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Piper made a sound of disgust. “Gee, how reassuring.”
“I don’t know, Piper,” Maya said. “We’re talking about actual gods and living incarnations of power. There’s probably a reason basically every religion and culture has some kind of story about overcoming death.”
“Meaning?” Piper asked.
Sienna watched their exchange with wide eyes. She had no clue how to express all the things circling inside her. Listening to her sisters voice their thoughts on her situation seemed much easier than actually listening to her own.
Maya shrugged at Piper’s question. “Just that ‘death’ probably wouldn’t mean to an ancient immortal being the same thing that it does to a human who statistically isn’t likely to live past a single century.”
Piper scrunched up her face and looked over at Fenn. “You have no idea what else she has to do, or overcome?”
“I would have already told her if I’d heard anything that specific.”
Sienna stared into her hot chocolate. She’d already survived death, because apparently she’d been pretty much lost before Florence really put effort into saving her. How was that not significant enough? Because Maya was right, most likely.
Her heart slammed in her chest. How many times had she, unexpectedly, found her focus spiraling around the subject of immortality and herself? Her, dying. Her, living. Her, overcoming. The answer had to be in there, didn’t it?
“Can we just watch the movie?” Maya asked, her question dancing through Sienna’s mind like dandelion puffs on a windy day.
Her mom’s face, faded and blurry, flickered across Sienna’s mind’s eye. Her throat tightened as it blinked out and her gaze fell from the cooling cocoa to the gloved hand still resting over her thigh.
She felt like a child stretching for the last treat resting at the back of the counter, half in sight but just the slightest bit out of reach no matter how hard she tried. The answer was right there. Right in front of her. But she couldn’t find the angle she needed to grasp it.
The familiar sounds of an old Christmas classic vibrated in her ears, drawing up memories both warm and emotional. Memories that faded a little more every year, making room for newer and stronger ones.That’s life, right?She lifted her gaze to the screen, but couldn’t really see it through the film of frustrating tears that had gathered in her eyes again.
Thatwaslife. An endless cycle. Happiness and sadness in equal measure. Old memories faded as new memories were made, and while some pains tore too deep to ever truly disappear, those new experiences became a balm. Grief from loss theoretically led to moving on, moving forward. For her and her sisters, part of that process had been taking time every year to pay this homage to their parents—lost too soon in a stupid, tragic accident.
Sienna understood all of that. Yet it felt like a strange kind of revelation.
If it’s a trial … then there has to be a choice.She hadn’t chosen to switch powers. She’d chosen to fight to live, but she hadn’t really known she was as good as dead, so it was arguable that that didn’t count. What definitely counted, however, was the choice that had been ripping at her heart most of the day.
Her sisters, or Fenn.
Not that she thought she had to leave them, but eventually … eventually she would lose them, and not in the natural way. If she chose to stay with him. There was an obvious problem with that, though. She couldn’t make that choice without his answer.
Sienna dragged in a breath, felt Fenn’s hand shift subtly along her leg, and leaned forward to sit her abandoned drink on the coffee table. “Sorry,” she said, speaking only as loud as she needed to to be heard over the movie. “Can you watch without me today?” She didn’t wait for her sisters’ response, didn’t want to fall into an argument or hear all their well-meaning concern. Instead she stood and quickly stepped from the den, walking with purpose down the hall despite not having an intended destination. Back outside? The kitchen? The living room with its sparkly Christmas tree and still unopened presents? All the way upstairs to her borrowed room?
Fenn’s arm slid around her waist before she could come to any decision and he pulled her back against his chest. They came to a full stop in the hall between the living room and the stairs, his back to the wall and hers to his chest, his arms folded around her. His breath was warm on her ear when he bent forward to speak, his voice low and vibrating through her. “Am I the one causing you this pain, Sienna?”
Her chest tightened and a flush of emotion flooded her. How was she supposed to answer that? Her hands latched onto his arms, sheathed only in the single layer of his turtleneck sleeves because he’d discarded his coat when they’d come inside. Out of some ingrained decency she had no clue where or why he’d learned. She swallowed hard. “It’s not … that simple.”
He rumbled, the sound a strange mix of thoughtful and strained, and his lips pressed into her temple. Then his murmured voice was whispering into her ear again, hot and confusing and thrilling all at once. “I have never, in my life, known love. Not before you.” His fingers dug into her sides, almost crushing. “But I am Death. I cannot be so greedy as to ask you to abandon everything merely to keep you in my arms.”
A chill went through her at his words and their possible implications.
He brushed another kiss to her temple, almost as if he were stalling. “You are strong, Sienna. Stronger than Florence was. If you wanted, you could heal away your aging process and still have ample healing abilities to offer to those you love. Even to those you only meet in passing.” His voice dropped until she could barely hear it, even up against her ear. “I can’t take that opportunity from you, or this world.”
She understood then. He was saying goodbye. He was telling her he returned her feelings, as best as he knew how, and intended to leave, anyway.
Her heart shattered, scattering what breath she’d gathered, and Sienna surged from his arms in order to twist around and face him. The emotions inside her were so turbulent she didn’t even falter at the sight of the anguish on his face. Instead, she pushed him harder into the wall he’d already been leaning against and practically hissed her response. “How dare you decide what I should do with my life!”
His brows pinched together, a sign of confusion and confliction.
She didn’t stop. “If I go out and start healing all the people I come across I’ll be scooped up by the government in a blink, taken to some lab in Area 51 or some place, and never let out into the light of day again. I’ll be a lab rat, experimented on until the day I allow myself to die. So yeah, this power is great, but I have to becarefulabout it, idiot!” Her voice cracked and she leaned unintentionally into him. “I was—I’ve been—” She felt like a fool for even considering saying what she was about to say, but the words were there. They just needed to be untangled.
She forced herself to stare straight into his beautiful, pained eyes. “I just don’t know how to choose,” she finally said, the words leaving her in a gasp.
“Choose?”
