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I smile slightly. “Met.”
My callsign was Mettle—awarded to me for the guts to keep flying with a damaged engine in my first combat training.
After giving my statement to the authorities, I decide to stay in the city. I’ve got to find something that doesn’t involve flying. Not that I’m sick of being in the air. I just can’t take another day of drama.
3
ISABELLE
Los Angeles, California
Three yearsafter I made a deal with the Grim Reaper, I’m still trapped in his lair. Donovan Fletcher is holding all the cards. One wrong move, and Raffi could be snatched away from me. And I can say with certainty that it’s not just a threat.
I hate his power, but I have to live with it for now.
Following that fateful night, Don helped me and Raffi relocate to L.A. True to his words, he swept everything under the carpet, and my boyfriend’s death record magically showed that he died in a car accident.
In evil’s lair I may be, but I must say it’s a hell of a bearable kind. Even though I’m at the beck and call of a forty-five-year-old man, even though I’ve been destroyed and humiliated as a result of my blind promise to him, my decision has given Raffi peace. No more angry shouts, backhand slaps, or belt whips in the middle of the night. We have our own house, and most importantly, my son is safe in it. I might’ve sold my body to the Reaper, but my soul is still mine—intact.
“Mom, you’re leaving again?” Raffi questions. “I thought you had your shift this morning.”
“I had class then, baby,” I explain. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning before you even wake up.”
My ten-year-old son flattens his lips.
“What’s that look?”
“I wish you weren’t so busy. Uncle Don gives us money. Why do you have to work so hard?”
“Raffi, Uncle Don let us borrow this house, but he doesn’t give us money. I work for us. I provide for you. I’m your mother.”
Raffi doesn’t respond, as if trying to digest what I just told him. I don’t blame him for thinking that we live on Don’s kindness, but it makes me realize how little my son knows about the truth.
Outside, I hear a vehicle approaching.
“That must be Thomas,” I exclaim. He sometimes babysits Raffi, saving me from having to pay for a nanny from time to time.
The revving vehicle at my gate tells me the driver is either drunk, insane, or enraged. It pulls into my driveway fast, as if it’s about to go straight into the living room.
“What the hell!” I mumble as the car finally stops.
I open the door. Like facing a backdraft, my steps regress.
“Don?” I greet him but not letting him in. This is his house, but he’s never intruded like this before. Then I glance at the suitcase his bodyguard is towing. “I’ve gotta go to work.”
Don pushes me back into the living room and lets himself in. He chews his mint gum hard, making his triangular face appear like a voracious goat.
“Raffi, go to your room,” I tell him.
The boy mumbles out a few words of protest as he turns away from me.
I watch him climb the stairs, enter his bedroom and close the door, making sure he’s not listening to our conversation.
My attention is back on the suitcase. “What’s going on?”
“You’re coming with me. That’s what’s going on,” Don says.
“Where?”
