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I look away at the room, at my prison for the next while. Perhaps forever. It’s not awful. But you know, I’d rather not be here forever.
“What does Death want from me?” I ask after a few moments pass.
“I can’t say for sure,” Bell muses, “but I think he gets lonely.”
I give her a steady look, brow raised. “Lonely? Death gets lonely? How could he lonely, when he’s got a constant influx of people to deal with?”
“Everyone dies. Everyone goes to the City of Death. But he doesn’t live there, he lives here. He’s forever their ruler, their overlord. He can’t befriend them. He has to make do with what he has here. I think that’s what his problem is. He just has a funny way of dealing with it. Sometimes a cruel way of dealing with it.” She sighs, her attention to the window, lost to her thoughts.
Finally she looks back to me. “But in the end, if you want your freedom, you have to make him love you, and if you can’t make him do that, at least make him want you around. I know it seems counterproductive, but if you do, he’ll give you all the freedom in the world. And I know there’s some prophecy about Death falling in love again. Maybe you could play into that?”
I scoff, shaking my head. “No. First of all, I’m not that good of an actress.”
“Not even if your life depends on it?”
My mouth opens and closes again. When she puts it that way… “Second of all, he’s Death. I don’t think Death can fall in love.”
“Why not? There’s no curse that says he can’t. He probably loved Louhi at some time before she went full-on evil.”
“Well then, they should have been a match made in heaven.”
“Death isn’t evil,” she says.
I raise my palm. “Do not tell me he’s just misunderstood.”
She gives me a sly grin. “That’s too cliché, as you mortals would say. If he’s misunderstood, I think it’s by mortals themselves. Lovia has told me the stories about the Grim Reaper; they all sound like fantasy to me. No, Death is just a God, like any other God. And they love and they lose and they hate and they cry. I know Death fairly well and there’s no emotion that he’s unable to feel…it’s just that his role has made the emotion more or less obsolete.”
“You mean love?”
“Something like that.”
The way she says it, almost forlornly, makes me wonder if Bell had wanted Death to fall in love with her. I can’t really blame her. It’s a tale as old as time to have a beast fall in love with the beauty, the beast everyone says can’t be redeemed.
But I have no clue how I would make Death fall in love with me, especially since I have been extremely unlucky in love. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends, but nothing ever stuck, nothing ever meant anything other than a few months of fun and then boredom. I prefer the flings and the one-night stands and the occasional low-douche fuckbois, just so I can have an active sex life and work off my stress that way. It takes all the pressure off of futures and relationships and love.
So, while I appreciate Bell’s belief in me, I know that’s not in the cards. If I can’t make a mortal dudebro fall in love with me, then I certainly can’t make the God of Death fall in love with me.
That said, she has a bit of a point, one I begrudgingly admit. My first instinct is to kick and scream and fight my way out of here. But maybe that’s not the best approach for this situation. I have to have an end goal and I need a strategy to achieve it. He expects me to hate him, I’m sure, so it would really throw him for a loop if I did the opposite.
I sigh, rubbing my palm along my forehead. It already seems too much to take on. Hopeless.
“Just start small,” Bell suggests. “You don’t want to make him suspicious anyway.”
That’s true. Start small. I could be nicer. I could be more compliant and less rebellious. I could do things with a smile. I have my limits, for sure, but when it comes to an eternity of this—or even worse, being shrunk and put into a cage—I know I could somehow get through it. The only problem is, I was stupid enough to already offer a range of services and he’s already taken me up on those offers and enjoyed it immensely. Treat me like a dog? Humiliate me? For some reason I don’t think cooking and cleaning is going to cut it for him. It’s going to be have your way with me and or let others do the same.
