Fated: Karma Series, Book Three (24 page)

Blackness everywhere. I’d never experienced absolute darkness. No one had. It didn’t exist in our Universe.

“Where am I?” I said, even though I was alone in the blackness, just to see if I had a voice. Was this the nothingness they’d talked about? But how could I have thoughts?

“No,” a voice answered.

“But I was killed. I shouldn’t exist at all. How can this be?”

“Because I can do anything.”

“Was that you? The shadowy form I saw a night ago?”

“I am everything. The sun, the moon, the planets, the air you breathe, the molecules that created you.”

“What happens now?”

“What comes next is your choice. Make it wisely.”

“Can I go back?”

“Yes, but not as you were.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to. Make your choice.”

The smell of flowers from the florist shop I was working at part-time filled the air of the car. Kit, one of the younger floral arrangers I’d become friends with, always gave me one of the older bouquets to take home on the days I worked. She said it was important to surround yourself with flowers, especially in winter when things seemed the bleakest before the spring.

Nothing seemed bleak this week though. I was driving a brand new Audi I’d won in a lottery some crazy lady outside the mall had talked me into entering. The only reason I’d paused by the table in the first place was everyone kept tripping as they approached the area and I couldn’t quite figure out why.

I enjoyed driving it so much I’d been taking the long way home, even though I had a ton of studying to do for my finals next week. I didn’t particularly care to drive past this part of town, since it still had burned down buildings from the riots that had happened before my birth.

My mother had told me all the stories. She’d said they’d stopped just as she’d gotten pregnant with me and that I’d been her miracle baby. The thought was ridiculous but I didn’t argue with her. She was whimsical like that. She had all sorts of crazy tales to tell, like how a guy in white silk rested his hand on her belly before she’d even known she was pregnant and congratulated her. Or how Santa left a crib for her under the tree. She still swears that the Tooth Fairy really had been the one to put money under my pillow every time I lost a tooth.

She occasionally said some normal things too, like never to pull over to help a stranger when I was alone at night. But when I saw the old guy who looked like he was twenty years past his due date standing next to an ancient Honda, I had to. The car looked like it might have been even older than he was and he was leaning on a cane. There was no way I could drive past. What if he didn’t carry a cell phone?

Strangely, I’d never had a nightmare in my life but leaving this man out here in the elements not knowing if he’d be okay might cause my first. I pulled the car up behind him and threw it into park, tucked my own phone into a back pocket and walked around to where he stood.

“Sir? Do you need some help?”

“Thanks.” He held out his hand to me and grasped it in a firm shake. “Name’s Paddy.” His cap sat low on his brow and although he was clearly in a distressing situation, it didn’t seem to dent his jovial manner.

“I’m Justine.” I pointed toward where his hood was open. “I’m not very good mechanically but I think I’ve got jumper cables in my trunk.” I pointed back behind me toward my own car.

“Nice car you have there. Very responsible of someone so young to be so prepared.”

He lifted his cane toward my car and it gave me the strangest image of him waving it violently at kids. I shook my head. Lack of sleep was making me think really weird thoughts.

“Not really. I have the strangest luck of parking next to people with car troubles. It doesn’t look like you have a flat but I’ve got a pump as well if it’s needed.” I was up to a count of two flats and one dead battery just this week alone.

“I’m not sure if it’s the battery but let’s give it a try while we wait.”

“Wait?” I looked around getting a little nervous. “Wait for what?”

He frowned for a second. “A tow truck to show up?”

I nodded, wondering if Paddy wasn’t a little senile.

“Oh look! I think we might have some more help,” he said, completely enthused that another car was pulling down the street.

I turned to see headlights coming from the distance but with no indication they were going to stop and help. Just as I made out the shape of a pickup truck, it started slowing down.

It passed us and parked in front of Paddy’s car. The door swung open and a guy of similar age to me hopped out, but where I felt like a girl of twenty, he looked all man.

“Need some help?” he asked Paddy, and then his eyes shifted to me and stayed there. I wanted to look away but couldn’t seem to do it.

“I’m Paddy, that’s Justine. We’d love some!”

“I’m Pol,” he said and grasped Paddy’s hand.

When his hand touched mine, a zap of static zinged us both.

“Justine has some jumper cables in her trunk,” Paddy suggested, then mumbled something under his breath neither of us could hear.

He stepped closer to me. “Let’s go get them and I can hook them up to my truck.”

“Sure,” I tilted my head toward my car and we headed over together.

“Pol is an interesting name,” I said, scrambling for something to say.

He smiled and then laughed a little. “It’s short for Polaris. My mother said as soon as she got pregnant with me, everything else in her life seemed to flow exactly as it was supposed to, like I was her little North Star, guiding her direction.”

I laughed with him then. “I get it. I’ve got one of those mothers, too.”

“Do you know him?” he asked, motioning to where Paddy stood. “You shouldn’t pull over for people you don’t know.”

It should’ve been strange to be lectured on safety from someone I just met but I felt like I knew the guy. “He looked too old to do me much harm.”

“Well, I’m here, so even if he turns out to a be the oldest serial killer still alive, don’t worry, I won’t let you die.” The corner of his lip turned up and he winked in a conspiratorial fashion.

I hesitated, afraid it would sound like a cliché, but then asked anyway. “Do I know you?”

He stopped what he was doing and leaned his hip against the trunk of the car. Something about the way he moved seemed so familiar.

“You know, I feel like I know you too. Do you go to the University of South Carolina?”

“No. I’m at Coastal Carolina but I’m a transfer. I went to Clemson for the first year.”

“Transfer…”

He said the word again, letting it roll over his tongue. Then he just stared at me and kept staring. His face changed and his posture straightened, as if he wanted to grab me.

“What?” I asked, giving him an opportunity to explain when I should’ve been putting more space between us.

“I remember.” His arms wrapped around me and he spun me off my feet in circles as he kept repeating, “I remember.” Instead of being scared, I started to laugh with exhilaration and I didn’t understand why.

When he finally stopped, he stared at me in a way that made me feel like the most precious thing he’d ever discovered. I should’ve thought he was crazy. I kept thinking I should be trying to get away from him, but instead I asked, “What is this about?”

“You’ve got a birthmark on your hip.”

Maybe he was crazy. I didn’t want to move away from him but I forced myself to move out of arm’s reach. “How do you know that?”

“Because it used to be a ying yang sign.”

My hand went to the spot and I could almost envision what he was saying being there.

“‘I won’t let you die.’ I said it to you the first time I met you. You were sick, a transfer to the agency, hired by Harold.”

I watched his face as hazy memories came to me. They were like dreams I was having a hard time remembering.

“You were there. And I was really mad at you,” I said, not sure if they were real or if I was under some sort of hypnosis.

“Because you wanted to be left alone and I wouldn’t leave you.”

“I thought you were being mean,” I said, not sure where the words and thoughts were coming from.

“I was keeping you alive. Then when you got beat up doing a job for Malokin, I said it again.” He stepped forward and I didn’t move away. “Karma, I need you to remember. You have to remember me.”

His hands were on either side of my face and there was a desperation there I felt mirrored deep inside myself, as if my not remembering would cost me something too dear to pay.

He moved his hands to my shoulders and was shaking me, as if that would make something snap loose and give him what he wanted. Then they were in my hair, his lips closing on mine in a kiss that jolted me to my core. I’d never been kissed like that, as if he were trying to touch my very soul. There was that same desperation in his kiss but also love, waves of it flooding through me from his touch.

And then the memories came. It wasn’t a gentle flow but an avalanche that would have had me falling to the ground under the wave of emotions if he hadn’t held me up. My lips trembled as the tears flowed.

“Fate?” I remembered dying in his arms, thinking I would never see him again.

He crushed me to him and I couldn’t stop the sobs from escaping me.

“I let you die,” he said, his voice uneven and broken. “Malokin knew we were there. The room we were waiting in was sealed off and by time we busted through, it was too late. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was Fia. It was a trap. But I’m here and so are you.” I pulled back quickly. “How did that happen?”

“After you died, I was desperate. The door was open, blasting light, and I carried you through it with me, not caring what happened next.”

“But I thought that wouldn’t work? Was it Paddy?” I swung around, looking for him, but he was gone, along with the Honda.

Then I saw the paper fluttering in the breeze under my wiper blade and I remembered all the messages that used to appear.

“That wasn’t there before,” I said, walking over and grabbing it.

“What is it?”

I looked down at the writing. “I think it’s…” I looked over it again as Fate peered over my shoulder.

“A want ad?” he asked.

Feeling down or uninspired? Change your luck!

We’re actively recruiting new employees. Take the first step toward an exciting new career that offers travel, excitement and chance to make the world a better place. Get a chance to work with our new management and grow with the company.

If interested, stop by our office and ask for Paddy, Fith or Farrah.

“Looks like she’s gone. I wonder how?”

Fate grabbed the paper and crumpled it before he pulled me into his arms. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing but
this
matters.”

His face broke into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. He kissed and held me like his life depended on it. I knew mine did.

I grabbed a ticket from the booth, ignoring the usher’s warning that the film was almost over. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why I’d come.

The place was empty except for him, as if the world had aligned for the convenience of my meeting today. It had taken me a while to track him down, after all this time, but I’d finally found him. He was no longer the teen I’d met in Wal-Mart. Time hadn’t been kind to him, and he looked much older than the early forties I knew him to be. Maybe being the leader of an underground gang of anarchists did that to you.

I made my way down the aisle and took a seat, leaving a chair buffer in between us.

There was a loud sigh before he spoke. “Great. I’m so excited I can barely express it.” His words were exaggeratedly flat. “I thought you were retired?”

“I am,” I said, sounding no more enthused than him. I hadn’t wanted to see him but I’d felt compelled. If Fate had known I was here, he would’ve killed me. We’d decided we were going to live out at least one human life together in peace before we even contemplated going back to work.

We’d bought a little house a few blocks off the beach. He’d taken a job with the local police department and I was working as a therapist in the hospital. It wasn’t a glamorous life but I was happier than I’d ever imagined. We were planning to get pregnant by the end of the year, and we’d even got a dog.

Still, I’d had to come.

“What do you want?” he asked.

He looked at me through antique-looking glasses and I could see the scars on his face and wondered how much I didn’t know about his actions.

“Wanted to let you know I was in the neighborhood.” And bringing a child into the world knowing that he existed might have been the exact reason I was there.

“Why show up at all? You’re powerless. You’re out of the game.”

“Am I?” I asked as I met his gaze. He didn’t scare me. I’d seen every side of this life and knew that certain things were worth dying for.

“You don’t wield the power you used to have.”

“Don’t I?” I asked, really looking at him, wanting him to see the truth of who and what he was dealing with.

He leaned as far as his seat would allow him. “How can that be?”

I didn’t know myself but I didn’t tell him that. It had started creeping back in after I remembered. When I’d been given the choice to return, I’d thought I’d lose that part of myself, that special something that allowed me to twist things to fall into place the way I wanted. But I hadn’t. Paddy’s piece was gone, but I was the same me I’d always been. If I could get hold of the Universe I’d ask if that was what he’d intended but it wasn’t like I could pick up the phone and call him.

Perhaps when he had told me I couldn’t return as I was, he’d only meant the Paddy part. Maybe Fia had been wrong. Maybe I’d been created just the way I was supposed to be.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said when I didn’t explain. “Go back to your little house with your fellow retiree. This isn’t a fight you can win. Without evil, there is no good.”

“But I’ll never give up trying.”

“Neither will I.”

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