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“Asshole!” I yell.
“Sorry?” I turn back to Max, who is looking at his hands and then at me, confused. “How did you get…” He shakes his head and opens and closes his eyes a few times, trying to clear his mind.
Bronik smiles.
“Didn’t take him long to find you.”
Max and I both glance over at Bronik.
“Who?” Max asks.
“Her lover, of course. Death,” Bronik replies.
Max’s eyes find mine, and he holds them. I told him I was with someone else. And I can see him putting it all together as he stares at me, assessing the clear emotion written all over my face.
“Your sister is waiting for you with the wolves,” Bronik adds before he disappears.
I look back at everyone else with us and spot Levy hiding among the crowd. She isn’t sure about being here.
“I need to go to my sisters. It is safer where the wolves are,” I tell Max. All his people look to him for guidance. “Vampires hold land not far from here, and they are known to provoke.” Though the witches have made their own barriers and wardens to keep them out, some still manage to get through, from what I have heard.
“Lead the way,” Max says, holding out his hand.
I nod and start walking, feeling the eyes on me from the town as we leave.
“Talia.” Someone calls my name, but I keep up my steps. “Talia.”
Eventually, I stop to see our old neighbor come out of her house.
“Francis,” I say, turning as she makes her way over to us. Francis was one of my mother’s friends and always chose to stay out of trouble. Never offering help in any way.
“Your mother gave me this, and now it’s time I give it to you.” She holds out a small diary, and I take the offering. Studying it, I’m confused as to what it might be.
“My sister gave this to Valefar,” I say, amazed.
“She gave him a fake copy. This is the real one. She knew that one day someone would try to use it against you. So I have kept it hidden.”
When I open the first page, I see my name written in my mother’s handwriting. I glance up at Francis. “Thank you.”
She nods before walking away.
“Your mother never told you much about who you were?” Max asks, coming to stand next to me. I start moving forward again, as does he, and everyone else follows.
“No, she didn’t really get much of a chance.” I wipe away a tear that runs down my cheek and hug the diary to my chest.
“And Death?” he inquires.
I side-eye him. He’s dressed in his black outfit that molds to every perfect inch of his body.I know what it feels like to touch thatbody. I quickly look away.
“As I said, it’s complicated.”
“I have heard stories of Death from your world. Not much is known about him, but what is… is that no one sees him.” He pauses, shaking his head. “Yet, you do?”
“I do.” I tell no lies because it’s simply not worth it. It’s not anything new to me to hear someone ask why I see him.
I’ve always been able to see him. It’s just how we have always been. Granted, he chooses when.
“It’s not too much farther,” I tell Max and pick up the pace. He matches my speed, and we walk in silence for what feels like forever while I clutch the diary to my chest the whole way.
