged with all of my strength. Nothing gave. He shook me off and I fell sobbing to the floor.

  “Weepy little girl,” said Toby, “battered and abused, just a pawn in the game of strong, unemotional men. How many times have you seen this in the movies? Are you surprised that the tropes are true? That you really are as worthless as you seem?”

  Arbor didn't look very strong himself, at the moment. Toby was holding him up against the wall by the neck, gun buried in his cheek. I bit my lip and stared down at the carpet. I couldn't watch. Toby was right. I was dealing suddenly with a bigger world, with forces beyond my powers to comprehend, much less control. He was trying to get a rise out of me with his meta-commentary nonsense.

  Why? Why is he bothering to bait me?

  I looked up again. Toby was still clutching Arbor's neck. His fingers were red; he was squeezing as hard as he could and still Arbor's bright black eyes were open. The gun clicked. A bullet fell to the floor, unfired and whole.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Toby emptied his rounds into Arbor's head.
They refused to cooperate, fell lazily one by one.

  “You can't do it,” I breathed, heart pounding. Temporary relief coursed through my veins and lit my face with a small smile. “You can't kill him, and what? You think you can use me to distract him? Nice try.”

  I saw now that Toby was unsure of himself. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered at Arbor. “Just die, why don't you?”

  “I'm afraid there are certain rules,” said Arbor. He glanced at me and I knew at once what to do. I plugged my ears and hummed while Arbor spoke to Toby, allowing him to explain without getting hurt. I watched his mouth move in weird patterns, almost as though he were speaking a different language. Slowly, I saw Toby's grip on his neck relax, until finally he withdrew his arm and holstered his useless gun.

  Arbor turned to me and nodded.

  I took my fingers out of my ears, let the hum die on my lips. Toby was grinning.

  “Your friend has agreed to sacrifice himself.”

  “What?” I cried. “No! Arbor, you can't!”

  “I can,” he said, simply. “I will.”

  Toby climbed out the window and hovered in the dark, cold air. The oak tree creaked in the wind behind him, its old bones loosing their leaves to fly and drift downward, to skate across the lawns and sidewalks. Dead leaves from dying branches.

  Arbor took my hand and straddled the sill. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him in close. “Please don't do this,” I said.

  “We can't beat him,” Arbor sighed. “He's much too powerful. All I can do now is save your sister.” He started to choke and gasp again as he said, “That's my job.”

  I let him pull me out of the window, trusting in him completely. With his arms wrapped around me I floated. It was an odd sensation of total buoyancy. As if I were bobbing on a calm ocean that I could neither see nor feel. The world seemed vast. Open. I looked over the crown of the tree and saw the lights of Denver, whirled in Arbor's embrace until I was facing the mountainside, ground running up and up, vertically, the sweeping western wall of Colorado. And then Arbor let gravity take us gradually down. My heart sank with my body.