Noise and panic erupted around us. People began to emerge from the bus; the driver wailed with horror and pain. In the distance I heard the piercing wail of sirens and the wrecked bus moaned where it lay.
But even through the chaos I felt as if we were in a bubble, somehow separate from the disarray. Snowflakes swirled down from the midnight-colored sky, their path never straight, and they began to coat everything around us. The stranger’s black knit hat began to turn white and small, perfectly shaped flakes caught in his lashes.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t breathe.
Tears slipped from my eyes and turned icy on their path down my cheeks. I didn’t brush them away. He deserved these tears. I sat there weeping, sitting vigil over his still form as all the color leeched from his skin and the snow blanketed him in white.
The snow didn’t stick to me. Because I was still warm. Because I was still alive.
Chapter Three
“Proposition - An offer of a private bargain. A plan suggested for acceptance; a proposal.”
Dex
Something wasn’t right. Being hit by a bus should cause excruciating pain. I should be floating between consciousness and unconsciousness in varying degrees of “why me?” and “give me some drugs!” But, surprisingly, I felt fine. I didn’t feel my shattered bones. I didn’t hurt so much I wished I were dead. Maybe it was because I was frozen, numb from lying here on the ice and in the snow. Maybe along with my many other injuries, I also had hypothermia.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. I expected to see her face, the girl I stole from. The girl that should be lying here instead of me.
She was gone.
Probably reached into my pocket and took her money back, then left me here to die.
Except… I wasn’t lying in the street.
I moved to sit up, and when I did so without screaming with the pain Ishould havefelt, I looked down.
And looked some more.
My body was gone.
Like, gone,gone.
Where my legs and torso used to be was nothing, nothing but a translucent purple mist outline of where my body should be.
Well, that just explained everything.
Not.
I looked up, concentrating on more than myself, to see where I was exactly. It appeared to be an office of some sorts. The room itself was huge and I felt like the rug I sat on (was I really sitting?) was an island floating in the center. It reminded me of the pictures I had seen of sand on a beach. Behind me was a massive leather couch with pillows in golds and oranges, a huge wooden coffee table with a bowl full of white stones in the center, and two end tables with lamps. In front of me was a giant, almost bare black desk. Another bowl of white stones sat off to the right and on the left there was a metal tray with a glass decanter filled with an amber-colored liquid and four empty glasses beside it. In the center of the desk was a neat stack of papers, but no pen. Behind the desk was a wall of floor-to-ceiling, cherry-colored paneled doors trimmed in black.
Before I could do or look at anything else, I noticed the chair behind the desk—black leather and about as wide as a football player’s shoulders. It faced the doors, which I didn’t really notice until it began to spin around. I watched as a man revolved into view.
He was dwarfed by the chair—or maybe he just wasn’t very big—but his utter stillness was chilling. When the chair completely faced forward, it stopped moving and the man stared at me for several long seconds. I immediately began to take stock of him—wanting to know what I was facing. He had a long face with sharp features. His cheekbones were well defined and he had a very long, pointy nose. His thin lips pressed in a line and I knew his sharp eyes missed nothing. His hair was dark but peppered with grey and he slicked it back from his wide forehead, which only made his face seem that much more prominent. I didn’t speak as he brought up his hands and steepled his very long, bony fingers beneath his chin.
I moved to stand, but, instead, the translucent mist seemed to waft out around me—giving me no shape at all. On instinct, I tried to grab at it, to pull it back in. I wanted a shape. I didn’t want to float away. My sudden movements only caused the mist to spread farther and make me even less.
Am I a ghost?
If there were one way to become a ghost, getting hit by a bus would probably do it.
“You are not a ghost.” The man spoke, still watching me with his bird-like eyes.
Could he read my mind?
“You are simply, shall we say, between forms at the moment.”
