Fated: Karma Series, Book Three (12 page)

“It won’t happen,” he said again, and I wasn’t sure which one of us he was trying to convince.

I hoped it was working for Fate because I didn’t believe him. It wasn’t from a lack of wanting. Still, I wished he’d repeat it over and over, hoping that maybe, if I heard it enough, somehow I would begin to believe it too.

My breathing eased, and I think he took that to mean I was buying into the whole
it would be okay
thing. In truth, it was more because I was running out of adrenaline and reality was settling in. Fate had seen it in his visions. I’d now seen it in Malokin’s dream.

What I had to do was come to terms with the fact it was there, the finality of my existence, looming over me. A panic attack wasn’t going to change that. Screaming and running to Fate wouldn’t stop it.

For all that my coworkers put such stock in not being a transfer, we had a definite edge in one area. As a human, you were born knowing you were going to die. We visited the unlucky in the hospital and went to funerals, always remarking on the tragedy. But every time we stepped too close to it, we saw our own demises. We went with the full knowledge that we would one day die as well.

The closest humans got to immortality was the ignorance of youth, but death was always hovering nearby, even for the young. At some point our lives would end. We’d wake up one day and not go to sleep that night. We might have had warning, or it might be sudden, but from the moment we became aware of ourselves we became aware of our impending deaths.

My coworkers? Up until recently, they had been born knowing that as long as they walked the line, they could go on forever.

So yeah, I was a transfer, but that was one area where I had the edge. I had experience with mortality.

I stood, acting calmer than I thought would’ve been possible a few moments ago. I wiped my hands against the back of my pants. “Let’s get out of here.”

A blaring horn rang out and I saw a SUV sitting in Fate’s driveway. It looked like the misfit child of a monster truck and a minivan. If I hadn’t watched him get out of the driver’s seat to load a bag into the back, I never would’ve believed Fate would drive something like that.

He was closing the back hatch, looking all sorts of rustic yumminess in his black boots and rugged gear, when I approached.

He sized up my outfit as well and found it lacking. “What’s wrong with a sundress? You said we were going for a ride into the country?”

“On a
gun
run?”

“I’m sorry, but the boutique didn’t have any army-girl-fabulous in stock.” I walked around the ride he’d supplied. “Talking about style, where did you get this fine automobile?” I asked patting the camouflage paint job.

“There weren’t too many places available to procure a vehicle for today’s purpose and I know you have an aversion to borrowing.” He tossed the other bag that had been sitting on the driveway into the back.

“No, I imagine not.” I looked down the street and the only traffic I saw was a sedan packed to the gills, trying to get out of Dodge. If you were still normal, you didn’t want to be around other people anymore. It was too dangerous.

Fate came up to me and rested his hand on my lower back as we watched the SUV drive away down the street. It took with it the last thread of deniability I’d been clinging to. People were fleeing. Campers had been flying off the lot, bank accounts had been emptying and businesses were grinding to a halt.

“This is really happening.”

“Don’t sound so shocked. Live long enough and there aren’t too many things you don’t get to see.” He patted my hip in an overly friendly way but I guessed that was what happened when you snuggled in bed every night. “Come on. You ready to get some guns?”

And this was the reality now. Gun runs and ambushes. “Yep. Let’s go.”

The truck was rugged and high off the ground. It made sense. We were going on a run to get more guns. This truck was much more suited than a sports car. I started looking for a handle to pull myself up with but Fate came over and hoisted me up.

I waited until we were pulling out of the lot before I took the opportunity to talk about something that had been bugging me. “What’s your beef with Knox?”

“I don’t like him.”

I waited for him to continue but he didn’t. Who doesn’t explain a statement like that? “Why don’t you like him?”

He shrugged. “Just don’t.”

“You just met him for the first time, right?” I’d learned in these past months to never make any assumptions. That luxury died with my body in the train wreck.

“Yes. And you?” His eyes nailed me in a stare that had me torn between squirming and yelling.

I compromised between the two and caught a slight attitude. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“You’re sure? He was looking at you like he was pretty familiar.”

“I’m
positive.
” The relaxing ride into the country for guns wasn’t turning out to be the pleasant afternoon getaway I’d imagined. Who’d have thought? “You were kind of rough on him at the meeting.”

He shrugged. “He’s the new kid and needs to learn the boundaries.”

I was the new kid too, or at least I still felt like it. Wasn’t a great feeling. I fell quiet, not caring to explore this conversation any further with the turn it had just taken.

We drove about forty minutes inland, and I watched as the houses became more and more spread out until we pulled down a gravel drive, surrounded by nothing but woods.

“Where is this place?” I asked, seeing nothing but trees everywhere.

“There.” He pointed to a small ranch that was just starting to appear on the horizon.

I grabbed on to the handle above the door as the truck bounced all over the rough drive until we reached the house. Fate threw the truck into park and I jumped off the passenger seat.

“Here?” I hooked a thumb in the house’s direction. “I thought this was going to be an armory or gun shop or…I don’t know. But not this. What kind of guns are we going to possibly get here?” It was a large ranch but still a ranch. It had shutters, flowers painted on the mailbox and was that a gazebo I saw in the back?

He started walking towards the front door. “The kinds of guns we need aren’t sold to the public in places that say firearms in bold lettering above the entrance.”

I stared at the blue painted door with a plaque that read, “
Home Sweet Home,”
above it and the pieces clicked into place. Living in a house my grandmother would’ve been at home in was probably a great cover for an arms dealer, drug dealer or basically any of your run-of-the-mill nefarious types.

Fate rapped his knuckles on the glass panes of the door and someone who looked nothing like my grandpa, and had no Earthly business residing in a house like this, strode over to open it. Lanky with dark brown hair, he looked like he’d be more comfortable cruising down the highway amidst a motorcycle club of the illegal variety.

“Hey,” he said, nodding his head and forgoing the more normal custom of a handshake. “Who’s she?” he asked, looking in my direction.

“None of your business,” Fate said.

“This ain’t no candy shop.” He was looking at me when he spoke.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t in gunrunner-appropriate attire but candy shop? I turned to leave, but not because I was offended. I didn’t care enough to be bothered. All that was on my mind was the sunny day and how hanging outside seemed like as good—if not better—use of my time.

Fate’s hand grabbed my arm when I would’ve left. “Why don’t I just go—” I didn’t get a chance to say wait in the car and explain how it was for the best, hiding my true desire to feel the warmth on my skin under my noble pretense to not cause problems.

“She’s. With. Me.”

The way Fate said those three words lowered my odds of a couple of minutes of sunshine down to zero.

The guy shook his head and started walking as he said, “I swear, if you weren’t such a scary fuck, I’d tell you to go screw and to buy your shit somewhere else.”

“You have no idea what a scary fuck I can be,” Fate said as he followed Gun Guy, as I decided to call him since no other name looked like it was going to be provided.

There was something about that statement Fate had just made that sent off little warning flares in my psyche. This was my snuggle buddy at night? Another reason I shouldn’t get involved on a more intimate level. If someone said they were a scary fuck, who was I to disagree?

I followed the two but not without one last longing glance at the hood of the truck. I could’ve lain there sunning myself instead of pondering who—or what—I slept beside every night.

“I got the stuff on the list, most of it anyways. All the AK47s, assault rifles, sniper rifles…” Gun Guy was listing off the rest of the arsenal but all the numbers and letters started sounding like a bad algebra quiz. I tuned him out as he opened a door in the small hallway that led to a basement.

He flipped on light switches, illuminating the place as we went. It looked like a typical basement, fake wood paneling, a workshop to the right, washer and dryer.

“But?” Fate asked, the break in the gun list drew my attention back.

Gun Guy hesitated, his lips compressing before he said, “I couldn’t get the napalm.” He stood watching Fate and I saw the slightest hesitation as if his foot was getting ready to take a step back.

Fate looked like he was doing mental gun math before he said, “The napalm might have been overkill.”

Gun Guy grabbed one end of a clothes rack next to the laundry area and Fate grabbed the other as they moved it out of the way. The guy opened the paneling behind it.

Now this was what I’d expected, a room with cement blocks, lined with guns on every side.
This
was the lair of a self-respecting gunrunner, not that pansy
Home Sweet Home
sign.

The guy walked over to where five large duffle bags sat on the floor. “Here’s your stuff.” He reached down and placed one on the table in the center, to make it easier for Fate to rifle through it. “I gotta ask you something.”

“What?” Fate didn’t bother looking up.

I started looking through one of the bags on the ground, not that I knew much about the serious machinery in front of me but I didn’t want to look lacking.

The Gun Guy’s eyes shifted to me and back to Fate as he stalled. Articulate, he was not.

“If you want to know something, ask,” Fate barked out impatiently. “I’m not holding your hand or staying for a picnic out back.”

The words might have sounded harsher than he’d intended while he was looking down the scope of an automatic rifle. Or maybe I was overly sensitive, not being a gunrunner.

Gun Guy’s feet shuffled and I saw Fate look at them in a way that made me wonder if he was imagining target practice. Maybe I wasn’t so sensitive and Gun Guy should’ve been more so.

Finally he spat it out. “Do you know what’s going on? Is that what all this shit is for? Do you know what’s coming? I mean, half the people I know in town are acting like animals.”

My head shot up, waiting to see if Fate would answer. What he would say.

Fate cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think you should be throwing stones?”

“Really, man, I need to know. Look, I’m freaked out.” Gun Guy’s eyes shot to me once more, as if nervous to say anything in my presence before he blurted out what he wanted to say to Fate anyway. “Whatever you are, man, I know you know things.”

I looked at Gun Guy. He was scared, and for all the criminal activity he seemed to be knee deep in, considering what most people’s karmas were looking like these days, he was fairing pretty well. Actually, he was doing better than I would’ve anticipated. He might have even been bright a few weeks ago.

I swallowed, holding back any lame explanation I could offer and was grateful Fate had to field that question. I certainly didn’t know what to say.
There is some crazy non-human creature who is the epitome of anger on the loose?
And he may either be the cause of this or maybe worse, a symptom of a problem we can’t pinpoint?

I saw a quick glimmer of something that might have been pity flicker over Fate’s expression. I unzipped the second bag of guns, pretending to be counting them but really trying to hide my face. I didn’t want Gun Guy to see the myriad of fear, dread and defeat probably written all over me.

Fate placed the rifle on the metal table in the center with a soft clank. “I don’t know what’s coming but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to lay low—really low—for a while. Get yourself stocked up and stay put. You’ll be fine if you don’t go into a city, no matter how small.”

The guy rested his hands on the table, looking like he was close to breakdown mode. I recognized the signs well at that point due to my own current emotional instability. He looked down and when he started talking, I wasn’t sure if it was to himself or us.

“I saw a gang drag some chick into the alleyway the other day. I managed to scare them off with my gun but nobody else seemed to care. They dragged her off, kicking and screaming, in the middle of the afternoon. Everyone saw it. They just went about their business like it wasn’t happening.”

When Gun Guy paused, I sneaked a peek at him. He wasn’t scared. He was terrified. A look of utter dread crossed his face and his next words made some of that same dread creep into me. “Man, don’t you get it? If I’m the good guy, we’re all fucked.”

I abruptly zipped up the duffle bag I was looking through and told Fate I’d meet him outside. I didn’t want to hear this today. On my way upstairs, and back to the car, all I could think of was that Gun Guy was right. We were all fucked.

I threw the bag in the backseat of the truck and waited for Fate. He showed up several minutes later and dumped the other bags alongside mine before he climbed behind the wheel.

“He’s right,” I said as the engine roared to life the way only an eight cylinder could.

“So that’s it? You sound like you’re ready to throw in the towel.”

He sounded aggravated but I’d seen the feeling he had on his face when he told Gun Guy what he thought. He could pretend none of this bothered him but it did.

“You know that’s not my style. I’m more of a going down with the ship type. But I’m also realistic. I still feel the water climbing up my legs as I’m going down.”

“No, that’s not ‘realistic’, that’s morbid. Realistic is having a back-up plan, which I do. Either way, we’ll be okay. I meant what I said to you in the office.”

I hoped he was right and he had a parachute for us.

“So let’s hear about those back-ups you’ve got,” I said, placing the sole of my sandal on the dash.

He eyed the offending strappy footwear. “I’m starting to realize why you got the work car you did.”

I put the other one up next to it. “Back-up plan?”

He did the subtle shake of his head, which I took to mean he thought I was being too human at the moment and it was best to let whatever irritating thing I was currently doing go since I didn’t know any better. “As to back-ups, I’ve got places we can go.”