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“No, but maybe I should check her shop again,” I suggest. “If she’s okay, she’s going to be pissed at me for breaking her window.”
There’s a knock on our door when the food arrives.
Dante suggests sitting at the bistro table on the balcony to eat. The ocean is lit up by the moon and city lights. The place he’s picked for us is off the charts romantic. Who am I kidding? The whole evening has been.
We tell each other funny stories from our pasts and compare favorite movies.
Then Dante asks, “I hate to turn the night into something heavy, but I was wondering if you could elaborate when you mentioned before that you killed someone.”
I’ve been waiting for this question since I let it slip, and since I’m feeling wide open emotionally, I decide I might as well tell him and get it over with. “It was my mom.”
His eyes widen, but he lets me tell the story at my own pace, waiting patiently for me to continue.
“I was sixteen. My mom and dad fought a lot… not just with words. One night, I was tired of the constant fighting and stepped between them. My father hit me so hard I saw stars, and he gave me a concussion. It wasn’t the first time he hit me, but I had enough of them. When I finally got to my feet, I snuck off to my room while they continued their fight. I packed a bag, stole some cash from their wallets, and ran off.”
I take a breath, because this is the part that crushes me. “From what I heard in reports and from my father, my mom realized I was gone in the middle of the night. She got in the car to search for me and… she died in a car accident. Head-on collision.”
Dante doesn’t offer me hollow words of condolence. He just pulls me into his lap and wraps his arms around me. I cry tears I’ve held back for years.
“I was caught by the cops a few days later. When they brought me back home, my father beat me like never before. I almost died, but I ran out into the yard. When the neighbors realized how bad off I was, they called the cops. I was admitted to the hospital for my injuries, and my dad was arrested. I worried he was going to finish me off when he made bail, so just before I was released, I escaped and lived on the streets for a few years.”
“That’swhy you lived on the streets?” Dante asks.
“Yeah.” I shrug off that huge part of my life. “My mom… If I didn’t run off, she would be alive.”
“No. It wasn’t your fault,” he says with the kind of confidence that stops people in their mental loop.
“But—”
“They were the adults.” Dante brushes the tears from my cheeks. “Being in an abusive home… It isn’t ever safe. You were just trying to find somewhere safe to exist.”
I nod, but I still feel guilt for causing her death.
“Tessa, it seems that the odds were heavily stacked against you for success,” Dante says thoughtfully. “Your parents didn’t create a safe environment, you did what you had to for your survival, your gifts were used against your will to bring in money for shady businessmen, and now, Karma took advantage of your circumstances—or perhaps even had a hand in making them.”
My skin crawls with the truth in his words. Sure, a lot of the pain in my life can’t be blamed on anyone else, but there have been far too many strange incidents that caused me to fall deeper into trouble no matter how I tried to avoid it. Even when I tried to go legit, something always went terribly wrong. Now that I know about the gods’ power and the direct involvement of their agents, I suspect some of my life has been manipulated.
Can I reclaim my life?
Exhausted and content after hours of talking and kissing, we eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms.
24
DEATH
Iopen my eyes with full awareness that someone besides Dante and myself is in the hotel room. Their presence is overpowering. I’m certain this intense, heavy energy woke me from a deep sleep.
I glance over at Dante, but he doesn’t move at all. Not even a breath. Is he dead, or has time stopped?
Oh shit!I bolt upright and cast my gaze around the dark room.
Death stands at the end of the bed, looming over me. He has to be eight feet tall, and he’s decked out with classic grim reaper apparel—a hood shadows his face, an oversized robe hints at a skeletal hand that holds his scythe, and there’s an hour glass tied to his belt. The device is halfway poured through, except the sand isn’t flowing now.
I press my fingers to Dante’s neck. He’s warm to the touch, but there’s no pulse or breath.
“We are frozen in time,” Death says. “Do not concern yourself with him.”
“You came,” I choke out.
