It made giving him the most rudimentary tour of the building I could get away with not entirely horrible. I was positive he didn’t need it though. He’d known where Fate’s office was before I’d known he had one. He should’ve given me the tour.
But that wasn’t why I was doing it and not why he was going along with it. We both sized up each other’s measure as he was pretending to size up the halls.
With that in mind, I felt very little guilt when I gave him the bum’s rush at the lobby door. I shook his hand and went my own way.
Chapter Four
“There are some people who would like an official introduction.”
The apples fell out of my hands as Paddy’s voice came from beside me when there’d only been a pile of pears a split second before. I turned to look at the old man. His fedora hat sat low on his brow and the cane he carried was looped around his arm, useless as ever.
I was grateful he’d decided to appear. Hearing bodiless voices, even if I was certain they existed, was still disconcerting. You never knew when that one last push of crazy, which was flying my way almost daily, might thrust your brain into a spiral of mental illness.
As far as falling apart, I was hanging in there mentally but the body wasn’t holding up quite as well as it used to. I had a part of Paddy in me, whatever he was; it would sure be nice to know. The fact that if I didn’t gauze and tape up the tattoo on my hip every day, I’d glow like a bug zapper on a starless night, left some glaring questions. The pain that woke me in the middle of the night was a little easier to ignore, at least during the day.
I sometimes wondered if going along with Paddy’s plan had been akin to eating a special brownie and not knowing it wasn’t made by Betty Crocker until after it was digested.
“Who would these people be?” It would be nice to place blind trust in Paddy but there was no one I trusted that much, not anymore, and especially not the brownie baker.
Well, maybe there was one.
“You know who. My people.” He reached into my cart, grabbed a Granny Smith and crunched down on it.
“People?” I raised a single dark eyebrow and nailed him with my, and now let’s hear the truth stare I’d perfected during my days as an attorney.
“Let’s not split hairs.” He patted my hand, the one that was closest to him.
The look had worked wonders on clients. Not so effective on beings of the Universe.
I grabbed a bunch of bananas and placed them in my cart and then skirted around some women arguing in the aisle, who looked like they were going to break out into a brawl at any moment. It sounded like someone had taken the tomatoes the other considered theirs. It wasn’t just the teens; people from every age group, every socioeconomic level—basically everyone—was acting strangely.
“Why do I want to meet these people? I’m not looking to expand my current circle of acquaintances at the moment, considering the limited pool I’ve been delegated to choose from. I’m sure they’ll understand.” I’d met enough nonhumans for an eternity, and if the world didn’t go to shit soon, that’s how long I might live.
Eternity. That was a really long time. How many birthdays could you have before they didn’t matter anymore? After a couple hundred, would I even keep count? Was there even a point to counting if it wasn’t to calculate the years to old age? A futile exercise to help guess how many years were left using an equation that proved wrong so often.
Paddy grabbed a chocolate bar as we turned down the baking and candy aisle. How good would chocolate taste after I ate it a thousand more times?
The wrapping on the candy bar crinkled as Paddy opened it. “Consider it a favor to me?” he asked before he took a bite.
I watched the joy of a sugar rush spread across his features. Okay, I’d still have chocolate. Coffee never seemed to lose its appeal. How bad could it be?
“No.” I used to have a problem rejecting favors outright, always squirming to find a plausible excuse. But that was before I’d stomped my manners into the ground and kicked some dirt over them. I only dug them up and rinsed them off for special occasions now.
“No,” a deep male voice seconded.
Paddy disappeared the second Fate’s voice hit the airwaves. Well, that was rude. Even my buried and dirtied manners were rolling over in their grave, aghast.
I turned at the sound of Fate’s voice right behind me. “What are you doing here?” I asked even though I knew he’d been keeping tabs on me lately, or worse, sticking the Jinxes on me. He was definitely the lesser of the two evils. The Jinxes tended to get bored with guard duty, even if it was supposed to be covert. At least they flattened the car’s tires beside where the Honda was parked, or turned on their lights. Unfortunately, I tended to feel responsible. After the third time, I put jumper cables and a pump in my trunk.
“I had some shopping to do.” He shrugged as if it were a perfectly good excuse as he stood there without a single item and his hands in his pockets.
“You don’t do your own shopping, or not most of it,” I said, still thinking of the perfume. I believed that he didn’t have something going on with Mother but not from lack of interest on her part.
But as far as shopping went, it was probably a good thing he didn’t do most of his. With the level of testosterone he pumped into an area, he was going to give the ladies more than tomatoes to fight over. Even now, I could hear carts turning down our aisle. We were in the process of picking up a caravan and he hadn’t even been here long.
Women were so silly, some nice built biceps and broad shoulders, face to die for and they got all… And now he was smirking, so I needed to stop looking at him.
“I do my own shopping as of today. My shopper is missing.” He moved closer, his side brushing mine as we stepped forward. “Want me to push your cart?”
How had he made that sound like sex? And what had happened? When had sexual innuendos become a total free for all with us? What switch had been tripped without me knowing?
I stopped pushing the cart, blocking him when he would’ve taken the handles. “What are you buying?”
He looked around, grabbed a bag of marshmallows and threw them in my cart before he tugged on my ponytail. “Nice get up,” he said, eyeing me.
I thought it was. My tank top, although disarmingly lacy, allowed for good mobility, and my flirty skirt hid holstered knives, strapped to my thighs, which were easily reached. The only sacrifice I’d made was the beaded flip-flops with wedged heels. The girl in me couldn’t pair sneakers with this outfit, no matter how practical.
“It’s highly functional.”
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t want you disappearing anywhere with Paddy.”
He had a point, but it was a point I’d seen for myself. “When did I become incapable of handling my own affairs?”
“I’ve got more experience than you.”
“At handling my affairs? I think that might be impossible, even for you.”
“At handling everything.”
His tone made it clear exactly what he meant to handle and the smirk made its return. It never seemed far away anymore. It was hard to be angry, frustrated, or really anything else when he looked at me like that.
And I wasn’t the only one. Some dippy lady ran her cart into an end display, too preoccupied by Fate and his smirk to pay attention to where she was going.
The pickle jars crashing to the floor broke the spell for long enough to get my senses under control. It was taking more and more these days but the overwhelming smell of vinegar helped. “I can’t do dinner tonight.”
“That’s the deal we made.” The smirk was gone.
“We didn’t actually ever make a deal.”
“Is this about your twisted bucket list or the perfume?”
I paused a minute. The perfume for Mother annoyed me but I wasn’t going to screw up the only reliable working partner I had because of it. Besides, flirting aside, we had a working relationship. I didn’t have any claim on him and I had to keep that
straight in my head. Maybe the perfume was a good thing. It clarified things. He’d flirt and use all sorts of tactics to his advantage but it didn’t mean anything.
I hoped the perfume was something sickly sweet as I tried to keep my voice from coming out as nauseating as I found his gifts to her to be. “Bucket list. I have to get them off the street.”
I’d been trying to track down every person I’d saved for Malokin and had made a bucket list of sorts. Some people had a list of things they needed to do before they died. I had a list of people who needed to be killed before Malokin used them.
“What time did you plan on having your killing spree?” He asked the question the way someone would inquire about when a tee time was.
“Not a spree.” My shoulders drooped a bit. “It’s not that easy to get them all in one place. More along the lines of serial killings.”
“I’m sorry. That’s tough.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“No. That really is a pain in the ass. I had to make sure a war started once. It was an ordeal getting everyone together long enough for things to click into place.”
“Which war?”
“I’d prefer not to say. I don’t like to brag.”
“Did you feel bad about it?”
“No. The guy was a total ass and I knew he was going to lose.”
“But what about all the deaths?”
“You’re letting your human show again. Death isn’t final, not for humans. It’s just a layover before you get back on the train. Why would I be upset about that?”
“What about the people left behind and grieving?”
“It’s not like they aren’t going to see them again.”
“But they’re distraught for a while, sometimes for years and years.”
“Years are nothing. You really need to get those human thoughts under control. It’s why you can’t lose the transfer nickname.” He reached over and grabbed an unbroken jar of pickles left on the display and placed them in the cart. “What time do you have slotted for your murder tonight?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going with you.”
I pushed the cart down the meat aisle, swerving to avoid two men about to fist fight over a shank of beef. “Is it that you like to be involved in everything or do you just think that I’ll end up dead if you don’t get involved?” And as I said it, I realized that question was my biggest problem with his attentiveness lately. What if he had some sort of savior hang up and that was all this was? He felt good about saving the helpless girl who couldn’t save herself.
“Why are the two exclusive?”
“Be at my house at seven thirty.” Sometimes I wondered why I gave him a hard time. In all honesty, I wanted the help and I didn’t particularly care for having my entire existence wiped as if I’d never existed.
It also wasn’t going to be a lot of fun trying to kill the people who should have died, but it needed to be done. I’d already chickened out on a previous attempt. I’d had the guy in my aim but I hadn’t been able to go through with it. Maybe if Fate were there with me, having a witness would literally force me to pull the trigger.
Fate tossed a bag of salt and vinegar chips into my cart, highly unusual for his diet but not such a shock to see in my cart. Fate actually preferred healthier food. He had to, since it didn’t matter that much what we ate.
“Comfort food? Afraid Mother didn’t like her gift?” I hope that didn’t sound as bitter as it had tasted crossing my lips.
He smiled. “They’re not for me.”
“For who then?” It didn’t matter. They’d be eaten, and most likely by me, but I liked to downplay my junk food tendencies around him, shamed into silence by his salads and tuna tartar. I wasn’t even human, the world was falling apart and a maniacal lunatic wanted to kill me, but I was still closet-eating bags of chips?
He looked at me like I had a screw loose. “For you. You might need them after you shoot someone tonight. If you shoot someone, that is.”
I pushed the cart forward, having no idea why him thinking I might need comfort food after my possible kill tonight made me soften toward him. And wasn’t there something integrally wrong to that entire train of thought?
“I have killed someone before.” And not just one, but he knew that. He’d been there each time. “I had no problem then.”
He didn’t know about me chickening out a couple nights ago. I’d bribed the Jinxes with more booze to keep their mouths shut after they’d stopped laughing long enough to hear me speak. I was going to have to buy them an entire distillery soon. Those three knew how to negotiate.
An image of the wad of cash they’d had on them when they were buying their smokes came to mind. “They told you.”
“What did you expect? I pay better. Plus, I’m me. It’s natural. The problem is that cold blood is a whole different game. You had strong motivations with all the others. You were protecting either yourself or someone else.”
He was right. It was why I froze last time as well. I hadn’t been able to do it but I had to. The idea of those people walking around and becoming Malokin recruits drove me on, whether I wanted to turn down that road or not. There was no choice. Savior had become assassin.
I turned down the shampoo aisle, already feeling the need to cleanse myself of the blood soon to come. This aisle also had the added benefit of being devoid of any comfort food he might feel the need to get me.
I looked at the bottles, wanting to change everything in my life right now but only having the ability to change my soap. Fate was popping caps and bringing them to his nose making it obvious which ones he preferred.
“You know, I can finish shopping on my own,” I told him. He was getting as distrustful of the crowds as I was but the people today seemed to be a relatively harmless bunch. It was still manageable at this point.
“I’ve got nowhere to be.” His face froze as I grabbed shampoo and conditioner off the shelf and threw them in the cart. I decided peaches and apricot would be my new signature scent for my hair; it reminded me of the peach pies my mother made.
“What are you doing?”
“Uh, buying items to cleanse myself so that I don’t become offensive?” It had seemed like a pretty obvious action in my opinion. Was I missing something here? I looked down at the cart, his tone making me wonder if I’d grabbed Rogaine, or men’s shaving cream, by accident.
He roughly grabbed both the shampoo and conditioner bottles hastily, and shoved them on the first open shelf spot, as if he disliked having to touch them too long. He turned and scanned the other bottles, dismissing my choices as he said. “Wrong ones. I don’t like those.”
I wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he grabbed my old brand.
“What was wrong with the ones I just had? It was new. I want new.”
I reached down to grab the shampoo he’d replaced it with but before I could, he started dragging the cart forward, effectively cart-jacking my groceries.
“Hey!” I said, having no choice but to move into something close to a jog to follow him if I ever wanted to see my cart again. “You can’t cart-jack me.”
He ignored me as he built up more distance between him and the shampoos.
“You don’t wash your hair with it,” I shouted after him.
He didn’t stop, just yelled back, “I’m with you all the time. I’m the one who smells you more than anyone. I should have a say. Plus, you’ve been using this one for years. Why do you want to change now?” He took a sharp corner down the frozen food’s aisle.
It took about three seconds, or the length of time for me to catch up to him in the ice cream section, for what he said to hit home. “I think we should stock up on some cookie dough too, just to be safe,” he said, reaching in and grabbing a gallon of my favorite brand.
“The shampoo you put in the cart, I haven’t bought that brand since I died.” I’d stopped using it a week after my death, from the first time I’d gone shopping for myself. I took
a quick look around, belatedly realizing what I’d said in the middle of the supermarket and making sure no one was too close before I continued. “How did you know what I used before I joined you guys?” I asked in a much more subdued tone. The humans might be getting riled up lately but that didn’t mean they’d become deaf and stupid.
I’d guessed he had some knowledge of my previous lives; he’d alluded to it with a couple of comments but my shampoo? How could he have known such an intimate detail such as that?
“I don’t. I meant months.”
I looked at him and part of me didn’t know if I believed him. I just had the strangest feeling he was lying. But why? Because that meant he’d known me? Had he watched me, and if so, how closely?
I remembered seeing my brand stocked in the condo when I’d taken my very first shower there. I’d thought it had been a coincidence. It was a popular brand. Now I wasn’t so sure anymore. And if he had known me that well, how come he never really talked about it?
“Did you ever come around me when I was human? Did you know what my fate was then? Was I meant to end up here?” The implications of it all started churning in my mind, and I was sure I’d end with a bellyache once it was done. “Did you?”
“Do you really think I had nothing else to do but follow you around all day? Nothing personal, but there were much more interesting lives to watch than yours.”
He wasn’t looking at me but walking away, and I grabbed my now discarded cart and followed after him.
“For your information, I hadn’t been going for burn down the walls, non-stop adventure. I was building a career and looking to start a family with Charlie—”
“I have to meet the guys. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Looking as cold as ever, flirty smirk long gone, he moved past me and started heading out of the store.
“If I ever live again, I’ll try to live life more recklessly for your amusement! Maybe I’ll even be a crack whore if that would be more entertaining for you,” I screamed after him, not caring how crazy I sounded.
Fated: Karma Series, Book Three Page 4